Hard water help (and I'm not good at math)

[hopdropper]

Fellow brewers...as a relative noob to the AG homebrew scene, I've finally made the leap into water chemistry. I've started to notice that many of my IPA and pale ales would have a similar twang or astringency...always a similar flavor. Still totally drinkable and awesome...but something didn't seem quite right. I brewed up a couple Black IPAs...heavy on the toasted malts...and they always seem spot-on....no funny aftertaste, downright good. That got me thinking about water chemistry...I knew we have some pretty hard water here so I sent a sample off to Ward Lab. I've done a little research with the results and it seems the flavors I've been experiencing might relate exactly to what follows. Basically I'm just looking for any quick suggestions as to what I might add when brewing up the lighter beers. I couldn't find any clear-cut "add one Tbsp of this". Any help would be greatly appreciated!


pH 7.8
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est, ppm 239
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 0.40
Cations / Anions, me/L 4.6 / 4.4

ppm
Sodium, Na 10
Potassium, K 3
Calcium, Ca 57
Magnesium, Mg 15
Total Hardness, CaCO3 205
Nitrate, NO3-N 1.0
Sulfate, SO4-S 10
Chloride, Cl 4
Carbonate, CO3 < 1
Bicarbonate, HCO3 223
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 183

 

[ArcLight]

Thats some hard water. Alkaline too. Consider diluting it with some distilled water or reverse osmosis water.

You might want to add a little Calcium Chloride and Gypsum depending on what you are brewing.

 

[hopdropper]

Roger that...thanks. I definitely brew more of the paler ales. Thought about diluting it with purchased distilled water...was just trying to avoid more trips to the store and having to buy something that flows from kitchen sink, know what I mean? I'm hoping some sort of brewing salt addition might help alleviate the problem...

 

[helibrewer]

I think there's a lot of limestone in the ground up there, unfortunately you can't "salt" your way out of hardness....dilution is the best bet unless you want to install your own RO unit at home, which in the long run might be best.

 

[Wynne-R]

By far, the easiest thing you can do is to use RO or distilled sparge water. There is no down side and it will fix your astringency. I use three gallons of RO and four gallons of tapwater, filtered and boiled for my pales.

If you don’t want to lug water home from the store you’ll need to do some acid additions. This is a little tricky. You will be adding a few mL of lactic acid or phosphoric acid and you need to get it pretty close.

There are free spreadsheets to help you calculate what you need. EZ water calc and Bru’n water are both free. I got a little plastic syringe at the drug store that is small enough to go in the bottle and is calibrated in mL.

The best way to do it is with a pH meter, but this will get you started.

 

[hopdropper]

Wynne-R...probably the easiest solution like you said...just cut my tap water with distilled. Think I will give that a shot and see what happens. Wondering though....will that negatively affect my trace mineral levels (like sulfates, chloride and calcium)? Or are those levels in the distilled similar enough to my tap so I don't have to worry? Thanks for the input/advice thus far!

 

[ArcLight]

>.Wondering though....will that negatively affect my trace mineral levels (like sulfates, chloride and calcium)? Or are those levels in the distilled similar enough to my tap so I don't have to worry? Thanks for the input/advice thus far!

Distilled has no minerals, so you will have to add them depending on the dilution rate.

Download this spreadsheet, it will be extremely helpful to you
https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/

(I didn't write it, I just use it)

 

[ajdelange]

your main problem is the alkaliniy at 183. You'd like to get that down to 20 or less which means a dilution of 9:1. This cuts everything by 10. Alkalinity goes to 18.3 but calcium goes to 5.7, sulfate to 3 and chloride to 0.4. You can brew good beer with calcium at 5.7 and sulfate at 0.4 in fact some of the best beers in the world are brewed with those minerals at about those levels but some extra calcium has benefits and you will definitely want more chloride. The answer is, of course, calcium chloride. The Primer in the Stickies may be of some help to you.