Here's my water report, now what do I do?

[triskelion]

Just got my water report:

calcium:72
magnesium: not measured (said water hardness is mainly from calcium)
carbonate:180 (bicarbonate ~220, correct me if i'm wrong)
sulphate: 110
sodium:19
chloride:19
ph: 7.5

I want to brew mostly pale ales and lagers. I don't fully understand what effect these numbers are having on my beer, especially the bicarbonate. My beers are generally very clear, I get fast and high attenuation, efficiency is about 100%. The bitterness is a little low and the hop flavour is very low. I sometimes get astringent and medicine flavours. Dark beers have been more successful for me. Not sure how much of that is due to the water. I can't get hold of distilled water. My plan is to buy some bottled water that is close to pilsen water.

 

[triskelion]

bump

 

[mabrungard]

That water doesn't look that bad. If you haven't been acidifying the mashing and sparging water, you probably need to for most brewing with that water. The sulfate content is a bit high for allowing the maltiness out in a beer. Dilution is needed for that water when brewing malt focused beer styles.

 

[zwiller]

After you have your water report you need to find a water program to use to plug the data into to estimate mashing conditions. I use use Bru'n Water developed by the fellow who just posted... Take time to read the water knowledge tab and also see the water the brew science water primer above. It takes some time to sink in.

 

[Hermit]

I like this one because you can share the link here for discussion and recommendations.

http://www.brewersfriend.com/mash-chemistry-and-brewing-water-calculator/

 

[triskelion]

I did a bit more research. Sounds like my best bet would be to invest in a reverse osmosis system to bring down the alkalinity and then add some gypsum and epson salts to bring up the calcium and magnesium again. I've read that ro water is the same as diluting your source water 1 part in 9 parts distilled water, does that sound right?

 

[Hermit]

....

 

[ajdelange]

Sounds like my best bet would be to invest in a reverse osmosis system to bring down the alkalinity and then add some gypsum and epson salts to bring up the calcium and magnesium again.

There are many advantages to RO water the two main ones being that you are in total control over the mineral content and that other than a simple TDS check on the system to be sure it is functioning properly you don't have to worry about water testing or variability over time.

You generally do not need to worry about magnesium unless, of course, you want a beer which benefits from the presence of magnesium. The salts most commonly added are calcium sulfate and calcium chloride.

I've read that ro water is the same as diluting your source water 1 part in 9 parts distilled water, does that sound right?

That's true if your RO system delivers 90% rejection for each ion but when it is new at least, we hope for better than 95% for all ions.

 

[Vomtaylor]

How do you take these readings?

 

[ajdelange]

The easiest and least expensive is to buy a TDS meter. Check the TDS of the feed and the TDS of the output. One minus the ratio is a sort of overall rejection. If you want to know how much sodium, for example, is rejected you would have to measure the sodium in the feed and the permeate and calculate 1 minus the ratio. Measuring sodium is tricky and requires an expensive electrode or even more expensive AAS or ICP instrument so it is not practical to measure yourself. You would have to send samples of feed and permeate to a lab. Hardness, alkalinity, chloride, nitrate, phosphate, copper,iron... are all much easier to measure but overall sending two samples to Ward is going to be a lot less expensive and simpler.