Modifying water

[Peregris]

I don't really worry too much about my water - I just use the local water and everything has turned out fine. I was playing around with my software, though, and was trying out the water modification section. (I use Homebrew Formulator for Macs, BTW). The software has various "target waters" like Munich, or Dublin, or Vienna, etc. and shows what your local water is composed of in PPM and the differences between that and the target water in PPM.

My question is - it seems that if I want to, say, raise up my calcium level I can add gypsum or calcium chloride, or if I want to raise my magnesium I can add epsom salt. The trouble is if I add one mineral or salt to boost one level, another level goes totally out of whack, since one mineral can boost more than one area.

Again, for me this is (right now) only an academic problem, since I'm not that much of a control freak that I need the exact water composition. I was just wondering if anyone does actually try to match a target water and how they get around this problem.

 

[Evets]

I've never adjusted my water, but I think the first thing to do is get a detailed water analysis from your water co. or municipality. Otherwise you'd just be shooting in the dark.
I don't think I'd trust the software specs for "your" water.

 

[Peregris]

I've already done that and entered the specs in to the software so it knows what my town water is.

 

[cactusgarrett]

I try to match everytime. At least i dilute with DI water because my city water is uber hard. In your case, it'd be a give and take. The two options you have are to 1) get one mineral where it should be and disregard the other that "goes out of whack", or do what i do and 2) partially dilute your base water with DI water, and supplement with another source of mineral. With dilution, you're are allowed more wiggle room when dealing with that second mineral that goes out of whack when you add your salt.

Let's look at Ca in your suggestion, for example. With dilution you will bring both Ca & Cl in your brewwater to levels way lower than your target. You can then add CaCl to a certain point, in order to get, say, half of the Ca you need while keeping your Cl to a desired level. Then you can supplement this by adding another source of Ca to bring the Ca to your target while leaving the Cl down to the diluted levels.

It's a fine balancing act - that's why many people don't care to do it. Main idea is to hit your proper mash pH. That's first and foremost.