My water

[simcoe26]

I dont really understand. Water at all yet but i looked at my water report and i was wondering if i could get done help. I generally make ipas.
Hardness 121
Sodium 18.8
Calcium 27
Magnesium 12.7
Radon222 -234
Sulfate 9.7
Chloride 15
All of these are ppm

 

[ajdelange]

The general recommendation for people just starting out in water treatment is to follow the recommendations of the Primer and then, as they gain knowledge and experience, branch out to more sophisticated adjustments.

This report is missing the most important parameter, alkalinity but we can guess that it is around 130. That's quite a bit so quite a bit of dilution will be necessary if you choose the Primer route. The alternative is acid.

 

[simcoe26]

How do i figure out the alkalinity. Since my report doesnt give it

 

[simcoe26]

So with a little more knowledge (and i mean little) i plugged the above numbers into a couple different calculators and came to the conclusion that i need to add 15 grams calcium sulfate and 2 grams calcium chloride in order to get good numbers for a hoppy beer. Can someone with a more knowledge take a moment to see if that sounds right. I need some assurance that im on the right track

 

[ajdelange]

How do i figure out the alkalinity. Since my report doesnt give it

You can't but as I indicated in #2 you can make an informed guess as to what it might be. To do this with a spreadsheet or calculator you would set the pH to 7 (as you don't have a value for that) and then start entering numbers in the alkalinity field while watching the balance numbers. If the cation and anion numbers are given as mEq take the difference (cations - anions), multiply by 50 and set the alkalinity to that. Now adjust the alkalinity to make cations and and anions exactly equal. This is the best you can do.

 

[ajdelange]

So with a little more knowledge (and i mean little) i plugged the above numbers into a couple different calculators and came to the conclusion that i need to add 15 grams calcium sulfate and 2 grams calcium chloride in order to get good numbers for a hoppy beer. Can someone with a more knowledge take a moment to see if that sounds right. I need some assurance that im on the right track

As you don't say what volume of water you are adding those amounts of salt to nor what type of beer you are brewing it is impossible to say whether those additions are reasonable or not. You would not need to add anything to your except some acid to get rid of the alkalinity (which estimates to be high enough that you will have to do something about it for most beers) to make a Bohemian Pilsner. You could make the chloride addition and you might like the beer better with it but you would not add the gypsum. For ales you will need acid and the chloride but you may very well want some sulfate or a lot of sulfate. It depends on your taste.

Hoppy beers are made by adding the right kind of hops in appropriate charges in an appropirate schedule - not by fiddling with the water although the amount of sulfate ion will determine the quality of the bitterness. If sulfate is high it tends to be rough, dry and harsh. At lower levels it is 'fine'. Some people like it one way and others the other so you will have to experiment to see how much sulfate you want. Don't be gulled into thinking that there is a chloride vs sulfate ratio that allows you to dial in hoppiness. There are two degrees of freedom here.

 

[simcoe26]

The water volume is 5.5 for mash and 5.25 for sparge

 

[simcoe26]

I don't understand how 3 different calculators told me to add those but it isn't necessarily right

 

[PlinyTheMiddleAged]

I don't understand how 3 different calculators told me to add those but it isn't necessarily right

It isn't necessarily right because it's simply a recipe. Sometimes I'll look at a recipe and think that there's way too much dill for my tastes (pretty much any dill besides in a pickle is too much for me) so I'll cut back on it. It's the same thing here. Some folks like very high sulfate for hoppy beers, some don't. I really like hoppy west coast style IPAs and when I started brewing them, I'd shoot for 300 ppm of sulfates. Then, in the end, I'd taste them and it was like drinking a glassful of gravel. I cut back to 150 ppm and I'm slowly bringing that level up to where I like it. It's personal - so there isn't a "right" answer.

 

[simcoe26]

http://www.brewersfriend.com/mash-chemistry-and-brewing-water-calculator/?id=X6TWFXX

So i finally got a water report with better information. Can someone please check out the link and tell me if this looks good for a double IPA recipe.

 

[simcoe26]

Im brewing tomorrow so id love some reassurance i got it in the ball park so i don't ruin my beer

 

[PlinyTheMiddleAged]

Looks decent to me. Your pH is in the ballpark according to the calculator. That's the most important aspect. And you've targeted a reasonable sulfate level for a bitter beer. There's nothing "wrong" with what you've got there. If you like the beer that you get, then what you've come up with is great.

 

[simcoe26]

Thank you i am omw to my lhbs to get everything i will post updates of my maiden water chemistry voyage