Ward Labs Report

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Wagon_6

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Got my Ward Labs report. Is this good water to use 100%? I haven’t tried plugging it in BrunWater yet, but my last house I could use 100% alongside some acid, gypsum, and calcium chloride. Anything I should be concerned about?

Thanks!

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Looks fine. You'll definitely need acid or acidulated malt to get the ph down but a water spreadsheet can estimate how much. I've been experimenting cutting my water with distilled or RO so I don't have to use as much acid but so far not sure if it's made a difference on taste...
 
Since you hardly have any chloride or sulfate you should be able to get the RA down to 0 with just CaCl and CaSO4 additions. All in all a very good water most homebrewers can only wish they had...
 
Since you hardly have any chloride or sulfate you should be able to get the RA down to 0 with just CaCl and CaSO4 additions. All in all a very good water most homebrewers can only wish they had...

That’s great to hear, I hate lugging water from the grocery store.
 
The problem with this water is its alkalinity at 2.72 mEq/L (as CaCO3/50). Accompanying calcium is 1.74 mEq/L. If you supplement calcium to say, 3, then you would be able to, theoretically, get alkalinity down to 1 mEq/L (by boiling or lime treatment) and still have calcium at 1.28 which would be OK for many beers. With the low sulfate and chloride clearly you have plenty of headroom for addition of the extra calcium via the chloride or sulfate salts.

Clearly just adding gypsum and calcium chloride isn't going to get you there as, with a nominal pale ale grist formulation and a 5 gal brew length you would need 30 grams of each or about 10 grams per gallon of each. The nominal recommendation for these salts is half a gram per gallon.

Sauermalz is a possibility but, assuming a target pH of 5.4, a mash thickness of 1.5 qt/lb, 85% pale ale malt and 10% crystal 5% sauermalz would be required. That's getting up there and not exactly traditional for pale ales.

You could also use lactic acid but, again, it will take quite a bit, nominally 6.2 mL of 88% strength solution. Again probably OK but perhaps pushing it a bit and also, once again, not very traditional.

65 mL of (readily available) 10% phosphoric acid might be a better bet as it is flavor neutral but best of all would be 19 mL of AMS/CRS which would not only knock out the alkalinity but bring your chloride and sulfate up into more reasonable range and be very traditional for UK style beers. Unfortunately you can't (AFAIK) get the stuff outside the UK. Given that your long term best option would be to install an RO system and in the interim soldier on with lactic or phosphoric acid.
 
Just add 0.6 mL of 85% Phosphoric Acid per gallon of your water to bring the alkalinity in line, and you will be able to brew with it straight up after that. Alternately, for 10% Phosphoric Acid the need will be for 8.5 mL per gallon.

You may want to add some calcium chloride and a bit of sodium chloride to boost calcium, chloride, and sodium ions a bit. Call me crazy, but I personally like to target ~30 ppm sodium ions, and then go no higher. And you generally want at least 50 ppm calcium ions and 50-75 ppm chloride ions.
 
Well crap. Would diluting 50/50 get me into the normal/manageable range of using minerals and acids?
It will certainly improve things from the alkalinity perspective but will dilute the other ion concentrations as well and you will still need acid anyway for the alkalinity of the grains. And if you are going to use 50% RO water consider the marginal annoyance of going to 100% RO vs. having complete control.
 
Adding 1.2 grams each of calcium chloride (as the dihydrate**) and sodium chloride to every 5 gallons of your water will bring you to (rounded):

54 ppm Ca++
17 ppm Mg++
31 ppm Na+
77 ppm Cl-
15 ppm SO4--

This, plus knocking down the alkalinity, should make for some rather nice brewing water.

**NOTE: If your calcium chloride prills are really fresh and are therefore more likely to be ~94% pure vs. the 75.5% pureness of the common dihydrate state, then add only 1.0 grams of it instead of 1.2 grams. The effect will be the same either way.
 
Ok cool, sounds like my water is back in the game. Any negative taste effects of adding so much phosphoric acid?

It will help me visualize everything once i get it and a recipe plugged into brunwater.
 
Yes, be sure to use NaCl if you decide to use any. The reason I suggested phosphoric is because the malt contributes so much phosphate on its own that you don't taste the small increment contributed by the amount of the acid required to neutralize even a fairly large amount of alkalinity.
 
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