Water Calculations

[Psywar]

I ordered a water report last week and it came in my email last night.
I was on brewers friend earlier today and I entered in all the information, but I didn't really understand what I was doing.

I set the profile to light and happy I think it was but it didn't seem to fill in any of the fields for the amount of any of the chemical I should add into balance the mash out.

Is there a program I can download where I can just add in my tap water information and then choose what beer I want to make and it would give me a list of all the add-ins I needed to balance the beer?

I also had another question.

My Sodium is 211 and Brewers Friend said 211 was harmful to the beer.
I have actually made 5 beers now with my current water.

Does anyone know what could potentially be the problem with a high sodium beer?

I included a photo of my water composition.

 

[flars]

Look at the online free version of Bru'n water. It will take a couple of hours to get a feel for it. It is a very good tool to use with a lot of information in the first page.

edit: You can step up to supporter to get the newest version.

 

[mabrungard]

That water looks like it might have passed through an ion-exchange (salt) softener. Its not well suited for brewing use. That water is well-suited for feeding an RO machine.

 

[Yooper]

Unfortunately, that water is not good for brewing. If you've brewed and made drinkable beer with it, that's a plus but it's not likely to make good beer.

You can't really 'balance' out bad flavors or too much of one thing (like sodium). Just like if you add too much salt to a food dish, adding more pepper won't erase the salt, you can't simply add gypsum to balance out too much sodium and chloride.

That water can be diluted with RO water, but you'd have to dilute it so much to make it usable that you may as well just start with RO or distilled water to begin with.

 

[Psywar]

We have well water and it is filtered two times before coming out of the tap. We have a filter right after the well and then we have a filter under the kitchen sink.
I wonder if we are buying the wrong kind of filters?
Interesting thought.

 

[bluemoon737]

And you have no water softener in your system? The Great Lakes area does have huge salt deposits (Morton has a very large mining operation "under" Lake Erie) so I suppose your well water could be somewhat brackish. Does it taste "salty"? In any case, as stated that water is not well suited for brewing.

 

[Psywar]

Nope, the water should be coming straight from the well to the taps (+ the two filters.)

I actually live not too far away from the old Morton Salt plant before it got shut down.
Then we also have Cargill Salt here in St. Clair so yeah, my ground is probably loaded with it.

I actually love our water it never seemed salty to me. I was actually really excited about brewing because I know with making beer or whisky water is the number 1 factor of coming out with a great product and I was stoked because I thought we had the best water in the world lol.

I guess I don't really brew that much so going out and getting 6 gallons of water for a brew day wouldn't be that bad.
I was looking at filter systems and what not and I don't think the cost of the system would be worth it for the amount of beer I make.
I think we are at about 30 gallons worth of beer and that includes the 5-gallon lager fermenting next to me and the 2-gallon RIS fermenting next to me. That plus the 2 kegs I have will probably last me the rest of the year.

 

[bluemoon737]

Well those levels are pretty low to have a salty flavor (tens of thousands of ppm for salt water) but just thought I would ask.

A small RO system (not very expensive) would do the trick if you didn't want to go and get water at the store for brewing.

 

[Psywar]

Thanks for the input!
I might watch some youtube videos on the RO systems and see how they work and what not. If I can find something that I can attach and detach on brew day I might look into that.

 

[Horseflesh]

A small RO system is affordable and it will give you a great starting point for any beer style. Over time it will pay for itself compared to buying bottles. Your well water is not awesome, unfortunately.

(A RO vendor hangs out on HBT... I have never bought from them, but have liked how he answers questions, and when I checked his site the prices looked good based in my past expefriends. I think the vendor is Buckeye Hydro? Check 'em out.)