Water Chemistry Help

[sublimefool311]

Hey guys,

I'm just getting started with AG brewing, so I'm looking to get my water situation figured out. The main concern that I'm having at the moment is the rather significant fluctuations found in my water report. The max numbers are way out of range, but some of the measurements in the range of numbers would be acceptable. Would I be better off just starting with distilled water and building on that?

• Calcium 20-270
• Total Hardness 48-375
• Sulfate 2.5-40
• Sodium 4-104
• Chloride 3.4-160
• Alkalinity 18-275
• PH 5.6-9.8

 

[ApothecaryBrewing]

If you can drink it from the tap, brew with it. I was obsessed with honing my water chemistry but then I relaxed and found that my beer was damn good without jumping through those hoops.

If you really want to dial it in, scrap the county, town or city water report and send a sample to Ward Labs for analysis. Then you know exactly what is coming out of your taps and you can dial it in that way. Your area's water report is far to vague to work from.

You could also use RO water and build a profile, either way... working with water is a headache that you could possibly avoid if your tap water is drinkable and not super hard or soft.

 

[sublimefool311]

They are pretty damn vague. It seems like the prices for Ward Lab are pretty reasonable. However, if the levels fluctuate as much as they appear to, wouldn't getting a water report be kind of futile as well? I've managed to make at least one batch using tap water. It was BM's Centennial Blonde (delicious, BTW), and it doesn't seem to have any off flavors.

 

[ApothecaryBrewing]

The values in the water report from your town or city or whatever are given in ranges and then an average. So at some points where they tested, they got high numbers and at others, they got very low numbers. Getting the water our of your faucet tested will tell you where in that range you exist.

The range doesn't meant that sometimes it is one thing and sometimes it is on the opposite end of the range. That range is what they received when they tested multiple locations. You won't see that variation out of your tap. If you get it tested it will pretty much be the values you receive from Ward or extremely close to them with little variation.

But again, if you can brew good beer without the hassle of water chemistry, why mess with it.

 

[sublimefool311]

If it ain't broke... I think I'll probably just leave it alone for know and go at it in depth if it becomes a problem (or if I've perfected everything else ).

 

[mabrungard]

With that range of variation, it would be difficult to brew very consistently. I would speak with someone at the water company and find out how common it is for the water quality to vary like they indicate in the report. I would also ask what the more typical condition is.

So with this degree of variation, you would have to test the water hardness and alkalinity before each brew. That is a bit of a pain, but its not costly when using aquarium test kits. If that is going to be too much of a pain, then moving to RO or distilled water will give you a more consistent starting point.

 

[sublimefool311]

With that range of variation, it would be difficult to brew very consistently. I would speak with someone at the water company and find out how common it is for the water quality to vary like they indicate in the report. I would also ask what the more typical condition is.

So with this degree of variation, you would have to test the water hardness and alkalinity before each brew. That is a bit of a pain, but its not costly when using aquarium test kits. If that is going to be too much of a pain, then moving to RO or distilled water will give you a more consistent starting point.

That's a good idea. It could be a seasonal kind of thing. However, if it varies frequently, I'd much rather not play Russian roulette with 5 gallon batches of beer. I'd like my water chemistry to be fairly constant, one less variable to deal with.