Water Gurus Please Help

[booth74]

brewing tomorrow morning, and I am going to try to avoid buying a bunch of RO water. I have my water report, but I think some of the info is missing

Let me know your thoughts, because of the missing info (I think?) if there is a way to put this in Bru'n'water

Thank you


Alkalinity, Total 380 mg/L CaCO3
Bicarbonate 380 mg/L CaCO3
Carbonate 0 mg/L CaCO3
Calcium 129.0 mg/L
Magnesium 41.90 mg/L
Hardness, Total 495 mg/L

 

[chickypad]

Wow that's pretty alkaline water. I'd think you'd be way better off with RO, but for specific water help you may want to post in brew science forum.

 

[stevehaun]

Your water is similar to mine. I treat my water with calcium hydroxide or slaked lime.
See this link for an exhaustive discussion:
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Alkalinity_reduction_with_slaked_lime
See this link for a practical discussion:
http://www.franklinbrew.org/wp/?page_id=399

 

[helibrewer]

It will be a lot of work to adjust that water, I think you are better off with 100% RO and minor additions. For me, RO costs .35-.40 per gallon so for a 10 gallon batch I use about $8 worth of water, about the same as my yeast cost.

 

[Kerrbrewer]

I have similar numbers. I have been using the brewers friend calculator and diluting my water with distilled. I have to then acidify my sparge water to get a good ph. With that I am still getting astringency when the beer is green. Dave Millers homebrewing book has some estimated numbers of boiled water. If youre interested PM me and I will look it up. That will probably be my next step. Gotta get that bicarb number down light blondes etc.

 

[mabrungard]

That water report is missing information on the flavor ions: Na, Cl, and SO4. However, it does provide enough info to be able to estimate mashing pH. The bad news is that the tap water is almost a train wreck. The Mg level is too high for most brewing and the alkalinity is very high. You really need to dilute or replace that water.