Water help

[bigmike99]

So I've read over and over again about how important the water you're using is to brewing (duh) but this far haven't treated my water other than using a mix of tap water and filtered brita water. I usually try and use 1/2 of each. Anyway I would really appreciate if any of the more experienced brewers here could take a quick look. I think chlorine levels are high since I can smell it in the water but open to anything.
I brew 5 gallon batches currently via BIAB full boils. Thanks in advance. I appreciate it more than I can explain here.
http://65.36.213.246/dwqr2013/pdfs/Distribution Area 12.pdf

 

[ajdelange]

Nominally everything here looks OK except that the average iron level is a wee bit over the 100 ug/L that brewers like to stay under. However, apparently it can rise to more than 10 times this. They don't give any distribution parameters but it is safe to assume that the iron level will be higher than the average half the time. Thus you have an iron problem. Similarly, your alkalinity is quite good on average but can more than double and you won't know when or by how much it increases over the average unless you make alkalinity measurments yourself (which is not hard to do). The simplest thing to do (once the capital expenditure and installation have been gotten past) is to install an RO unit. This removes most of the minerals and, at the same time their variability. There are other ways to take care of the iron and ways to deal with the (variable) alkalinity as well but this will require some attention to your water at each brew session.

Chlorine/chloramine is easily dealt with by the use of Campden tablets. If an RO unit is to be installed an extra activated carbon filter in front of it to protect the membrane from chlorine is a good idea.

 

[bigmike99]

Thanks for he reply. My wife is set on having the on faucet pur filter that can be switched on and off depending on what the water is being used for.
I'll research some posts on buying water specifically for brewing since that could possibly make my life easier for a few more ducats. Any suggestions are certainly welcome.

 

[bigmike99]

My lighter beers, pales and ipa's have a real extreme bitterness that concerns me. Have a brown and a RIS in the pipeline now I'm interested to taste of course but the darkest beer I've done so far was the punkin recipe here and that keg was kicked in a day.