Water Help

[Hobo_Dan]

Fellow Brewers, I am not ashamed to admit that water adjustments are, at this point, way over my head (no pun intended). I have a pH meter and a Ward Labs report. I have read through the How to Brew sections on water and played with Bru'n water's spread sheet a little. But none of it is clicking for me. Here is what I do know: my water is probably not the best, but I've made decent beer with it. I want to make great beer with it.

Anyone care to look at my report and offer some opinions, advice?

pH 7.2
Sodium, Na 10
Potassium, K 2
Calcium, Ca 76
Magnesium, Mg 11
Total Hardness, CaCO3 236
Nitrate, NO3-N 5.0
Sulfate, SO4-S 15
Chloride, Cl 13
Carbonate, CO3 <1.0
Bicarbonate, HCO3 237
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 194

 

[ajdelange]

The bad news here is that high alkalinity - almost 4 mEq/L (each mEq is 50 "CaCO3". You really want that down under 1. As you have almost 4 of calcium (1 mEq calcium is 20 mg/L) you can try boiling the water. It should turn cloudy (you probably have crusty deposits on shower heads and faucets) and drop 3 mEq/L of each of calcium and alkalinity. You would want to supplement the calcium after doing that. In fact you would want to do it before heating based on what you would have left after heating as that will help get rid of alkalinity.

All this is a bit complicated so probably the best thing for you to do is dilute 4:1 with RO waer which reduces everything by a factor of 5. It's always my opinion that if you are going to dilute 4:1 with RO you might as well dilute 5:0 IOW use all RO as there are lots of advantages to doing that.

So I am afraid that my advice to make great beer with this water is to throw it away and substitute water over which you have total control. There might be some beers you could do with this water but they would involve an awful (literally IMO) lot of dark malts. Also if you like a lot of sulfate you could neutralize the alkalinity with sulfuric and hydrochloric acids but that's not usually an option available to US brewers and it's probably not something a beginner would want to do but it is a possibility. OTOH if you take the easy way out and just run to RO you will never learn about how you might deal with this water.

 

[Hobo_Dan]

I was worried but also anticipating an answer like that. I completely agree, if I'm going to dilute 4:1, I may as well just go full RO and add back with additions.

I have seen home RO filters online, anyone have experience with them? Any chance they are more cost effective in the long run than running to the store to buy RO water for every brew?

 

[mabrungard]

That water could work for some styles, but the alkalinity would likely still have to be neutralized to some degree. Assuming that the water doesn't have a metallic taste to it, I would keep it under consideration as your alkalinity source for the beers that need it. But plan on using RO as your typical starting point and you will likely find that approach easier and more pleasing.

Of course, you could pre-boil or lime soften that water and take out a bunch of the Ca and HCO3. But that is a PITA. Name your poison, RO, lime-softening, or pre-boiling.