Water Profiling?

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yyvjpv

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As I was listening to the Brew Strong show on water regions today, and reflecting on my own technique in regards to water and brewing so far (basically pouring it into the kettle and boiling it) I am wondering how many of you out there get really precise on the water you use with using Ph strips, adding gypsum, etc? As I said, I've just been using my (fairly hard) water, have no idea what the Ph or ppm of calcium or magnesium is. Is this something more important when I transition to AG? Am I inadvertently handicapping my efforts by not being more precise? Curious to hear what you all have done / are doing.

btw, I just Googled the water hardness in Calgary, and in my part of the city the average is mg/L CaCO 3: 209.66 and grains/gallon: 14.66. That's all Greek to me, however, according to the chart the site provides this puts it squarely in the "Hard" camp. (mg/L CaCO 3: 150 to <300 grains/gallon:10.5 to <21)

Thanks in advance!
 
I geek out on my water, probably more than most. And probably more than is really needed.

The easiest thing to do is to check out the primer stickied in the Brew Science section of the forum: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/brewing-water-chemistry-primer-198460/

As I'm not usually keen on buying enormous amounts of water for all grain brewing, I use my tap water. I went through my water company's reported history over the last 13 years, and build a spreadsheet averaging the data month by month to account for seasonal changes. As they're average figures they're not perfect, but they generally seem to be balanced in terms of anions and cations, so I trust em.

I treat all my water with campden tablets to scrub chloramine and chlorine, and then tailor water individually for each brew. I take whatever figures my spreadsheet gives me for that month, and calculate the additions from there to get what I want. And then double check the mash pH with a pH meter.

If your water is very alkaline, pH can be an issue on lighter beers. You'll have an easier time with darker ones. I'm fairly lucky in that my water supply is on the softer side compared to much of the world. A little too alkaline for pale beers, but easy to adjust to get where I want for almost anything. Very pale beers can be challenging.
 
Wow, you weren't kidding when you said you geek out on water! Thanks for the sticky, I'll look that over. Luckily for me so far I have only brewed darker beers, but the one I am planning on brewing after the next one will be a Wit so good for me to know this stuff!
 
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