Water Report - Crossett, AR

Ryush806 · Jun 8, 2012

Hopefully none of you will ever have the misfortune of living in Crossett, AR. But in case you do, here's the water report. I put the water through a KDF/GAC RV filter since that's what I planned to use when brewing. I'm pretty sure this water is unsuitable for most styles of beer since to get the alkalinity down I'd have to dilute everything else so much I might as well start with RO water and build from scratch. Any thoughts to the contrary?

Sample ID : CROSSETT AR
pH 7.9
TDS Est, 466 ppm
Electrical Conductivity, 0.78 mmho/cm
Cations / Anions, 8.9 / 8.8 me/L
Sodium, Na 73 ppm
Potassium, K 26
Calcium, Ca. 72
Magnesium, Mg 17
Total Hardness, CaCO3 251
Nitrate, NO3-N 0.1 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 10
Chloride, Cl 75
Carbonate, CO3 < 1
Bicarbonate, HCO3 369
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3. 303

ajdelange · Jun 9, 2012

The only other approach I see is to supplement the calcium with gypsum and or calcium chloride and boil or treat with lime. This would knock out most of the alkalinity but you would have even more chloride and sulfate to deal with (which could be OK for some styles) but you also have more potassium than I think I have ever seen and quite a lot of sodium. I'd do the RO.

Ryush806 · Jun 9, 2012

I've never seen any discussion about potassium and beer. What effects does it have?

Luckily my buddy, who wants me to teach him to brew, has an RO unit under his sink for some reason

ajdelange · Jun 9, 2012

I'd guess not much. Given that malt contains 4-6 g/kg and that beer has 300 - 500 mg/L even 26 mg/L in the brew water is less than 10%. But if it does have any flavor effect it would be very similar to sodium i.e. would make the beer taste salty. It's been reported that Ca/K ratio has an effect on flocculation but the reference doesn't say which way i.e. whether more potassium implies more or less flocculation.