Water report review

[Brian71]

Hello everyone, first let me say thanks for all of the knowledge that I've gained over the past 2 years from the forum, that along with Palmer's book and excellent advice from lhbs has really helped me get off to what I consider a very successful start in a hobby that I'm constantly finding new goals to strive for. With that said I've recently started to explore the water that I'm brewing with. At the present time I just filter my tap water with a sediment and a carbon filter, and have been having very good results. I've recently purchased a ro unit and just got the results back from ward labs. My thinking is just cutting my tap water with the ro, as many of you have indicated they are doing. So I just wanted to share my report and get some feedback and advice on it. Thanks in advance.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

In my opinion if you mildly acidify your water to knock out some (to all) of its alkalinity, and you add a bit of calcium chloride to it to boost Ca++ and Cl-, there is no need to cut this water with RO. For darker brews there will likely be no need to acidify, as the alkalinity will become your friend for that case.

 

[ajdelange]

There's lots you could do with this water without having to dilute with RO but you can't beat 100% RO for total control.

Your sulfate is high (54 mg/L) for some styles and may vary with season (though it may not). If it doubles (to 108) in your source water it will also double in your RO water but the doubling will be from 1 to 2 mg/L, not 54 to 108, thus RO not only gets rid of ions but also variations in their content.

 

[Brian71]

Thanks for the feedback, I have to admit that when I saw the report, I was a little surprised. I assumed the numbers would be a lot higher than they were. We're always dealing with hard water problems in our home. From the other reports I've seen on here it looks like a like I'm kinda in the middle of the road so to speak.