What's the best beer to use with my home water without doing anything to it?

[Beer-lord]

6 months ago I moved to another state and started brewing again. I have an RO filter that takes about 8 h ours to get me to 10 gallons and that's ok but, I thought my water tasted good and decided to get it tested. But, as confident as I feel working with RO water, as well as pleased with my beers, I have no idea if my tap water is great for using as is (adding no water salts). I'm in a rural area but it's 'county' water, not well water. I was surprised there's no chlorine used.
I know if I use it, I really should add to it but, for tits and giggles, I'm curious what type of beer would be best with this water.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Here's what I focused on from the report:

Very close to "RO" water.

If you are brewing with DME, you can brew almost anything. Chapter 1 of 4th edition of How to Brew has a suggestion on how to avoid the possibility of extracting tannins when steeping.

If you are brewing "all grain", 50 to 100 pm of calcium will make a good beer better. Additional sulfate and chloride will accent "malty-ness" and/or "hoppy-ness" to match the style being made.

 

[jerrylotto]

But I would use a campden tablet to convert any elemental chlorine or chloramines to chloride. It's commonly found in drinking water as a sanitation agent.

 

[Miraculix]

Congratulations. You got a blank canvas there. You just need to make sure there's no chlorine (Camden is your friend) and off you go!

You basically only need two water ingredients. Nacl2 and gypsum. If you're brewing a very dark beer, baking soda might be also necessary.

To ballpark it, add 4g each nacl2 and gypsum to 20l of water and you're good.

 

[Beer-lord]

I do all grain and figured it would be a good idea to use campden tablets.

Great advice guys. Thanks so much. I'm going to put the numbers in Brewfather and see what it tells me on my next brew.

Off to create a recipe!

 

[day_trippr]

fwiw, lots of notable folks recommend a minimum calcium concentration of 50ppm for most any style...

Cheers!

 

[Miraculix]

fwiw, lots of notable folks recommend a minimum calcium concentration of 50ppm for most any style...

Cheers!

Let's bump this up to 100 in you're good imo .

 

[Yooper]

fwiw, lots of notable folks recommend a minimum calcium concentration of 50ppm for most any style...

Cheers!

Yes, I'd go with 50-75 ppm of calcium for almost all beers.

@Beer-lord You've got great water there, a near RO water quality to make all of us envious! If you wanted to make most lagers, you would be fine with just your water. However, to make it shine, you could add 5 grams and calcium choride and have just about perfect water. Same with other beers, but if you want to make IPAs or other bitter/hoppy beers, about 5 grams of sulfate could be added also. That's about all you'd need although you may want to consider using some phosphoric or lactic acid (or acid malt) for pH control for very very light colored beers.

 

[Beer-lord]

I'm on it!

Thanks again!

 

[dmtaylor]

Looks like you can get rid of your RO unit. Your county is already using one probably.

 

[Genuine]

You have a great water source that you could easily add whatever minerals to build you own water profile.

 

[oakbarn]

I just use my tap water and have since I started brewing. I do use a Boggie Brew filter for Chorine and Cholormides, and also leave the all water in the 50 gal hlt heating overnight, so all cholrine would likely be gone regardless.

 

[Bramling Cross]

I'm curious what type of beer would be best with this water.

In my experience, you'll make hazy, flabby, dull, and lifeless beer.

As the others have mentioned, calcium is your pal.

 

[Buckeye_Hydro]

Or instead of getting rid of your RO, just use the prefilters (sediment filter and carbon block) to treat your chlorine. Keep the flow through a 10" x 2.5" carbon block at less that 0.5 gpm.