Water Report – Feedback Needed

I'm going to preface what I say with this. If you're not already, you should start using brewing software like BrewCipher or one of the other spreadsheets that are available (EZWater, Bru'nWater). It's as easy as plugging in your water report, saving the file, then saving a new file for each recipe. You add the grain bill for the recipe and see where your mash pH and flavor ions come out. From there the adjustments are fairly simple—you simply cut with RO water, or add calcium sulfate (gypsom) or calcium chloride to achieve your goals. It's as easy as that, and you really don't need to think too hard about anything else. (The one other thing I'd recommend thinking about is how you're going to get rid of chlorine/chloramines.) So in other words, don't get intimidated, just plug your data into a spreadsheet and play around with the variables until you get an outcome you like.

That said, a few observations.

That's a lot of carbonate. Dealing with that will be your big issue, everything else is fine. Instead of mixing with spring water I would mix with distilled or RO water to cut the carbonate down. You could also add some calcium sulfate (gypsum) and then pre-boil the water. A fair amount of carbonate should precipitate out as calcium carbonate (chalk), which you can rack off of. That's called "temporary hardness" because it's removable in this manner. However, personally I would not bother unless you're pre-boiling anyway (for instance if you're adopting lodo practices). I would simply cut with RO water.

You've got a fair amount of chloride and not much sulfate. When you want a beer that is balanced more toward sulfate (sulfate is said to promote crisp bitterness while chloride promotes full-bodied sweetness), you're going to need to add a fair amount of calcium sulfate (gypsum). Again, this is trivially easy to calculate in a spreadsheet.

By the way, the pH of the water itself is of no real importance. The question is what equilibrium pH it will reach when it goes into the mash. And indeed this water will reach a relatively high pH due to all of its carbonate, so that will be an issue for you, but the fact that the water is high pH before it hits the mash doesn't matter much.

 

Correct. If you want more of something (e.g. calcium, chloride, or sulfate), just add minerals to your diluted water as necessary. For what it's worth, your water is high in calcium and even cut in half there is enough calcium for yeast health. But yeah, you might want to add more, especially if you want the related flavor ions (i.e. the chloride and sulfate that you can get by adding calcium chloride and/or calcium sulfate).

You could always use 100% RO water and just add calcium sulfate and calcium chloride as desired. For a light-colored beer that would be perfectly fine. For beers with more dark malts and/or crystal malts (which have a pretty strong effect on pH), you may actually want some of those carbonates, in which case a blend of tap and RO water should work well for you. Let your software (and your tastebuds) be your guide.

Happy to help. The other thing I'd emphasize is eliminating chlorine and chloramines (not all jurisdictions use chloramine, but some do). You've got to get rid of these compounds before the water hits the malt. A campden tablet would work, as would a small amount of powdered ascorbic acid (vitamin C), which you can buy at a store that sells nutritional supplements etc. Of course this should be unnecessary for RO water. Also, if your water has chlorine, but no chloramines, then you can just fill your kettle (or hot liquor tank or whatever) the night before and the vast majority of the chlorine will evaporate (especially once you start heating the water to strike temperature). [Edited to add: Chloramines are more persistent, which is why some jurisdictions use them, and you can't effectively get rid of them through evaporation. For chloramines you will need chemical treatment (ascorbic acid or a campden tablet) or filtration.]

 

Just to add what others have said, the water software can be intimidating and overwhelming at first, but once you do a brew or two, it becomes just another part of the process. I use the free version of Bru'n Water and it's great.

 

My water is like yours, only s little more of most ions. I used to boil to drop the temporary hardness, but if you want less of other ions, it does not reduce those. You need to wait, I boiled the evening before, and rack off the chalk precipitate. O2 difusses back in overnight, so this is not good for LODO.

Your SO4-S equates to 42 ppm SO4.

I gave up on my tap water and now use RO.

 

Minderbender has you covered on the basics. Software makes it a breeze and is pretty accurate. Once in every 10 batches I may have to adjust PH a bit more but thats likely my own fault.

I'll add that you're likely going to have trouble using any of the tap water for the strike water in the mash. My water is slightly less hard than yours and I almost always have to use 100% distilled for strike on my lighter beers.

 

One other strategy would be to use 85% phosphoric acid from Duda Diesel to drop the slkalinial.

 

Yep distilled will have no minerals so you will have to add some in. Most light beers don't need much in the way of sulfates or chlorides so I usually just add enough gypsum and calcium chloride to achieve the calcium needed.

 

Correct. You're thinking about all of this the right way.

Good catch on the SO4, I retract my earlier comment about the chloride/sulfate balance. This water profile is pretty balanced to start with.

I didn't realize it took so long for the chalk to precipitate. So, never mind on the lodo comments as well.

But apart from the SO4, the lodo comments, and the aqueducts...