Looking for Help Understanding My Water

[barleypopmaker]

What's up my brewing coherts. After 10 years of brewing I am finally starting to tackle water. I've been listening to the water shows parts 1-4 on Brew Strong but I'm thick skulled when it comes to learning extremly dry science materials. I have found a water source that I am very happy with, which is an artesian well not far from my home. My municipal water supply is OK but contains what I think is a lot of chloramine. I was using campden tablets for a few years but never really grooved on that. The water source I now use, I have had what I feel is great results with Pale Ales, IPA's, and Belgian Witbier. I first brewed a stout with it this past week. What I am looking for is for someone with some water knowledge to help me understand my water profile. I understand that this water is on the hard side, but aside from that I'm lost. I felt like I had a fair grasp on the water in theory, then when I got my test results I stared at them blankly. Any help educating me on this water would be greatly appreciated
.

[brewindruid]

Well I am by no means an expert but I will be glad to help if I can. There are a couple others that are truly expert.

Your ph is going to be resistant to change because of the hardness and total alkalinity these are like buffering agents. I would be curious to know if you felt like your IPAs lacked snap, I ask this because the balance of Chloride to sulfate is balanced heavily towads chloride. This means gypsum would be a good choice because it will bump up your sulfate levels. You might want to bump sodium to round abouts 75 to 100ppm. You will either, probably need to use acid in the water or acidulated malt in the mash. CHeck your runnings with phast strips.
Checkout Kai's spreadsheet and Brewinwater excellent and easily understood calcs.

Ultimately, it is a balancing act, and is more about ratios then amounts, ie: chloride/sulfate. Balanced towards Cl you get malty, towards sufate you get hoppy..
Your Ca level is pretty good really. Don't let your Mg get over 25 to 30ppm, you don't want laxa brew!

You really just need to play with spreadsheets a bit and it will click..I will help more if I can but A.J. and Kai or both here somewhere and can do far more for you then I

Cheers
Scott

[mabrungard]

That water is quite hard, but more importantly is that it is very alkaline. Part of the hardness is an excessive concentration of magnesium. This water is well suited for lime softening to help reduce alkalinity and hardness. An Excess Lime process is necessary for reducing the magnesium content. Alternatively, RO water may be an easier route.

Its not a total surprise that PA, IPA, and stout come out better with this water. But they can be even better with a less mineralized water source. Diluting the source water with RO at a rate of at least 1 to 1 is needed to bring the Mg and sulfate to more modest levels. The alkalinity will also be cut in half, but acidification may be needed for some brews to allow the mash pH to drop into the proper range.

Do visit the Bru'n Water website and read the Water Knowledge page to get a better understanding of what that water report tells you and why you should consider treatment.

[spiderwrangler]

but I'm thick skulled when it comes to learning extremly dry science materials.

Heh.... dry.... water.... heh.

[brewindruid]

That water is quite hard, but more importantly is that it is very alkaline. Part of the hardness is an excessive concentration of magnesium. This water is well suited for lime softening to help reduce alkalinity and hardness. An Excess Lime process is necessary for reducing the magnesium content. Alternatively, RO water may be an easier route.

Its not a total surprise that PA, IPA, and stout come out better with this water. But they can be even better with a less mineralized water source. Diluting the source water with RO at a rate of at least 1 to 1 is needed to bring the Mg and sulfate to more modest levels. The alkalinity will also be cut in half, but acidification may be needed for some brews to allow the mash pH to drop into the proper range.

Do visit the Bru'n Water website and read the Water Knowledge page to get a better understanding of what that water report tells you and why you should consider treatment.

I apologize for the incorrect spelling! Your spreadsheet is fantastic!

What happens to the ph when you dilute? Another question is I have a supplement that is a calcium magnesium supplement, but a percentage of the supplement is Calcium citrate, can I still use it?

Again, I have recommended the spreadsheet to all my bruin friends, thanks for that!

Cheers
Scott

[Kaiser]

What happens to the ph when you dilute?

I assume you mean the mash pH, the water pH matters little. The water will only have half the effect on the mash pH if you dilute the water with RO water 1:1. If if raised the mash pH by 0.3 before it will raise it by about 0.15 after the dilution. This is b/c you have only half of the pH changing water minerals per amount of grain than you would have w/o the dilution.

Another question is I have a supplement that is a calcium magnesium supplement, but a percentage of the supplement is Calcium citrate, can I still use it?

no. You want to add calcium using salts like Calcium Sulfate (Gypsum) or Calcium Chloride. Your home brew shop should have them.

Kai

[brewindruid]

Oh I have the salts, but the reason I ask is because of my so4 and Mg levels. My sulfate is high compared to my Cl, but my Mg and Ca are very low Ca 10. with this supplement, which has both Ca citrate and Carbonate, I could raise the two witout affecting so4.

I apologize, I am not meaning to hijack the thread but thought the OP could pick up from the ensuing discussion.

[barleypopmaker]

Thanks for all the help. I've been working a lot the past few days and didn't get to play around with the spreadsheet. As a matter of fact im replying here while at work from my phone. I will look at it this weekend. All the help is great and I really do appreciate it.