Deciphering My Water Report

[Thirsty Mallard]

I'm not really sure what these numbers mean... can anyone give me some bullet point translations on what my water is good/bad for?

Calcium - 33.9 ppm
Magnesium - 5.7 ppm
Sodium - 66 ppm
Sulfate - 15.4 ppm
Chloride - 41.5 ppm
Bicarbonate - 223 ppm

I have some unusual flavors in my homebrew and after ruling everything else out, I'm starting to think my city water may be partially to blame. I know we have very hard water, so I typically cut it 50/50 with distilled water. Also, I run the water through a carbon filter before filling a bucket for use... not sure what that does to those numbers.

EDIT: Also, if it matters:

Total Alkalinity: 195 ppm
Total Harndness: 108 ppm

[Ozwald]

Y U NO RTFP?

http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-1.html

[mabrungard]

That is fairly good water excepting for the high alkalinity. If you haven't been acidifying your mash and sparging water, that would definitely be a source of the problems. Incomplete removal of the tap water disinfectant is another possible problem source.

If you run water through a carbon filter at a high rate, you won't get much disinfectant removal. If the disinfectant is chlorine, running water through the typical 10" undersink style filter unit is effective if the flow rate is no greater than 1 gpm. If the water utility uses chloramine, then the flow rate needs to be no greater than 0.1 gpm. Since that is ridiculously slow, I recommend using campden tablet treatment instead for chloramine.

The alkalinity is easily neutralized with an acid addition. Since the alkalinity is fairly high, I would get some phosphoric acid from Duda Diesel. Phosphoric will have the least flavor impact on the beer. Read about acidification on the Water Knowledge page of the Bru'n Water website. Bru'n Water has the calculators to help you figure out those acid additions.

[Thirsty Mallard]

Thanks for the feedback! I'll look into some options on acidifying.

I do run the water through the filter pretty slow, but not sure if chloromines are an issue. I thought I remembered hearing that if you leave the water out overnight the chloromines will gas off on their own?

[spiderwrangler]

Cloramines stay in solution, but you can treat them with Campden tabs. Check out one of AJ's articles...

[mabrungard]

I see that you are in Tejas. That water has the character of being lime softened. Is it? I think Austin lime-softens their water. Its still decent water for brewing after alkalinity reduction.

The chloramine vs. chlorine is very important if you are carbon filtering. The water company is required to let customers know if the water is chloraminated or not since its a health issue and it affects some health care institutions. Do call them and find out. I would forget about the carbon filter if they chloraminate, unless there is a pond scum flavor to the water.