Cambridge water?

[paraffin]

Anyone got the Cambridge Water profile? Or advice on suitable treatment?

TIA

 

[PD]

contact your local water board and ask them for a print out, then use the calculator top left in banner

 

[dennisking]

PM your local water company then put the results into the forum calculator, top left hand corner.

 

[dennisking]

beat me to it

 

[paraffin]

Thanks, was just being lazy to find if anyone else here had already done it for Camb.

 

[Duncs]

I know that it tastes a hell of a lot better than Thames water I've got now :|

 

[stevie1556]

Where abouts in Cambs are you? I'm jist down the road in Newmarket, and although I make wine, I can't tell any difference between tap water and bottled water in the finished drink.

 

[paraffin]

North Cambridge . Water actually tastes pretty good, but it is a bit hard

 

[Algernon]

I got a PDF for my water online - just googled it.

 

[paraffin]

For future reference, here are the results from the Cambridge jury:

Calcium 116.50 mg/l Ca
Magnesium 4.73 mg/l Mg
Sodium 10.63 mgNa/l
Sulphate 31.58 mg/l SO4
Chloride 22.73 mg/l Cl
Alkalinity 238.00 mg/l CaCO3

 

[edwardss]

Thanks for posting this, Do you know if this is the same profile for St Ives?

 

[Lucy]

Oooh,... hand't even thought of this,.. i'm in north Cambridge. I have heard about people using bottled water to brew or treating it, does it make a huge amount of difference to the process or just subtle flavour?

 

[markmark]

For future reference, here are the results from the Cambridge jury:

Calcium 116.50 mg/l Ca
Magnesium 4.73 mg/l Mg
Sodium 10.63 mgNa/l
Sulphate 31.58 mg/l SO4
Chloride 22.73 mg/l Cl
Alkalinity 238.00 mg/l CaCO3

Sorry if I'm teaching you to suck eggs here, but you will need to treat that water as the alkalinity is very high and you will struggle to get a good mash pH.
I would treat the water with CRS/AMS to bring the alkalinity down; how much will depend on the style of beer you are making. You need less than 25ppm for very pale beers, 50ppm for bitters and 130ppm for dark beers IIRC.
Your calcium is okay at greater than 100ppm, some people recommend 150ppm. You can add gypsum for additional calcium to enhance hop flavour and use calcium chloride if you want to bring out the malt.

 

[paraffin]

it's probably the same for St. Ives, but you can always email them to check. They replied to me very quickly.

 

[paraffin]

Sorry if I'm teaching you to suck eggs here, but you will need to treat that water as the alkalinity is very high and you will struggle to get a good mash pH.
I would treat the water with CRS/AMS to bring the alkalinity down; how much will depend on the style of beer you are making. You need less than 25ppm for very pale beers, 50ppm for bitters and 130ppm for dark beers IIRC.
Your calcium is okay at greater than 100ppm, some people recommend 150ppm. You can add gypsum for additional calcium to enhance hop flavour and use calcium chloride if you want to bring out the malt.

Thanks, that's really helpful. I'll try CRS; was distracted by crs vs. phosphoric acid debate threads.

Will be interesting to see what diff it makes - brews have been ok so far, but it's this or a beer fridge and I don't have space for a fridge.