Understanding my water report

[InHopsWeTrust]

I've just made the shift to all-grain after a bunch of successful kits and extract brews. I've never really given much consideration to my water. Occasionally I've used bottled water, but the last few brews have been with tap water to make them as cheap as possible.

I've decided to investigate my water report, and managed to download it from here, but I honestly have no idea what I'm supposed to be looking out for. Can any of you friendly brewers advise whether this water is good for brewing, or whether I should be treating it with something?

Thanks in advance.

 

[TartanSpecial]

Hi Inhops,
The key things you want are Alkalinity (as CaCO3) or as Bicarbonate (HCO3), then Calcium, Magnesium ,sulphate and chloride. Unfortunately your water company only publishes sulphate by the looks of it. You can click on the severn trent website link in the report and do a search using your postcode on hardness. It will probably be total hardness which is not what you are looking for, but it will give you a clue (ie relatively hard or soft water area). Best thing is to send them an e-mail asking for Calcium, magnesium, chloride an Alkalinity as Ca CO3 or bicarbonate and see what they come back with.
I ended up sending a sample of my water to Murphy and Sons for testing...cost about £20 but I got a full report plus water treatment recommendations for different beer styles. If you do get figures back there are various water treatment software available for free (eg ez water calculator)...just depends how much of a spreadsheet junkie you are. Alternatively the water treatment bit of the brupaks site is quite useful.
If you are getting reasonable mash efficiencies then your water is probably in the zone.

 

[mirsultankhan]

I've just made the shift to all-grain after a bunch of successful kits and extract brews. I've never really given much consideration to my water. Occasionally I've used bottled water, but the last few brews have been with tap water to make them as cheap as possible.

I've decided to investigate my water report, and managed to download it from here, but I honestly have no idea what I'm supposed to be looking out for. Can any of you friendly brewers advise whether this water is good for brewing, or whether I should be treating it with something?

Thanks in advance.

You need, Calcium, Magnesium, Hardness, Sulphate, Sodium, Chloride. Your hardness is in a separate report, same as mine. You get most of the data on the hardness report, type in your postcode.

https://www.stwater.co.uk/my-supplies/my-water-supply/water-quality-in-your-area/

 

[mirsultankhan]

I've just made the shift to all-grain after a bunch of successful kits and extract brews. I've never really given much consideration to my water. Occasionally I've used bottled water, but the last few brews have been with tap water to make them as cheap as possible.

I've decided to investigate my water report, and managed to download it from here, but I honestly have no idea what I'm supposed to be looking out for. Can any of you friendly brewers advise whether this water is good for brewing, or whether I should be treating it with something?

Thanks in advance.

you need also to convert some of those values given for example Hardness Clark, use this,

http://users.tinyonline.co.uk/chrisshort/waterhard.htm

for example I typed in the post code given, it had a value for hardness Clark of 11.26. this was converted.

11.26 English (Clark) degrees is equivalent to 64.29 mg calcium/l. This is moderately hard.

 

[Fil]

a salifert alkalinity test kit is the best way to get an indication of the alkalinity of your water.

its testing the water your using

not an endorsement just the first link to a seller google kicked out
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SALIFERT-...it-/261189002882?_trksid=p2141725.m3641.l6368

 

[InHopsWeTrust]

Thank you all for the replies. I'm still trying to wrap my head around all this. Is there anything I should be doing to my water as an absolute basic minimum? If it makes any difference, I brew mostly pale ales.

 

[rodabod]

...................

 

[rodabod]

If you can't get a Calcium rating, then you can at least adjust for the Sulphate and Chloride, but it would involve some guesswork. Easier to get the Calcium figures first.

 

[InHopsWeTrust]

The calcium rating is 64.29mg per litre, as noted above. Or is there some other measurement I'm missing?

 

[rodabod]

The calcium rating is 64.29mg per litre, as noted above. Or is there some other measurement I'm missing?

I missed that. Here's an estimate based on what info you gave, though I haven't checked the overall Alkalinity. For pale ales, I reckon you can get away with just adding Brupaks/Murphy's DWB:

[removed]

...... Edit: I think your water is more alkaline than first thought according to the guide that MSK posted:

http://users.tinyonline.co.uk/chrisshort/waterhard.htm

 

[rodabod]

This has been calculated ****-about-face, but working on the assumption that your Alkalinity expressed as CaCo3 is around 250ppm, having used the calculator in the above post:

Pale Ale:

Target: Ca:200ppm, Chl:200ppm, Sulph:350ppm, Alk as CaCo3:40ppm

add 28.7ml AMS and 16.5g DWB per 25 litres results in:

Ca:180ppm, Chl:227ppm, Sulph:427ppm, Alk as CaCo3:40ppm

 

[rodabod]

Dark Ales:

Target: Ca:150ppm, Chl:300ppm, Sulph:100ppm, Alk as CaCo3:150ppm

add 13.7ml AMS, 7.9g Calcium Chloride, and 4.3g table salt per 25 litres results in:

Ca:150ppm, Chl:297ppm, Sulph:134ppm, Alk as CaCo3:150ppm

 

[InHopsWeTrust]

Thanks all for the help. I'm sure everything will click eventually...