water report from Wards Lab

[BrewQwest]

I had my water tested at Wards Labs. Can anyone tell this newbie how to interpret this? What type(s) of beer would this best be suited for? - thank you
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7.8 hardwater tap & 7.7 softwater tap ----- pH
6.8 / 6.5 hardwater & 6.8 /6.6 softwater ----- cations / anions, me/L

4 hardwater, 155 softwater ----- Sodium - Na
2 hardwater, < 1 softwater ----- Potassium - K
82 hardwater, < 1 softwater ----- Calcium - Ca
30 hardwater, < 1 softwater ----- Magnesium - Mg
330 hardwater, 3 softwater ----- Total Hardness - CaCO3
0.2 hardwatrer, 0.2 softwatrer -----Nitrate - NO3-N
9 hardwater, 9 softwater -----Sulfate - SO4-S
14 hardwater, 14 softwater -----Chloride - Cl
< 1 hardwater, < 1 softwater -----Carbonate - CO3
336 hardwater, 342 softwater -----Bicarbonate - HCO3
275 hardwater, 280 softwater -----Total Alkalinity - CaCO3

note: " < 1 " = not detected / below the detection limits

...edit... maybe I should have put this in the ingredient section?

[Whitebeard_Brewer]

Might shoot John Palmer a PM with that info.....

[Bugeater]

Interesting. Your water is only slightly worse than mine. I'm interested in hearing what people have to say.

Wayne

[ajdelange]

The water (hardwater) is very alkaline and not relatively very hard. Its residual alkalinity is high at almost 200 ppm as CaCO3. As such it would be expected to produce a base malt only mash pH about 0.33 higher than a distilled water base malt mash pH or somewhere in the range 6.08 to 6.13. In terms of alkalinity and hardness it resembles, in my collection of water profiles, that of Brugge, Ghent and and one report I have for Dublin. It is pretty much off the chart. As such you would have to consider it a problem water. Note: I'm not saying anything about the water out of the softener because all you do in going through a sodium exchanger is swap beneficial calcium and magnesesium for, at best, worthless sodium and thus exacerbate the residual alkalinity problem.

As the total hardness excedes the temporary hardness this water is a good candidate for decarbonation by boiling or lime treatment. If you were to use split lime treatment and were successful in removing 20 mg/L magnesium you might, based on the usual ability to reduce alkalinity to around 50 ppm as CaCO3, wind up with about 10 mg/L calcium and 10 mg/L magnesium. This would give you a residual alkalinity of around 37 ppm as CaCO3. With the water so treated you should be able to brew most styles of beer. The good news is that the sulfate is low so that you would have no trouble with continental lagers. For British style beers you would want to supplement the sulfate with gypsum. Do this before lime treatment or boiling as the extra calcium will aid in bicarbonate removal. With just boiling most of the calcium would be removed as would a little of the magensium so that you would definitely want to supplement calcium with the chloride for continental beers and the sulfate for British.

As lime treatment is somewhat involved and requires monitoring of pH I guess I would recommend boiling. Add a teaspoonful of calcium chloride for continental style beers and 2 tsp. of gypsum for UK style for each 5 gal treated and do this before boiling for the reason given above. This should get you started against the day you understand brewing water chemisty more fully.

Untreated the hardwater would be limited to dark beers such as stouts or very dark lagers.

As an alternative to decarbonation by boiling or lime treatment the water can be treated with acid. As sulfate and chloride are realtively low you could add fair amounts of sulfuric and or hydrochloric acids without getting the associated anion concentrations too high. In the UK one can easily obtain a foodgrade blend of these acids sold as "CRS". In the US, there is, AFAIK, np similar option.