Help with making water....

[TimCA]

I am brewing on Sunday and will make my first attempt at tinkering with my water. I got the report back from Ward this week and was quite surprised by the results...
Ca 14, Mg 4, Na 8, SO4 1, Cl 8, HCO3 49. CaCO3 52, CO3 <1, TA CaCO3 40 and PH of 6.1
Being on a well I expected to have harder water.... Any how what do you all use for calculating your water additions? I have pro mash, and have tried to use brewater 3.0 , and don’t have excel so I can’t use Palmers work sheet. I find that when I enter the same numbers into promash and brewater I get two different results, which one should I use?????
Also in tinkering with Pro mash I am finding that there are lots of ways to go, most get all except one thing pretty close in what order should I try to match numbers. I.E. what is more important SO4 OR Cl.... (in Sundays case I am brewing Jamil’s APA)

Thanks for educating me to the point of confusion again....
TimCA

[DannyW]

I got the report back from Ward this week and was quite surprised by the results...
Ca 14, Mg 4, Na 8, SO4 1, Cl 8, HCO3 49. CaCO3 52, CO3 <1, TA CaCO3 40 and PH of 6.1

Except for Ca being a bit low, that should be good water for mashing an SRM 8-11 beer. JZ's APA recipe is 8.7, so you are already in the right ballpark.

Any how what do you all use for calculating your water additions?

I use Palmer's RA spreadsheet with Open Office. Works great!

I.E. what is more important SO4 OR Cl.... (in Sundays case I am brewing Jamil’s APA)

Well, they are both important!

Here's what I've been doing with water for 10 gallon batches since I got my own Ward Lab's report back and fiddled with Palmer's spreadsheet a bit.

First part is make sure the residual alkalinity is correct for your combination of mash and water. Yours is pretty good. A 1ml addition of 88% lactic acid for this batch will get it even closer to center.

Second, make sure you have a minumum of 50ppm Ca in the mash. You are low at 14, so if you are making a 10 gallon batch with about 6 gallons of strike water, add 4g gypsum to bring up the Ca. Since this is a hoppy beer, and your SO4 is also low, the extra SO4 from the gypsum is OK.

Now your mash is done, so sparge with RO or distilled water. Yeah, that's right, you heard me. Palmer says that since the RO water is neither adding nor taking away anything that is not already in balance, that it won't adjust the pH of the mash.

Now that you have all your wort in the kettle, make sure you still have at least 50ppm of Ca in there for yeast health and add any flavor ions that suit the style. In your case you are low on Ca again (I know we adjusted the mash, but then you diluted it back again in the sparge), so add some gypsum and/or CaCl to bring it back up. Typically I find I do them in equal parts, except on hoppy beers where I will go with all gypsum.

So after all that, to brew 10 gallons of JZ's APA with your water I would do:
1. 4g gypsum + 1ml Lactic acid in the mash
2. Sparge with RO. If you sparge with your water you will have to add some acid, I don't know how much but it won't be a lot
3. 8g gypsum in kettle

That should leave you with 54 Ca, 1.3 Mg, 2.7 Na, 2.7 Cl, 120 SO4 which I think should make a fine pale ale.

[polski]

my head just exploded.

[meisterofpuppets]

I'm on city water and want to get a water report from my company. I called them and got redirected five or six times. I made it clear that I wanted a Water analysis not a water quality report. They send the thing in the mail and what do I get? A water quality report. I was so pissed and I didn't want to even attempt to call back because the workers are apparently inept. Even if I'm on city water do I still need to send a sample to a lab? I don't want to do that I'd rather do it over the phone, but who do I ask for at the water company that would know a scrap about water chemistry?

[DannyW]

Good luck getting what you need from the city. Seems all they are interested in is pathogens and mandated TDS numbers and such.

Save yourself the heartache and time and get the $15 test from ward labs.

[TimCA]

Thanks for the replys,
I need to find out how to get Palmers spread sheet, I dont have excell...
I was also directed to brewater 3.0 and am trying that.

Tim

[DannyW]

Thanks for the replys,
I need to find out how to get Palmers spread sheet,

It's in Section 15.3 of How To Brew

I dont have excell...

You can download Open Officefor free or you could use Google Docs and you don't even have to install anything on your computer.

I was also directed to brewater 3.0 and am trying that.

BrewWater works great, I used to use it all the time and still have it installed, but find the spreadsheet more flexible.

[bub]

I think I'm gonna go make water now.... I won't forget to shake
BUB