So Ive been using distilled water to brew with and thats just become too expensive. I am switching to spring water from a local water company. If I post the report from the company, can someone help with me figure out what to do with it for brewing ?
I’m sure people can help.
Most super markets have RO water dispensers and get 30-40 cents/gallon. A lot cheaper than distilled.
spring water i can get a gallon for 10 cents and none of the supermarkets near me have RO, all have spring water.
Yes, that spring water quality says you are in an area with low mineralization. RO machines pop up only in places where the water is highly mineralized. If the bottled spring water is that good, it may be that your local tap water is well-suited too. Have you explored what’s in it? Tap water is far cheaper than any bottled water.
This is a good option. Just be sure to buy a pen style TDS meter (~$15 on Amazon) and test the super market RO machine output before you fill your jug. Sometimes their machine service is spotty. Don’t buy if the TDS is > 25.
the spring water report is what water I am going to use. I do not have other options. This is by far the most convenient and cheapest option for me. any suggestions for additives would be appreciate it
my tap water is beyond awful, full of iron and manganese. Once my town puts in a filtration system, i’ll retest it for use.
The water looks pretty darn good from my (novice) perspective. To me, it appears you can brew nearly any style of beer and may only need some minor additions to tailor it specific ways:
Epsom Salt
Gypsum
Calcium Chloride
Acid (malt, lactic, phosphoric, sauergut, etc)
And on occasion some alkaline buffering may be needed (stouts, etc):
Baking soda or Pickling Lime
As for how much of each to use, it completely depends on the beer you’ll be brewing. Using Bru’N Water Spreadsheet is an ideal place to begin. Plug in your water profile values, and move through the tabs with grist/volumes/water profiles, and it will give you values of each addition that best estimates the final beer water profile. Some key pointers are: you should never be using an alkaline agent AND acid at the same time; using Bru’Ns “color-fullness” water profiles are safe choices almost every time; less is more (this translates well to life in general).
Generally agree with the above, but I don’t see much need for acid given what appears to be a low alkalinity, although alkalinity was not tested. There is probably enough information in your water report to estimate the alkalinity based on an ion balance. Alkalinity is one of the most important inputs into Bru’n Water and mash chemistry generally.
You’re probably right about not needing much (if any) acid additions; I just included it as a possible addition as it will help OP move down the pH scale in those instances where it might be needed (e.g. low gravity light colored grainbill in a no sparge, BIAB batch). I also should have been better at specifying that those agents I listed above would not be used in every beer - they would just be ones you’d want to have on-hand to cover any style you may brew. Sometimes you’d use some, other times you’d use others.
I estimated the bicarbonate value at 15 ppm and the residual alkalinity as 0 using Bru’n Water. The calcium level is very low so you’ll want to add calcium salts to get the calcium between 50-100 ppm for ales generally.
So I am going to be brewing a New England Hazy IPA. My grain bill is: 10lbs 2 row, 1lb flaked wheat, 8 oz carapils, 8 oz crystal 15. I do batch sparging. 4 gallons for strike water, 4 gallons for sparge
I’ve taken a stab at setting up the water profile in Bru’N Water using the spring water data you provided above, but am not confident on the bicarbonate/carbonate values due to not knowing how the ‘Total Hardness’ is being reported (and, in turn, this affects the alkalinity so is important to get correct). Does anyone have any better insight into this aspect?
https://www.simpsonspring.com/s/yearly-test-report-simpsonspring.pdf direct link to water report in case I missed something