Water Report Help

Brewing Processes
1

Could someone please help me interpret the water report results and I could correct to brew a light beer such as a blonde, berliner or pilsner?  The water appears to be moderately hard and moderately alkaline and pretty hard and therefore more suited to amber ales.

I am trying to understand what all this means and how to alter the water chemistry for lighter beers and also darker beers.
I have looked at the Chapter on Understanding Mash pH in How to brew and am not completely confident in what it all means.

Thanks

Here are some of the parameters, let me know if I need to include more info.

Alkalinity (as CaCO3): 104
Hardness (mg/L as CaCO3): 125 ppm
pH: 7.7
Sodium: 20 ppm
Sulfate: 11 ppm
Chloride: 41 ppm
Fluoride: 1.2 ppm
Calcium: 45 ppm
Iron: <0.05 ppm
Copper: 0.013 ppm
Manganese: 3.3 ppm
Potassium: not listed
Zinc: 0.0023 ppm

2

The magnesium and bicarbonate are also needed for a full report.  Those might be estimated, but I will leave that up to the experts.

Not terrible water.  You can dilute with RO or disdtilled water for light beers, and adjust with a little bit of salts.  If you dilute, you can add some Ca back to get to the >or =50 ppm recommendation.

Martin or Kai both have spreadsheets that could help you adjust the water.

3

Thank you, I will look at the spreadsheets by Martin and/or Kai

4

If you don’t know where to look here are some links.

There is some information on Kai’s page along with the spreadsheet.
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php/Braukaiser.com#Ingedients

Martin’s also has some information and the speadsheet download.

Hope this helps

5

Thanks Jeff! I have looked at both links and think I have some tools. Now time to dust off the water chemistry book for more understanding.

6

Are you sure that the report says the manganese concentration is 3.3 ppm?  That is extremely high if its manganese and would be a very metallic tasting water.  Are you sure its not the magnesium concentration or that if it is manganese, the units were actually ppb (parts per billion)?

Using the 45 ppm Ca and assuming the 3.3 ppm is Mg, then the hardness value is confirmed.  It is magnesium, not manganese.

The alkalinity indicates that the bicarbonate content is 126 ppm.  The overall water report balances acceptably.

Most of the hardness is temporary and the sulfate and chloride are fairly low, so this water is an ideal candidate for alkalinity control by acidification.

All the analyses I just performed where conducted with Bru’n Water.  In addition, all the water adjustments you would need to evaluate are also fully supported in Bru’n Water.  Dialing in the acid additions is easy with the program since it calculates the actual amount of alkalinity consumed with the acid addition used on the Water Adjustment sheet,  In addition, it has you covered for increasing alkalinity too.  To brew a really dark beer, this water might need a little more alkalinity to moderate the pH.

Overall, its a decent water to brew with and be able to adjust.

7

Martin you are correct it is 3.3 ppm magnesium. I was not confident and estimated the hardness based on brewing software but the value was never confirmed.

I am happy to hear my public water is decent. I will revisit the water correction worksheet and am sure to have more questions.

Thanks again!