Does anyone brew with Primo or Shen spring?

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Hutch4six

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Ok....been brewing now for about 3 years and got about 15 batches under my belt. Extract to partial mash to all grain and i'm wondering how i've gotten myself into this brewing science that is way over my head! I have recently purchased a primo bottled water cooler. My home has a well and a water softener and i've read that i shouldn't brew with that. At any given time I could have up to 15 gallons of bottled water at my disposal. Here is the profile:

Primo:
Nitrate-N 0.12
Total Nitrate- 0.09
Cloride- 12
Copper- 0.016
Sulfate- 7.6
Total Dissolved Solids- 33
Zinc 0.013
Methylene chloride- 0.0012
PH ranges from 5.2-7.41

Everything else is ND. They claim to add formulated blend of minerals
(calcium chloride, magnesium sulfate, and sodium bicarbonate), but I doesn't show how much. I understand that the darker the malt usually means more acid, resulting in a lower ph. Should i use 5.2 stabelizer or use a different water sorce. I can also get Shen Spring water.

Shen Spring:
Hardness- 16
Total Dissolved Solids 54
PH 5.30
Calcium 1.5
Chloride 11
Magnesium 3.0
Nitrogen, Nitrate 4.4
Total Nitrite-Nitrate 4.35
Potassium 1.9
Sodium 5.5
Sulfate as SO4 0.8

Witch is better to start with?
Sorry the post is so long.
Thanks, Cheers!!
 
Subscribing. I have been looking at the Primo water myself. I too have a water softener which I bypass on the rare occasion I use my water. When I do use my water, I generally augment it heavily with bottled distilled and build my minerals back from there. But buying a gallon at a time gets a little cumbersome, especially since I do 10 gallon batches.

My house water is complete trash for brewing. Alkalinity over the top.

I've seen some posts on here where people are using Primo but this is the first time I have seen numbers. I would think with the numbers like what you post above, you could almost treat it like RO water. The chloride seems to be the only thing present in any real amount in either of them.

But I will definitely take a back seat to any of the experienced water chemists that lurk around here.

I am planning on using all Primo water the next time I brew and treating it as I would RO water to see what I wind up with.
 
Thanks for reply.... So I e-mailed primo to try to get a better understanding of their water. The info above was from an 09 report and the updated one was about as clear as mud. They gave me some California report that I could barely read, but they did say that the PH is in the 6 to 7 range and the minerals were Epsom salt, baking soda, and calcite. I guess it's trial and error at this point.
Thanks again.
 
You can find a water analysis for primo somewhere on this site. I use it to dilute with municipal water and treat it as I would RO.

If you use brunwater, I used the RO option. If you use brewersfriend.com water tool you can enter the mineral content directly.
 
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