Norman, OK water profile. Can I work with this?

[acarter5251]

Hi, I am currently living in Norman, OK and am considering using tap water from my charcoal filter to brew if it is a reasonable enough profile to work with. I plan to use campden tablets to get rid of any residual chloramines in my water as well. I was able to find this average water profile from the city's testing data and was just wondering if this is a reasonable water profile, or should I continue using RO water to build from even if it means having to go to the store to get water anytime I want to brew?

I was also wondering how to go about converting these numbers into something I can input into Bru'n Water or Beersmith to play with adjustments?

Thanks in advance!

 

[cswis86]

Are you doing extract or all grain? If extract I wouldn't worry too much about the water as long as you remove chlorine and chloramine.

Your alkalinity is pretty high. Really you'd want less than 100 mg/L and ideally less than 50 mg/L for lighter styles. You would be fine brewing porters/stouts with your tap water and possible some ambers but anything lighter than that world be difficult.

I would also suggest you send out your water for analysis here:

https://producers.wardlab.com/brewerskitorder.php

It will give you a more detail description of your water profile.

 

[cswis86]

Oh, and ppm and mg/L are equivalent if that helps you enter things into a calculator.

 

[ajdelange]

The major difficulty you will experience with this water is the temporal and spatial variations due to the use of three sources. You will be better off installing and RO system which removes both the minerals and, thus, the variations in their concentrations.

 

[acarter5251]

The major difficulty you will experience with this water is the temporal and spatial variations due to the use of three sources. You will be better off installing and RO system which removes both the minerals and, thus, the variations in their concentrations.

That's what I was afraid of. I guess I'll just keep building from RO for now then. Thanks!

 

[mabrungard]

That water report does not provide all the info you need for brewing use, but its close. Bru'n Water has data converters that can help you with the converting the Ca, Mg, and Alk values. It's not hopeless, but having 3 differing sources is likely to mean that the concentrations will vary significantly.