Reading My Water Report

[BarefootFriar]

My waterworks printed their annual water report in the Northwest Alabamian this week. I've dutifully copied down all the listed minerals and the rates. Note these are all parts per million. ND means "Not Detected" according to the report.

Chloride 3.89
Sodium 1.33
Sulfate 8.8
Total Dissolved Solids 52.0

Calcium 3.0
Magnesium 1.14
Aluminum ND
Manganese ND
Iron ND
Nickel ND
Carbon Dioxide 2.4
Hardness 12.1
Color ND
Silver ND
Zinc ND
Ph level 7.34
Total alkalinity 9.0

Okay. So how do I read this?

 

[Wynne-R]

Pretty much nothing. You can do anything you want with that water. Start with 3 g of calcium chloride. You definitely need calcium.

Check this: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/brewing-water-chemistry-primer-198460/

 

[erikpete18]

The How-To-Brew water chapter is also a good resource if you're just starting out. You've definitely got really good water as a base, so you can brew as pale as you want without too much effort. I'll agree that you'll need more calcium, I think I've generally seen at least 50ppm for yeast health, so I'd plan on adding some of that. I'm in a similar boat, so I generally add a mixture of calcium chloride and calcium sulfate (gypsum), depending on what type of beer I'm brewing (more sulfate for hoppy beers, more chloride for malty beers). If you like brewing stouts or other dark beers, you may even want to add some calcium carbonate (chalk) or sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) to make sure your pH doesn't get too low. Otherwise, you should be good to go!

 

[Denny]

Pretty much nothing. You can do anything you want with that water. Start with 3 g of calcium chloride. You definitely need calcium.

Check this: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/brewing-water-chemistry-primer-198460/

And/or gypsum if you're making a hoppy beer. Get Bru'nwater and plug in your water values and got from there.

 

[BarefootFriar]

Thanks, everyone. Especially thanks for the Bru'nwater and Yooper's thread links.