Strategy for brew water composition

[dttk0009]

I've decided to get more serious with my brew water. I looked into it about a year ago and played around mostly with getting my mash pH to a good place (via lactic acid), but I've only been using my tap water as the water source for my beers. I'd like to start not only getting mash pH on point (which has been going nicely), but I'd also like the mineral composition of the water to strongly compliment the style I'm brewing.

This is where I need some help from people who have experience with water. I have three water options at my disposal: my tap water (quite hard), cheap bottled water (quite soft) and distilled water. Here's the profiles below:

Tap Water

Ca - 120.24 ppm
Mg - 13.62 ppm
Na - 36.55 ppm
SO4 - 168.11 ppm
Cl - 57.78 ppm
HCO3 - 241.82 ppm

Bottled Water

Ca - 14.30 ppm
Mg - 3.90 ppm
Na - 6.50 ppm
SO4 - 10.00 ppm
Cl - 20.00 ppm
HCO3 - 45.10 ppm

Since the mineral additives are quite cheap, my first throught was "why not just buy distilled every time and just add what you need?". So I have a few questions:

1) Is there any disadvantage to just beefing up distilled water with minerals to the desired balance and brewing with it? Anything to keep in mind?

2) I noticed from playing around with calculations that residual alkalinity absolutley tanks when I add minerals to distilled water. What effect does this have on my beer? Is it in any way influential on flavor?

3) Is there any style that my tap water would do nicely with? I figure it probably isn't a smash hit with ligher colored beers. How's it fare for porters?

Big thanks in advance for reading through the questions and for the advice!

 

[mongoose33]

1. The disadvantage to beefing up distilled (or IME more commonly Reverse Osmosis) water is that you have to lug it if you don't have a system for it. It also costs more from the store than your tap water would. Those disadvantages dissipate if you have your own RO system which, if you're buying water, can offset the cost until you're actually saving money. Mine sure does.

2. What happens to your beer depends on what you're adding.

3. I'm guessing, without putting your water into a water calculator, that it would be fairly good for very dark beers, stouts and perhaps porters.

My own water is very mineralized, very alkaline, and so only suitable for brewing dark beers--which I don't particularly care for. That led me to RO water, and eventually to my own RO system. I ended up paying about $5-6 per brew for RO water when I bought it, plus I had to lug it. I had about, IIRC, $140 in my RO system which meant that 28 brews in, I had essentially broken even. Now it's just a savings.

I've since made my system more permanent, but originally I simply hung it on the wall next to my garage sink, used a garden hose adapter on the faucet to connect to the RO filter, and dumped the output into an Aquatainer whose vent hole I had drilled out to 1/4", the exact size of the output line.

When I brew, I use that water in the Aquatainer, then start it refilling during the rest of brew day so the next time I brew, I have water ready. I also fill jugs which allow me to do other things w/ the RO water, including taking it to work to use in my Keurig coffee maker.

If you don't have a garage sink, you can use a kitchen sink faucet with the garden hose adapter. You can mount the RO filter on a wooden "caddy" that lets it just sit there and....produce RO water for you. Then when done, store it away in a cupboard or closet.

 

[dttk0009]

I had definitely considered that, since the RO filters are fairly affordable these days, but it's more of a space issue since I live in an apartment (bigger space is harder to come by in Germany compared to the US). The keezer already takes up a fair bit of space in the kitchen.