NickinWI
Active Member
This is my first post, but I've been reading so much - what a wealth of knowledge here. :rockin: Thanks to all of you for that, and I hope some day I can contribute in some small way!
Short background:
I was planning on brewing my first AG BIAB batch this Sunday and figured I would call my municipality for a water report just like JP recommends in How to Brew...
Come to find my alkalinity is at 700 mg/L, which is pretty much off the charts from what I can see. I ran Palmers calculator, ez water and the only way to fix it seems to be going with 90-100% distilled water....
I have just been using straight tap water for my first extract brews (no tablets for chlorine or anything), but I do have a water softener I could run. Not sure if that would help or not, and I'm not sure what my numbers are after softening.
My beer has tasted pretty good so far, but always had a weird VERY slight little sweetness to it that I couldn't really nail down. Wasn't sure if it was due to extract, but I've had the same flavor there across all styles. I've read through all the lists of defects and none of them really seem to match.
Dilemma:
What should I do for water?
1 - Use softened water?
2 - Just go buy distilled and add necessary salts/minerals I need per style?
3 - Add stuff to my tap water to drop the alkalinity?
Here is the local water report. This is specific to the municiple well that feeds my subdivision.
Thanks so much for any of your help/insight I thought I was fine since my water tasted pretty good, but I'm sort of guessing not...
Nick