HOLTER'S WATER

[Holter]

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Hey guys-

For those of you out there who are good with water I wanted to my water by you all to see if I have used the EZ Water Calculator spreadsheet appropriately. First off here is the recipe i am brewing:

EDIT: I SHOULD MENTION THIS IS AN AMERICAN PALE ALE

12 gallons post boil
OG = 1.054
TG = 1.011
Color = 6.4 SRM
ABV = 5.64%
IBU = 37

Fermentables
16.8lbs Maris Otter
2.1lbs Munich Malt
1.05lbs Crystal 10L
1.05lbs Carapils

Cascade 9.1%AA - 60min - .65oz
Cascade 9.1%AA - 35min - 1.2oz
Cascade 9.1%AA - 15min - 1.2oz
Cascade 9.1%AA - 10min - .80oz
Cascade 9.1%AA - 05min - .70oz

I've brewed this beer many times with my cities water profile, which is:

Calcium - 26 to 71 - AVG 53
Magnesium - 11 to 28 - AVG 22
Sodium - 58 to 98 - AVG 85
Chloride - 67 to 94 - AVG 88
Sulfate - 55 to 250 - AVG 168
Alkalinity - 63 to 130 - AVG 106
or as Bicarbonate - 129
Hardness (CaCO3) - 84 to 300 - AVG 217
PH - 7.5 to 8.6 - AVG 8

And here i have added this information into EZ Water Calculator to adjust to style:



My question with these spreadsheets, especially the easy ones like this, are how do i know if I have done the additions correctly? Palmer mentions Residual Alkalinity a LOT on the Waterganza shows, yet most spreadsheets seem to leave it as an afterthought. My residual alkalinity is -249 according to this spreadsheet, which seems weird. Obviously this is something i need to look into understanding more at this point.

Thanks for any input. I will post this over on HBT as well.

[hickster88]

Your Sulfate seems too hi.

[hickster88]

You also seem to have alot of sodium in your water. That will probably need to be diluted. I have only recently decided to start treating my water so I'm new at this spredsheet also. It's crazy when my wife asks what I'm spending all this time on and I tell her water chemistry.

[kal]

My 2 cents: Given how high sodium is and how your city's numbers seem to vary quite a bit over the year, if I lived there I'd be using RO water and starting from scratch.

It seems a bit crazy to be adding any salts when something like your city's S04 can vary from 55 to 250. That's pretty much either extreme that I'd want to end up with, not what I'd want in the water to start with (especially since I don't know which end it's at when I use it).

That's not to say that you can't brew great beers here, but adding salts when there's so much variance to begin with seems somewhat futile. At the very most for this hop-forward beer I'd maybe add a bit of Gypsum to get the (average) Calcium and S04 up a bit. But I wouldn't use much since you have no idea where either are at any given time.

Kal

[kal]

My 2 cents: Given how high sodium is and how your city's numbers seem to vary quite a bit over the year, if I lived there I'd be using RO water and starting from scratch.

It seems a bit crazy to be adding any salts when something like your city's S04 can vary from 55 to 250. That's pretty much either extreme that I'd want to end up with, not what I'd want in the water to start with (especially since I don't know which end it's at when I use it).

That's not to say that you can't brew great beers here, but adding salts when there's so much variance to begin with seems somewhat futile. At the very most for this hop-forward beer I'd maybe add a bit of Gypsum to get the (average) Calcium and S04 up a bit. But I wouldn't use much since you have no idea where either are at any given time.

Kal