Reading a water report

I’ve found the latest water report of my area and I’m having trouble pulling out the useful information for brewing water. Here is the link to my local report. http://www.akronohio.gov/cms/resource_library/files/094c5ea93af48a29/aws_2014_all_water_tests.pdf
I’m looking into setting up a charcoal water filter for chlorine/chloramine.

What info is there re brewing looks reasonable. Didn’t see magnesium reported. May have just missed it. Sulfur looks ok, lower than mine as is your sodium. Still would recommend you send off a sample to wards lab as local factors can play a role also.

Overall pretty reasonable water for brewing and I have definitely seen worse!

I’m sure you are already using Campden tabs, right?

I haven’t been using my water. I’ve been buying bottled water. Which I’m trying to get away from and just charcoal filter the chlorine out. It doesn’t look like my water treatment include the use of chloramine.

Chlorine should be removed by a quality filter. I don’t see chloramine, correct. Campden tabs would be cheap insurance. Half tab in 5 gallons.

Really the main chemicals are calcium, mg, na, Cl, bicarbonate , and sulfur. Ph and alkalinity are good to know. If you contact them they may be able to tell you what the magnesium level is( which again I didn’t see)

Actually, 1/4 tab to five gallons. Martin Brungard mentioned a while back that campden is an oxygen scavenger, so overdosing can strip oxygen that you need for yeast growth.

Good to know ( and therefore even less expensive ). I had been using a quarter tab in both strike and sparge water. I’ll check it out.

Ok, so not a problem to have used a half tab pre boil in 5 gallons, but also not necessary to use that much, so…quarter tab it is. ( more of a problem if you were topping off with water that had not been boiled in extract. )

SNOBS water

There are many levels of water treatment. Northern Ohio water is good but not the best for lighter styles. I use Ca salts and phosphoric acid (after charcoal filter) for most ales and go 100% distilled on light stuff.

Download Bru’n water and read the water knowledge tab. BNW

Zwiller, thanks for the SNOBS link, even though I don’t live in Ohio anymore, its a good discussion. Especially interested in the “driving off Chlorine” section, that actually states the Campden tabs (sodium or potassium metabisulfite) are good at reducing “hot side oxidation”, so another benefit to using the tabs.

Glad you liked it voodoo. I really like the simplicity coupled with the math behind it. Water treatment is very easy to go overboard with IMO… Also, the authors: Schick is a multiple NHC winner and nationally ranked BJCP IIRC, Cole (Fat Heads) is multiple pro award winner (Headhunter IPA), and AJ deLange is pretty much the godfather of modern water treatment for the homebrewer.