Ugly Water Report

thirstyone · May 14, 2013, 1:15am

Hello folks!
Hope to get some help figuring out this water report i received today. My home water is quite nasty, so i sent in a sample from a friends well. He doesn’t use a softener, which i assume is a good thing. Anyway, i don’t know much about this besides what i read in Palmer’s book. It doesn’t appear to be worthwhile if i’m reading it correctly. Is there any hope here, or am i SOL? Thanks for any info. :?

PH 7.8
SODIUM 25
CAL 72
MAG 37
TOT. HARDNESS 334
SUL 5
CHLORIDE 40
CARBONATE <1
BICARB 392
TOT. ALK. 321

mabrungard · May 14, 2013, 1:26am

The characteristic that is not surmountable is the magnesium concentration. That will require dilution with RO or distilled water or the water needs to be softened by the excess lime process to drop the magnesium and calcium. All the other ions are manageable.

goldenchild · May 14, 2013, 10:10am

Are you using a water softener? Does your home water taste bad? Sounds like you need to install a filter.

thirstyone · May 14, 2013, 12:20pm

Yeah, my home water isn’t good. I do have a softener but definitely need an iron filter. This particular sample is from a friend in another area. He said his water is good, but maybe not so much. Should i find another source? Would bottled water be better for all grain, or does it need adjusting? Just looking for a reliable source until i get my home water fixed up. Thanks.

goldenchild · May 14, 2013, 11:53pm

I have very very hard water at my house I run one of those Lowes inline filters that goes into my softener. When I’m going to brew I just by pass the softener so that I’m just using filtered water works great.

grainbelt · May 16, 2013, 1:03pm

DO not use water from a water softener.

As for that report that water is very hard, it would need to be cut back for a lot of beer with distilled and then salts added back to get to where you need to be

thirstyone · May 16, 2013, 3:05pm

Thanks for your time. I thought it didn’t look very good. Back to the drawing board! Thanks again. :?

goldenchild · May 16, 2013, 7:18pm

[quote=“grainbelt”]DO not use water from a water softener.

As for that report that water is very hard, it would need to be cut back for a lot of beer with distilled and then salts added back to get to where you need to be[/quote]
Yeah that’s why I bypass the softener and just filter it. Then I add salts back into it and I have had excellent all grain ever since.