Struggling to get my head around water chemistry

[cochised]

Living in Tallaght so think I'm on the Blessington water supply
Got a basic water test last year. I realise these values can change over time but how does it stack up?
I brew mainly hoppy pales and have never been totally happy with the results.
Have spent the last few days trying to get my head around the water side of things but must admit am getting a bit lost with it all

Sample Type Water WHC Reference Number WHCWT20
pH N/A
Turb (NTU) N/A
Cond (US) N/A
TDS* (mg/L) N/A
Mg (mg/L) 31
Ca (mg/L) 51
CaCO3 (mg/L) 94
SO4 (mg/L) 55
Na (mg/L) N/A
Cl-(mg/L) 19
Cl (F/T) (mg/L) N/A

Have a basic pH meter and ordered some pH strips to check my mash pH so not totally sure of that yet.
Water pH is 7.8 I believe

I brew using BIAB

Thanks

[DEMPSEY]

Those water reports never really help. The calcium CA number at 51 though is low. Think you have soft water if it's blessington supply.

[pob]

If you are using BeersSmith, then here's a guide we put together for Garden County Brewers.

You just need to set up a profile for yourself (call it eg Tallaght) & use it as the base to build your profiles of it.

The newer version, BeerSmith 3, actually has profiles for Pale Hoppy, Amber Balanced, etc so even handier.

We have done a few tests over the years and the main supply to Bray (sourced from Roundwood) has barely changed over 10+ years (it's still raining on the same mountains & flowing into the same rivers). We're lucky as it's a single source supply & very soft (within a whisker of Pilsen water) allowing us to build up any profile unlike some other sources around Dublin which are blends & likely to change depending on demand & supply by local authority.

[cochised]

Will check that out so, cheers

[AidanMac56]

Hello all, I'm a newbie from Wexford and this thread caught my eye because I have been experimenting with brewing for a number of years.

In the early days I couldn't get a consistent brew and had many infuriating failures. In the end I traced my problems back to my water supply.

The quality, and sometimes godawful smell, of the public water supply where I live varies like a rollercoaster. The only solution that worked for me was to install a Reverse Osmosis system which we now use for all cooking, drinking and brewing. Now I control what's in my brews and have quite satisfactory and consistent results.

[cochised]

Yeah, got an RO system.
Yet to use it but hoping it'll lead to consistency going forward

[stevosan]

I live in Dun Laoghaire. Went through a bad patch there with several undrinkable brews. This forum thought it was probably chlorine esters in the end rendering the brew undrinkable. Now I use a carbon filter first, then half a camden tablet in both mash and sparge water, seems to have fixed it.
Then I re-read Palmers water chemistry chapter and use his chart on the back of his book How to Brew. Find it very useful when brewing either light or dark beers. I tend to brew light coloured NEIPA / American Wheats or else Red IPA's. I have quite different additions - 4g baking soda into the Red IPA's on top of 4g gypsum, 2 g Calcium chloride and 1 g Epsom.
NEIPA's would be 3g Gypsum, 1 g calcium chloride and 0.5g each Epsom salt and table salt.
turned out some great brews during a productive lockdown.

Dont know if this is right but this is my assumptions for Dun Laoghaire water
Calcium: 20.00 ppm
Sulfate: 35.00 ppm 
Magnesium: 1.50 ppm
Chloride: 25.00 ppm 
Sodium: 12.00 ppm
Bicarbonate: 32.00 ppm 

[mr hoppy]

I put up something about how I worked out a Cork water profile in the Rebel Brewers area the other day. The way I did it is relevant to anyone in ROI.

Beyond that I'd say that I use a campden to remove chlorine and Bru'nwater which reflects the impact of acid additions on bicarbonate levels.



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[jonmuni]

I live in Dun Laoghaire. Went through a bad patch there with several undrinkable brews. This forum thought it was probably chlorine esters in the end rendering the brew undrinkable. Now I use a carbon filter first, then half a camden tablet in both mash and sparge water, seems to have fixed it.
Then I re-read Palmers water chemistry chapter and use his chart on the back of his book How to Brew. Find it very useful when brewing either light or dark beers. I tend to brew light coloured NEIPA / American Wheats or else Red IPA's. I have quite different additions - 4g baking soda into the Red IPA's on top of 4g gypsum, 2 g Calcium chloride and 1 g Epsom.
NEIPA's would be 3g Gypsum, 1 g calcium chloride and 0.5g each Epsom salt and table salt.
turned out some great brews during a productive lockdown.

Dont know if this is right but this is my assumptions for Dun Laoghaire water
Calcium: 20.00 ppm
Sulfate: 35.00 ppm
Magnesium: 1.50 ppm
Chloride: 25.00 ppm
Sodium: 12.00 ppm
Bicarbonate: 32.00 ppm 

I live in the Pottery Road area and the water has been like old swimming pool water for months! We got a letter from Irish Water saying our water was poor quality, then nothing. There is definitely a high chlorine smell and taste from the water. I went RO a while ago and there's a marked improvement in the beer.

Just wondering, where did you get the make up for the Dun Laoghaire area water? I took a dig round the various sites and found nothing.

Cheers!

[stevosan]

Hi
I assume the water is from Ballymore Eustace in Dun Laoghaire / Glenageary area.
Very soft.
cant find the original source of the info but just found this and is roughly in line (phew!)

http://www.beoir.org/index.php/articles-mainmenu-36/brewing-knowledge/ingredients-mainmenu-44/30-irish-water-profiles

[pob]

According to DLRCoCo, it's a mixture of Ballymore Eustace (Stillorgan reservoir?) & Roundwood (Ballinclea reservoir?), presumably based on supply/demand.

Here is the last private test we did in Bray (Roundwood supply) in Sept 2015, it had barely changed since the previous councils test in 2010 (<2-3mg/L for each mineral).