Bellingham Water Questions (municipal water)

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Micah P

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Nov 4, 2015, 4:21:52 PM11/4/15
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Hello, BHG!

My wife and I are moving to town next month and I do a lot of homebrewing. I'm really looking forward to meeting everyone at the January meeting.

We'll be renting a place near downtown Bellingham and I'm curious to know what the city water is like. I gather that most of it comes from Lake Whatcom- does the composition vary much throughout the year? What has your experience been like using it in brewing?

I'd greatly appreciate any wisdom or water reports folks are willing to share.

-Micah

Todd Quessenberry

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Nov 4, 2015, 4:43:52 PM11/4/15
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Hi Micah,

I’m impressed you’re getting prepared for brewing before even moving to town! I’m also near downtown in the York Neighborhood.

I once got a water report from the city (as have many others here), and my takeaway was that it’s consistent throughout the year, and very soft. Many people here have good results just using it straight from the tap. My typical routine is to run it through a charcoal filter to knock down the chloramine and add a bit of calcium (sulfate/chloride) and acid (depending on the beer) to get the mash ph right.

The base water profile I use for city water (used with the EZ Water Calculator):
Calcium: 9ppm
Magnesium: 5ppm
Sodium: 8ppm
Chloride: 4ppm
Sulfate: 7ppm
Bicarbonate: 18ppm

Anyone else hear anything significantly different?

Todd

Jason Mantello

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Nov 4, 2015, 4:54:46 PM11/4/15
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i gleaned this from a post of Frank's (Aslan) i saw on Probrewer a while back

PH - 8.01 
Calcium - 6.0 PPM 
Magnesium - 2 PPM 
Sodium - 11 PPM 
Potassium - 0 
Iron - 0 
Bicarbonate - 32 PPM 
Carbonate - 3 PPM

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Bill Arthurs

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Nov 4, 2015, 4:58:49 PM11/4/15
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Welcome (preemptively) to Bellingham, Micah!


I’ll second Todd’s message. I use similar water quality values in planning my beers and also make tweaks to the Ca, SO4 and pH depending on style - with the overall guidance being that our water is fairly soft.


I received a water report a few years ago upon contacting the City of Bellingham. The contacts I found at that time were Peg Wendling (pwen...@cob.org) and Heather Higgins (hhig...@cob.org).


Happy brewing and hope to see you at a meeting!


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