[morticaixavier]

Hoser, You are spot on about me not knowing enough about water chemistry. So what I ended up doing is buying a coupel of gallons of plain old spring water which I will add to my brewing water and hope that will work well enough.

Thanks for all the info, as I get into this water stuff more I am sure to have more questions.

[hoser]

We all just want you to brew the best beer possible   Hope it turns out great.  As with brewing there are very few absolutes and lots of ways to arrive at the same destination.   Unfortunately there are lots of different opinions to go with homebrewing, some more polarizing than others, but the goal is all the same: To brew great beer!  Good luck with the brew, let us know how it goes.

[Kit B]

For CA Common, you want fairly soft water, as this is a style that developed from using snow-melt water.
IMHO, R/O with a touch of spring water should get you where you need to go.
I've done versions with hard & soft water & liked both results.
The harder water had a little more hop bite, but all have turned out nicely.
Seems this style is hard to kill.

[morticaixavier]

For CA Common, you want fairly soft water, as this is a style that developed from using snow-melt water.
IMHO, R/O with a touch of spring water should get you where you need to go.
I've done versions with hard & soft water & liked both results.
The harder water had a little more hop bite, but all have turned out nicely.
Seems this style is hard to kill.

Yeah, that's one of the reasons I like it. and it's a 'local' style. The test batch I brewed with water that has so much calcium that after boiling two kettles full in my tea kettle there was a noticable white flaky buildup.

The the next batch was with filtered sacremento water.

and this one was with RO + 2 gallons spring water.

we will see.

[skyler]

Morticaixavier's water is the same as my water, which is extremely variable on any given day, but is always high in bicarbonate. While it allegedly changes a lot from season to season, the annual water report looks like this:

Calcium 33
Bicarbonate 336
Magnesium 59
Sodium 79
Chloride 52
Sulfate 81

I use this filtered for porters and brown ales, and have has some success adding gypsum to "Burton" levels for certain hoppy beers. However, I have had some issues with this water, and am happy to be moving back to the east bay area where I will have nice soft water.

[kgs]

For CA Common, you want fairly soft water, as this is a style that developed from using snow-melt water.
IMHO, R/O with a touch of spring water should get you where you need to go.
I've done versions with hard & soft water & liked both results.
The harder water had a little more hop bite, but all have turned out nicely.
Seems this style is hard to kill.

Yeah, that's one of the reasons I like it. and it's a 'local' style. The test batch I brewed with water that has so much calcium that after boiling two kettles full in my tea kettle there was a noticable white flaky buildup.

The the next batch was with filtered sacremento water.

and this one was with RO + 2 gallons spring water.

we will see.

So how was it?

[morticaixavier]

Gosh, that was a long time ago. Not sure I remember. certainly couldn't make any definitive statements about the efficacy of cutting RO with spring water for cali common. but there were not major flaws that I would associate with water problems.

[kgs]

Thanks -- we probably have the same water source (Hetch Hetchy).

[morticaixavier]

Thanks -- we probably have the same water source (Hetch Hetchy).

actually I think you're water is likely much better than mine. I live in Davis and we have (or had anyway) several deep wells that supplied our water. just full of all sorts of nasty minerals. I don't know if the East bay (Oakland and Berkeley) share a water resource with SF but I know the east bay water is quite good for brewing a variety of styles.

Going forward (and this might have already happened, I am not sure on the timeline) we will be getting our water out of the delta as Sacramento does now. That's quite good brewing water as well so hopefully in the future I will be able to start learning how to brew with more natural water.

[kgs]

SF gets all of its water from hetch hetchy, as far as I know. The EB sources can vary. SF water has also been treated with chloramine since 2004 (despite what some brewers think).