I have city water at my house which our Regional Water Authority states has a Hardness of 112.10 mg/l. I would like to get this down by 62 points, but not sure what the best way to do this without bittering the water and adding salts to give the beer an off flavor.
I am newish all grain brewer and this is for a double IPA recipe.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
In addition to brewchez & Denny's answers you can pre-boil your water and let sit overnight. This drops out the calcium carbonate and hence hardness. The water can then be decanted off the thin layer of sediment.
To lower the concentration of anything in water you need to simply add RO or distilled water. TO get from 112 to 62 you would be diluting the water basically in half with RO water.
But doing this is pointless unless you understand and know what the water chemistry is that you are really targeting. Diluting hard water to make it softer won't increase the hop bitterness any.
Hardness is only one component of water. You need to look at the full analysis to see what's causing it in order to know what to do about it. Then, use a water spreadsheet (I recommend Bru'nwater https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/) to calculate how to correct for it. Your fears about water additions are unfounded. If done correctly, no off flavors will be produced.
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