Ward results let the battle begin !

For all you smart guys let me know whats up with this water.

ph 8.8

tds 756
eletrical conductivity 1.26
cations/anions 14.1/14.5
sodium 321
potassium 1
calcium 2
magnesium <1
total hardness 9
nitrate 0.1 safe
sulfate 32
chloride 64
carbonate 30
bicarbbonate 593
total alkalinity 537
floride 1.43
total iron <0.01

Thanks Pat

It is extremely alkaline and has been passed through a water softener and so the sodium is also extremely high. It shouldn't be used for brewing without heavy dilution.

It looks like water softener water. The Ca and Mg are very low and the Na is high. Don't even think about using that water for brewing.

Sorry,

This is the water we use to brew and it does not go to my softner.
We have won several medals and scores in the mid forties with our beer.

Pat

lehr said:

This is the water we use to brew and it does not go to my softner.
We have won several medals and scores in the mid forties with our beer.

Pat

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What styles turned out the best? I am guessing very dark beers.

Well we scored a 41 with our belgian dark strong and a 41 with our Kolsch both ends of the spectrum.

Pat

lehr said:

This is the water we use to brew and it does not go to my softner.
We have won several medals and scores in the mid forties with our beer.

Pat

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Color me suspicious. Why would you have a water softener if your water is so low in calcium and magnesium?

It's a well and I think we were told we needed it by sears they did their little water test on a sample I thought it had something to do with iron it was 11 years ago.

Pat

When I get home I will trace this line to make sure it does not go into the softner but I dont believe it does.

Can this water be fixed ?

Thanks
Pat

That's really terrible. You should report those folks to the BBB or someone. Of course after 11 years that crook has probably gone on to sell Kangi units or something. A water softener is absolutely useless against this water and as your iron is so low you don't need it for that either.
[Edit: but now I see there may be a question as to whether it actually does go through the softener. If it does then the softener is doing yeoman duty and I owe the Sears guy an apology]

But back to the main subject. How does this water taste? To make if from DI water you would add 0.9 grams of sodium bicarbonate and 0.1 grams of table salt. I can't imagine it tastes very good nor that beer made from it, especially a Kölsch, would either. And that's based just on the taste of the water. The RA on this is huge (535) and would pull pH up to the mid 6's in a Kölsch. That's going to have a detrimental effect on mash, boil and fermentation. The beer would come out pretty lifeless. Even an inexperienced judge wouldn't score it at 41.

Normally in well water the bicarbonate comes from respiring bacteria. The resulting carbonic acid dissolves limestone and you wind up with calcium bicarbonate and a low pH. Your pH is very high - in fact higher than WHO recommendations for potable water. I can't thing of a mechanism that would produce this water other than that you live over a deposit of natron. Has the health department approved this well?

Something doesn't compute here.

[Edit] No, it can't be fixed except by extreme dilution in which case why bother - just use RO. If it turns out it came through the softener (and it certainly looks as if it did) you had hardness of nearly 700 ppm as CaCO3 (and maybe some iron too). There are various ways to deal with that one of which, for brewing, is not a softener (unless it precedes an RO unit which, at this level of hypothetical hardness, it should).

Na at 321, no hardness, it has to be going through the softener. If there is a softener in the house, your sample water came out of it. It is possible you have a tap before the softener or an outside tap or a bypass, but you didn't use it.

The water tastes good and smells good could the test be off ?
The scores I provided were from national rank bjcb judges.
Should the water taste bad or smell funny, there are houses within half a mile or less that there water smells like boiled eggs.
Could there be anything toxic in it ?

Thanks Pat

pkeeler said:

Na at 321, no hardness, it has to be going through the softener. If there is a softener in the house, your sample water came out of it. It is possible you have a tap before the softener or an outside tap or a bypass, but you didn't use it.

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I did use the outside tap but like I said I'll check the lines when I get home. I'm pretty sure it's before and I called my uncle who plumbed my house and he agreed...But I'll check

I just noticed that you're from Michigan. The Midwest is the land of hard water. Your water supplier is probably performing ion-exchange water softening before its sent to you. Many cities in the Midwest including my city soften their rock-hard water this way prior to putting it in the pipes. Check with the city to find out if they soften their water this way. I have no choice but to use an RO system for my brewing water.

lehr said:

I did use the outside tap but like I said I'll check the lines when I get home. I'm pretty sure it's before and I called my uncle who plumbed my house and he agreed...But I'll check

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That's a pretty strong argument for it being pre-softener but the bibs at my house were post (until I took the softener out) though the hydrants were pre.

Nothing in this report suggests that the water should taste foul. It was the mineral/salty quality I was referring to. I don't like the taste of bicarbonate. Perhaps it isn't as bothersome to you if at all but almost a gram per liter just seems like a lot.

As for the beers, I'd really like to taste that Kölsch. Maybe it was great. I've been surprised more than once in this hobby. Two years back a guy won BOS in our pretty big local competition with lots of Master/National/Professional judges with a Kölsch he knocked off from extract. I wouldn't have predicted that.

mabrungard said:

I just noticed that you're from Michigan. The Midwest is the land of hard water. Your water supplier is probably performing ion-exchange water softening before its sent to you. Many cities in the Midwest including my city soften their rock-hard water this way prior to putting it in the pipes. Check with the city to find out if they soften their water this way. I have no choice but to use an RO system for my brewing water.

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It's well water.

I know that the bib closest to my garage is in line with the softener but the water I had tested and use to brew with is at the other end of the house and not connected.
Could the test be wrong should I email Ward labs.
I'm out of the Kolsch AJ sorry.
I also dont notice any saltyness to the water.

Pat

I don't think so. If you had posted

cations/anions 14.1/14.5
sodium 24
potassium 1
calcium 221
magnesium 24
total hardness 537
nitrate 0.1 safe
sulfate-S 32
chloride 64
carbonate 30
bicarbbonate 593
total alkalinity 537
floride 1.43
total iron <0.01

which is something like what you would expect (guessing on the ratio of calcium to magnesium hardness though) if the sample were pre-softene, I don't think anyone would have been surprised. Given that you are in a hard water region this looks pretty normal and you probably would have received advice about decarbonation by boiling, lime treatment, acid addition and dilution. So I'd wait to see whether you are pre or post softener before worrying about the accuracy of the report. I've always considered Ward Labs to be pretty reliable. I did have a problem with them when people posted, as you did "sulfate 32". I could never get their profiles to balance. Then someone cut and pasted from an e-mail and I noticed that they report it "Sulfate - S 32". That -S makes all the difference in the world. It's not the usual way to report sulfate but as long as we know they are doing it there is no problem.

Now I just noticed, from your posting, something else funny. If you have water at pH 8.8 and bicarbonate at 593 your carbonate should be

(593/61)*(10^(8.8 - 10.38))*60 = 15 and they report 30

Also, 593 for bicarbonate from an alkalinity of 537 implies alkalinity is defined with a titration end point of 3.3 whereas 4.3 is more usual and anything less than that rare. So there are some things I don't understand about Ward Labs but they are definitely not top level concerns.

Ok I checked my water lines and the water tested does not go though my softner. There is a tee in the line coming off my well pressure tank that goes out to the bibb about 8 inches after that there is another tee that goes into the softner. Is there anyway that the water from the softner could migrate back to the bibb ?

Thanks Pat

If the pressure downstream of the softener were somehow higher than the bladder tank pressure and you opened the outside bib then there could be flow from the rest of the house back through the softener and out the bib but how could the pressure in the house get higher than the pressure in the bladder tank?

Try taking a sample of water from the same source and heating it to just under the boil. If it doesn't turn cloudy then the report you have fits. If it does turn cloudy then it doesn't and we'll go from there.

ajdelange said:

If the pressure downstream of the softener were somehow higher than the bladder tank pressure and you opened the outside bib then there could be flow from the rest of the house back through the softener and out the bib but how could the pressure in the house get higher than the pressure in the bladder tank?

Try taking a sample of water from the same source and heating it to just under the boil. If it doesn't turn cloudy then the report you have fits. If it does turn cloudy then it doesn't and we'll go from there.

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Thanks I'll give it a shot and let you know, I dont think the pressure could be any higher then at the tank.

Thanks for the help.

Pat

Aj, It did not turn cloudy I also did the same test with the soft water and it did not turn cloudy either...Now what ?

Thanks Pat

At this point we have established that you live in an area with very hard water and have a water softener installed but the well apparently produces very soft water i.e. a pre softener sample tests at the lab as very soft and doesn't exhibit the symptoms associated with hard water when heated. The simple answer is that you are getting softener output somehow even though the evidence suggests otherwise. It's grasping at straws at this point but next time you take a shower note how slippery your skin feels. Then, if your softener has a bypass valve on it (and most do), try putting it in bypass, and see if your skin feels less slippery the next morning. You can also repeat the heat test if you like.

Aj, I think I'm going to have it retested I will take the sample right from the pressure tank also I will do the boil test from the pressure tank.
Do you think all the numbers on the test will change if in fact it was bleeding back and I can isolate it from the softener.

Thanks again
Pat

Well my thesis at this point is that there is some portion of the run from the pressure tank T to the outside bib that you can't see or that pipes cross or something of the sort. Now if you can see every inch of that run that's a pretty silly thesis but at the moment I see only 2 possibilities

1. You are getting softened water out of that bib
2. The water from your well is that soft.

The reason I suggested bypassing the softener is that if it's bypassed it's out of the loop and it doesn't matter where you get the water from in the system. It will not have been through the softener. If you bypass the softener and the water you get from the system is hard (as determined by boiling, less slipperiness in the shower, test with an aquarium test kit or a retest by Wards) then hypothesis 1 is correct. If you bypass and the water still tests soft then the well produces water that is soft (hypothesis 2). I can explain hypothesis 1. I can't explain hypothesis 2.

Aj, I can see the whole line, I have also bypassed the softener but I'm sure it might take a bit to empty what is in the hot water tank but the water did seem less slippery. I'm going to have a local well place test it next week and see if it's still soft. What does the aquaium test do is it just for hardness ?

Thanks sorry to be a pain.

Pat

New test results after water softner out of the loop for three weeks.

Ph 8.8
sodium 408
potassium 1
calcium 1
magnesium <1
total hardness 7
sulfate 38
chloride 102
carbonate 42
bicarbonate 686
total alkalinity 633

I guess at this point we have to accept that this is what is coming out of your well. It is probably the strangest report I have ever seen. The reported bicarbonate and carbonate levels do not jive with the reported pH but ignoring those and using just the alkalinity number gives a very well balanced report (this also assumes that as it is a Ward Labs report the sulfate is "as sulfur". My only conclusion is that your house must be located over some unusual geological structure.

More to the point this water isn't suitable for brewing (nor really even drinking I wouldn't think). If my well produced this I would give serious consideration to a whole house RO system. What do the local well people have to say about this? I'm sure they would be more than happy to outfit you but it would be interesting to know if there is some region around you where everyone has similar water and what, if anything, they do about it.

Aj, The odd thing is this water does not taste bad but I guess now we know it not good for brewing thank you for your insite we will be using my brewing partners water with adjustments from now on.

Pat

The weirdest thing about this is that Pat consistently scores over 40 at BJCP comps with his water. I've had a bunch of his beers and they are frigin delicious. I'd like to take a look at your plumbing one of these days.

I agree with AJ, that is a weird report. The sodium is astronomic and not suitable for potable water. Anything over 250 ppm sodium would have a plainly apparent salty taste, so something is up. I have heard that there are places in Michigan that have very salty groundwater. I wouldn't brew with it. My hat's off to Pat if he can make it work!

Oh, and to produce the bicarbonate and carbonate numbers that Ward reported, the pH would have to be a little above 9.1.

This is making me want to send my water to Ward and comparing it to the MDEQ lab results just to kind of proof test their methods. There are places around that have pretty larg salt deposits but this just doesn't seem to add up.

If your sodium is that high coming out of your well you should not be using salt in your water softner. You should be using potassium chloride this will lower the sodium in the water. It may take several regeneration cycles to flush the sodium off the resin though.

Well Guys I going to brew a dark english mild this weekend build my water from a different source and see how it works out.
This is the next step maybe from scores in the 40's to gold or Bos (I wish). I know our processes are sound I'm pretty excited to brew and check the results !

Thanks all
Pat

lehr said:

Aj, The odd thing is this water does not taste bad...

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I wouldn't expect it to taste bad i.e. not musty or metallic or of rotten eggs or anything like that but I would expect it and any beer made with it to taste salty. Does it?

ajdelange said:

I wouldn't expect it to taste bad i.e. not musty or metallic or of rotten eggs or anything like that but I would expect it and any beer made with it to taste salty. Does it?

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No one has ever mentioned it nor have any Judges commented on it being salty. I have noticed when my dogs outside water bowl gets dry it has a white powder on the bottom of it.

Pat

Based on the nutritional data on a box of baking soda and some back of the envelope (or rather in my head) calculations a gram and a half of baking soda in a liter of water should be similar to your water. I'll have to try that later today. My intuition tells me it would have a strong taste but that isn't squaring with your experience.

Incidentally that liter of water would have around a fifth of your RDA for sodium and nearly as much sodium as a McDonalds Hamburger. I'm not a big believer that sodium is particularly unhealthy for people who don't have hypertension sensitive to sodium but obviously many people think sodium is generally unhealthy in excess amounts.