MattHollingsworth

Recipes 

Hey guys.

So, looking for my local water analysis online and found it.

It lists "total hardness" as 20, as measured using German Degrees of Hardness.

I then found this calculator for converting that:

Cactus2000: Converter for hardness of water

And it says that I'd have 142.94 mg Ca2+/l.

Lists all sorts of other stuff as well.

Firstly, I thought maybe someone would have a use for the calculator. Secondly, I cannot quite wrap my head around this. Is this an accurate way of generating my Calcium number? The water analysis doesn't list just Calcium on it. Thoughts?

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Whiskey

Recipes 

Wow that is 356 ppm. That is seriously hard water, I thought ours was bad at 227.


Edit: Our report also does not have calcium, they seem to lump it into the hardness number. If you contact your local water supplier they usually will supply you with a detailed analysis. That should have the calcium listed.

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menschmaschine

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142.94 is your Calcium number. Many atoms don't exist alone, e.g., a single Ca atom. They exist as a molecule or ion of multiple atoms, e.g. Ca2+, which means 2 Calcium atoms combined to result in a postively charged ion. So, when we say Ca on here, we really mean Ca2+... and mg/L is the same as ppm.

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Piotr

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Total Haddness is a sum of Mg and Ca hardness, so if you dont' know how much Mg you have, there is no way to calculate Ca accurately.

I see that they are just assuming Mg=0; which is not true in most cases. You can theat it as maximum possible level of Ca, but most probably you have some 110-120 ppm. Which is just right for homebrewing.

MattHollingsworth

Recipes 

Thanks Piotr!

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HOMEBREWING SINCE 1997