biertourist
Well-Known Member
Although I've been through the general water treatment philosophy threads and have read loads from AJ Delange and fellow Hoosier, Martin Brungard's posts and have a copy of the new BP Water book, I've generally took a pretty casual approach to water treatment so far.
I'm now ready to step things up a notch and fully delve into water chemistry and I have a few questions.
I have a FAIRLY detailed annual water report form my municipality and I have contacted them for a more detailed water report and to see if I can sign up for notifications in the event that they switch from our primary surface reservoir to our backup surface reservoir; I also have the cheap HomeDepot test kit and I plan to do an initial test myself this week.
My municipality's report (Kirkland, Washington) is missing ppm of Chlorine, whether Chloramine treatment is used (I think it is) and ppm of Magnesium, which is unfortunate. Here's their report: http://www.kirklandwa.gov/Assets/Public+Works/Public+Works+PDFs/Water/2013+Water+Quality+Report.pdf
As noted our water almost always comes from the Tolt River Reservoir and looks like this:
HA! Right as I was typing this I got the detailed and more up-to-date report from the city so adding some additional details:
They haven't answered the chloramines question yet, but I'm assuming that the chlorine IS as chloramines; that seems to be the trend-right?
I've got such nice soft water I think I'm just going to use a sediment cartridge plus a 2 stage carbon filter and I won't bother with RO as I don't want the added expense reservoir, nor do I want all the water waste and slow performance. -I'm planning on pumping at 2 gpm fill rate to ensure adequate contact time with the carbon. I'll get one of those TDS meters that goes on the inlet and outlet of the filter just to monitor it for ****s and giggles and then I'll do another water test after putting on the filtration system and then I'll plug those numbers into Bru'n water.
Seems like I'll just need to ensure I get my calcium levels up for yeast nutrition and beyond that I just make salt additions for flavor contribution. (Although the ph is higher than I expected so I'm not quite sure what to expect there.)
-Any other comments or tips given my water and plans?
My treatment plan then is to start from my already soft water, then carbon filter it to remove the stuff I don't want (chlorine/ chloramine at the top of the list), then I'll ensure that I add enough salts to get my min of 50 ppm of Calcium for proper yeast nutrition and Chloride and Sulfate as appropriate for flavor enhancement/highlight. -I'll plug all of this into Bru'n water to estimate if I'll hit an appropriate mash ph and/or how much 88% lactic acid I should add. Then I'll test a cooled sample of the mash 10 min in with my calibrated ATC pH probe (Milwaukee mw102 recently cleaned) to confirm all is going according to plan.
Thanks in advance!
Adam
I'm now ready to step things up a notch and fully delve into water chemistry and I have a few questions.
I have a FAIRLY detailed annual water report form my municipality and I have contacted them for a more detailed water report and to see if I can sign up for notifications in the event that they switch from our primary surface reservoir to our backup surface reservoir; I also have the cheap HomeDepot test kit and I plan to do an initial test myself this week.
My municipality's report (Kirkland, Washington) is missing ppm of Chlorine, whether Chloramine treatment is used (I think it is) and ppm of Magnesium, which is unfortunate. Here's their report: http://www.kirklandwa.gov/Assets/Public+Works/Public+Works+PDFs/Water/2013+Water+Quality+Report.pdf
As noted our water almost always comes from the Tolt River Reservoir and looks like this:
- Total Akalinity as CaCO3: 17.7ppm
- Calcium as CaCo3: 23.4 ppm
- Hardness as CaCo3: 25 ppm
- Iron: 30 ppb
- Manganese: 1 ppb
- pH range: 8.19 - 8.51 --Odd that the pH is so high with hardness so low...
- Potassium: 0.1 ppm
- Sodium: 0.79 ppm
- Sulfate: 7.4 ppm
HA! Right as I was typing this I got the detailed and more up-to-date report from the city so adding some additional details:
- Aluminum: 32 ug/L
- Chloride: 2.6 mg/L
- Fluoride: 0.94 mg/L
- Magnesium: 0.36 mg/L
- TDS: 37.3 mg/L
They haven't answered the chloramines question yet, but I'm assuming that the chlorine IS as chloramines; that seems to be the trend-right?
I've got such nice soft water I think I'm just going to use a sediment cartridge plus a 2 stage carbon filter and I won't bother with RO as I don't want the added expense reservoir, nor do I want all the water waste and slow performance. -I'm planning on pumping at 2 gpm fill rate to ensure adequate contact time with the carbon. I'll get one of those TDS meters that goes on the inlet and outlet of the filter just to monitor it for ****s and giggles and then I'll do another water test after putting on the filtration system and then I'll plug those numbers into Bru'n water.
Seems like I'll just need to ensure I get my calcium levels up for yeast nutrition and beyond that I just make salt additions for flavor contribution. (Although the ph is higher than I expected so I'm not quite sure what to expect there.)
-Any other comments or tips given my water and plans?
My treatment plan then is to start from my already soft water, then carbon filter it to remove the stuff I don't want (chlorine/ chloramine at the top of the list), then I'll ensure that I add enough salts to get my min of 50 ppm of Calcium for proper yeast nutrition and Chloride and Sulfate as appropriate for flavor enhancement/highlight. -I'll plug all of this into Bru'n water to estimate if I'll hit an appropriate mash ph and/or how much 88% lactic acid I should add. Then I'll test a cooled sample of the mash 10 min in with my calibrated ATC pH probe (Milwaukee mw102 recently cleaned) to confirm all is going according to plan.
Thanks in advance!
Adam