Bobby_M's Brew Water Adventure

http://www.amwater.com/files/NJ-Elizabethtown.pdf

Has anyone in NJ, on this system, been able to obtain a more comprehensive report with brewing applicable data? If not, what's the best deal on send away water analysis?

Yea Bobby...I got the same BS type report down here in Monmouth Co. "all filler, no beef"....useless! I am curious how you makeout.

I have read that a lot of brewers send water samples to Ward Labs. I am about to do this for my water.

I've contacted NJAW asking for:

•    Calcium (Ca+2) ?
•    Magnesium (Mg+2) ?
•    Sulfates (SO4-2) ?
•    Sodium (Na+) On my report 12-62ppm
•    Chloride (Cl-) ?
•    Bicarbonate / Alkalinity ?

I got back an email saying that they forwarded to the water quality department. I might just have to send a sample out for testing.

So the ward labs test is about $20. Wouldn't it be a cool idea to start a water analysis database indexed by municipal water systems so that everyone on that system can share the same data? Actually, I just found this thread: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/water-quality-chemistry-report-thread-101510/ but I'm wondering if a database would be more useful.

I got a report from my local water department and they sent me data that had: Maximum, Minimum and Average values. Honestly that gives me a ballpark idea but the values vary so greatly that I'm really considering RO filter or home titration testing kits.

We get our water from two different lakes, a river, and a bunch of wells. Which one is pumping which day is anyone's guess.

I'm ignoring it for now, but one of these days I'm going to have to figure something out.

Not that it's a huge difference, but the Ward Labs analysis is $16.50. Closer to $20 if you're counting shipping.

MMW said:

We get our water from two different lakes, a river, and a bunch of wells. Which one is pumping which day is anyone's guess.

Click to expand...

Yea, same situation for me here too.

Bobby, you very well may be on part of network system of many sources.

I sent mine to wards, all the info you need and more. Give them a call, very friendly and helpful.

I live in Hamilton NJ, Mercer County. Aqua Water oversees the water in my area. I got in touch with a person in the water quality department asking for more details. I'll post my results when and if I get a response.

Have you tried calling the city water control and asking? I called and after a few tries, I was sent an excel sheet with all the details I needed and a whole lot more on the 4 sources my water comes from and the 2 that I get most of it from.

I got nowhere with the water company. I was told my request for info was forwarded to the water quality dept and they don't talk directly to customers. I sent my sample to Ward Lab and just received the results via email in less than 2 business days.


CA+2 (calcium) is only 30ppm, Palmer claims 50-150 is a good brewing range.
Mg+2 (magnesium) is 10, good range is 10-30
HCO3-1 (Bicarb) is 72 so I'm good for amber beers.

Sulfates are really low at 15ppm.
Total alkalinity 59.

I still have to learn what to do with all the numbers.

I am sure you know about this, but I have found Palmer's spreadsheet to be pretty slick. The first beer I made with water adjusted using it, however, is still conditioning, so I'll have to report back. I have relatively soft water and made a very dark robust porter.

The nomograph is cool and all, but the spreadsheet is what really helps with the actual salt adjustment. It's at the bottom of How to Brew - By John Palmer - Residual Alkalinity and Mash pH

The water out in my town is so hard that melting ice leaves floaties in the glass that look like I squeezed a lemon in the water. I have a saltwater pool that is probably a better source of brewing water. I use bottled drinking water for now as I cannot get any useful info from our water company. who knows, the water might make stellar beer if I can figure it out!

our water is supposly pretty good in caldwell but i dont know how good for brewing.

will any lhbs or other local places do the test to avoid having to ship?

The total cost for testing at ward was $16.50 to them and $4.80 to ship the sample.

rec'd the follow information regarding my water in mercer county, nj.

Calcium - Non-detect
Magnesium - Not tested
Sodium - 42 mg/l
Chloride - 14 mg/l
Sulfate - Non-detect
Ammonia - Non-detect
Nitrite - <0.25 mg/l
Nitrate - 2.8 mg/l
pH - 7.3-7.8
Hardness - 18 mg/l
Alkalinity - 73 mg/l

belive my water needs some major adjustments. wonder how low the quantity has to be to put a non-detect value?

Bobby_M said:

The total cost for testing at ward was $16.50 to them and $4.80 to ship the sample.

Click to expand...

Maybe I should make a thread about how to do this-they give you free shipping label (shipping to them is free), free box, free bottles, all you have to do is ask for them.

I filled out the request for the prepaid label, box and jars. I got a regular label instead. Also, I noticed that there's a line item on their invoice for prepaid labels so I had just assumed they'd charge you for the return shipping after the fact. How is shipping free for them? Does not compute.

Hey Bobby

Since we have the same water, what are you most concerned about?

I also pull all my water from a 2 stage filter for brewing. I am thinking for only 20 bucks get 2 samples done.. once pre filter one post and see what the difference are?

Have you used Buffer5.2 at all? I started using it a few brews ago? Never really measured my PH, but figured it couldn't hurt.

-Craig

A 'How To' thread on sending in your samples.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/how-send-water-ward-labs-test-129581/#post1453062

I figured this would be a good thread for tracking my brewing water journey as I figure out what the heck I'm doing. The first thing I did was plug all my ward lab numbers into the java interactive nomegraph from Mash pH Nomograph



My first glance reaction is that it explains why my amber beers have been better than the extreme ends of the range.

Calcium is 20ppm lower than the low end of the rec'd range.
SO4 Sulfates are way low at 15 and should be at least 50, but more for bitterness accentuation in IPA. Explains why my IPA is dull.

The next thing I plan to do is figure out what adjustments I should/can make to brew a better Robust Porter. Stay tuned.

Maybe its because I am paying attention to it more, but it seems like the rules of water chemistry are changing. From a lot of "older" stuff that I have been reading, thinking about your water chemistry was considered of little value if even somewhat useless.

In my tortured experience, and based on threads such as this one, it really seems to me that water should be the starting point of your brewing.

My tap water, and even the bottled spring water I bought from the store, had a mineral profile such that if you tried to make a sweet malty beer, it would have very little flavor and a very strong bitterness because of the mineral composition. And I have been reading a lot of similar threads recently.

While some people may get lucky with good water for a certain style of beer, if you brew different styles of beer it seems that the chances are pretty high that you will run into a problem or limitation of achieving the maximum potential in flavor of the beer due to your water. For example if I had made a bitter light colored ale, I probably would not have noticed any problem with my water - in fact it would have been the perfect recipe for my water.

My experience is that knowing you water chemistry and learning how to alter it according to the style you are brewing should be priority #1. I mean, if you do everything perfectly but the beer tastes completely wrong because of the water chemistry, it seems like that is a pretty important thing to pay attention to.

I think the concept of not caring about water is outdated and illegitimate.

Ok, so who is going to help me do some last minute water adjustments for my smoked porter brew this weekend?

The beer is going to be about 30 SRM. I will be treating the 9 gallons of brew water with a campden tablet for chloramine. Does anyone know the ion contributions of campden?

Unfortunately the only salts I have available in short time frame is Gypsum CASO4, Baking Soda NaHCO3 and Epsom MgSO4.

Can you calcium chloride and calcium carbonate at a drug store or something?

If I can get CaCl somewhere, here's what I'm thinking.

You can get calcium chloride at a pool chemical store, it is also the ingredient in damp-rid and is used as road salt. Pick your poison. Also, I noticed you bicarb is sky high and your RA is 260. I believe I read recently to not really take the RA above 200 or so. If I remember correctly, Palmer said that dark malt isn't acid itself but is just capable of buffering. It might be good to do some more research on that aspect.

I think I'm confused then because a high RA is the only to get the sheet to put the best color range near my 30 SRM. How would I get there otherwise?

The acids in the dark malts counteract hardness, making a balance. Low alkalinity is how to make yellow beers.

Thanks Henry, that lines up with my reading and the worksheet. Any ideas where to buy Chalk at everyday local stores?

For comparison here's the spreadsheet with the profile from Dublin entered:



I've noticed that Palmer's spreadsheet and nomograph kind of go off the deep end when trying to make really dark beers.

Maybe you could pose the question in the "science" forum so a water guru might spot it easier?

That's a toughy. Try calling local healthfood stores for calcium carbonate.

It's in all antacids, but finding it alone locally-better call.

Bobby Give Corrado's a call, they have stcoked up on alot of HB items...including water agents. If they don't have what you need I may...I'll be happy to share. I'm brewing both a a porter and a stout this w/e and def need to make some adjustments. I have all the same questions as you so we're in the same boat.

I'm actually heading out crabbing tomorrow so I doubt I'll make it up to corrado's. I'm going to try a pharmacy and GNC to see if I can find pure CACO3 as a calcium supplement.

You can get calcium carbonate at a pharmacy. I saw a bottle of it at my pharmacy the other day.

Cool, I tried the vitamin isle at Walmart on my way home but everything either had VitaminD in it or a bunch of filler chemicals. I'll go to proper pharmacy tomorrow.

Ok, I stopped at like 4 different pharmacies and vitamin stores and no one had pure CaCO3. Given that and the fact that I have to brew a Smoked Porter tomorrow. Here's what I'm thinking based on the salts I do have on hand.

Given 30 SRM, I really need to get the RA up a bit. I also wanted some more sulfate and calcium but I'm trying not to put the sodium through the roof.

Here's my original water:

Calcium Magnesium Bicarbonate Sodium Chloride Sulfate
(Ca ppm) (Mg ppm) (HCO3 ppm) (Na ppm) (Cl ppm) (SO4 ppm)
30 ......... 10 ............. 73 ............. 28 .......... 53 ............. 15


Residual Best for Chloride to Best for
Alkalinity this color Sulfate Ratio this style
33 .... 8 to 13 SRM ...3.53 ... Very Malty

If I add 2g gypsum and 5g baking soda, I can get:

Calcium Magnesium Alkalinity Sodium Chloride Sulfate
(Ca ppm) (Mg ppm) (CaCO3 ppm) (Na ppm) (Cl ppm) (SO4 ppm)
50 ........... 10 ........... 191 .......... 88 .......... 53 .......... 64


Residual Best for Chloride to Best for
Alkalinity this color Sulfate Ratio this style
149 .... 17 to 22 SRM .... 0.83 ....Balanced

I guess the reassurance I'm looking for at this point is that the treated water should produce a better porter than untreated and that I'm not pushing anything out of whack.

I'll test my mash PH and maybe add a touch more baking soda if it drops below 5.
I do have some mgSO4 (epsom salt) on hand but I didn't see any positive affect in using it since my magnesium is within desired range.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

This is where I sent mine to. They sent me a box with the bottles in, I filled them up and mailed it back. I was in e-mail contact with one of their people and told them what i wanted to test for and they told me the cost. Pretty easy. Maybe someone will get use from it, or maybe not, just wanted to add my 2 cents.

Commercial Testing Laboratory, Inc.

Bobby_M said:

Ok, I stopped at like 4 different pharmacies and vitamin stores and no one had pure CaCO3.

Click to expand...

I didn't see this post till today. I would have suggested The Brewers Apprentice down in Freehold, that's where I got my water salts. I probably could have even given you some.

Also, we have the same water company and at best, all I was able to get was a range for each mineral in the list. I called them and unexpectedly got someone helpful, who took my callback # when she realized the info she had wasn't going to help me.

Later that day I got a call from a nervous-sounding water quality engineer (!?) who sounded like he was calling from his cell - I got the impression he thought I was having some kind of problem. I told him that I'm a homebrewer and it helps to know specifics about the mineral content of the water. He told me he didn't have the information in front of him, but that he could get back to me the next day if I had specific things I was looking for.

The next morning he called me back and gave me the info they had, but it wasn't specific quantities, only a range. I wound up getting a test from Ward Labs anyway.

I though brewer's apprentice would have the stuff but it's like a 40 minute ride for me one way and I didn't have a chance to drive down. I went ahead with the baking soda and gypsum additions and my mash PH was in the range of 5-5.2 depending on how you read the test strips. Here are the test strips I used:

According to Brewing Water Chemistry Calculator | Brewer's Friend after your additions you are a little low on calcium, but the color, pH, and flavor look pretty good.

I agree but I was also just happy to hit what I'd consider acceptable ranges with what I had. Unfortunately my water starts out high in sodium and low in calcium. At least I was in the 50-150 range there.