Found my water report, is it enough?

I finally found my local artesian well report on-line, but reading through it, it seems there are some things missing: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4l...djZS00MGZmLWI1ZDktZmUwZDIzNGU5MzRj/edit?hl=en

It lists:
Nitrate-N .42 mg/L
Fluoride .13 mg/L
Chloride 3.6 mg/L
Sulphate 9.5 mg/L
Zinc .007 mg/L
Sodium 6.29 mg/L
Hardness (calcium carb) 164 uS/cm

Everything else is either none detected, or just not there.

Is this enough info to enter into Brewater?
Would it be better to just get a specific report from Ward?

I travel about 5 miles to get this water for free, but I also have access to RO water right here at my house... I just figured building up water from scratch would be more difficult than adjusting spring water.

Thanks for any help/opinion on which route to go.

Your eyes crossed and you picked up the conductivity rather than the hardness which is 65.8 mg/L.

You want to know the individual calcium and magnesium hardnesses. Assuming calcium hardness is 60% of the total which is not an unreasonable assumption but is certainly not guaranteed to be the case you would have 15.8 mg/L calcium and 6.4 mg/L magnesium. You also want to know the alkalinity which we can estimate at 66 based on the other ions but that is also just an estimate. These estimates are doubtless good enough to feed into a spreadsheet.

Building up water from scratch is always easier than modifying spring water because scratch water (low ion water) is just spring water with nothing in it. This means you don't have to take what is in the water initially into consideration - it's always 0 on every ion. In this particular case the alkalinity is high enough that it can cause problems with some beers. You would have to either dilute with low mineral water or add acid to control this before going on to augment the sulfate, chloride and calcium. With pure water you can leave out the dilution and acid addition steps.

If you have access to food grade sulfuric and hydrochloric acids you can simultaneously dispose of alkalinity and augment sulfate/chloride but FCC grades of these chemicals are astronomically expensive and hard for a home brewer to obtain (not to mention that you can do yourself a mischief with these if you don't handle them properly). And you'd still need to do calcium supplementation. So I still think it's just simpler to add a bit of calcium sulfate, calcium chloride and calcium hydroxide (if needed) to low ion water than it is to adjust existing water.

Thanks so much for taking the time to respond. Building up the RO water sounds like the way to go for many reasons.
So to be clear, I would build up water for mashing, but sparge with straight RO water?

You can always sparge with RO water if you want to but it might be simpler for you to treat the entire volume of brew water the same way and do it at the same time (if you have an HLT big enough to hold the entire volume of water). It really depends on what you are brewing and how you go about brewing it. What you do not want to do is let runoff pH rise high enough that tannins are extracted from the grain husks. With RO water to which you have added no alkali that's not a problem. It's really not much of a problem in any case as a bit of lagering will allow the polyphenols to complex and drop out but if you want to minimize conditioning time it is something to be aware of.

This is from a Sand and Gravel aquifer, so I'm surprised to see the hardness as high as reported. I'm not sure that the Seattle area has carbonate formations in their geology, but the result suggests they do. The calcium or magnesium content is only a result of the geology, so there is no way to make a meaningful or useful estimate of the contributing ions.

While I would prefer food-grade acids, it appears that ACS Reagent grade acids would be suitable for brewing use. These meet American Chemical Society standards for purity and represent the highest purity available. The thing that is missing is the certification that they are indeed pure and free from dangerous impurities. I won't recommend acids with this purity standard, but they are the best that you can get. There are plenty of places that sell this grade of acid for reasonable cost. The average homebrewers only need a teeny quantity of these acids since they are typically at high concentration. Add to the fact that hydrochloric and sulfuric acids are quite dangerous to handle and it should be apparent that only the most savvy and capable brewers should consider their use.

In the case of the OP's water, there is no reason not to use Lactic acid for all alkalinity neutralization. The alkalinity is quite low and the amount of acid needed is low. The benefit of using those mineral acids mentioned above is quite minor given the potentially increased hazard.

That artesian water is quite suitable for brewing. I would supplement the water report with one performed for the brewer. Ward Labs is a good choice.

mabrungard said:

This is from a Sand and Gravel aquifer, so I'm surprised to see the hardness as high as reported. I'm not sure that the Seattle area has carbonate formations in their geology, but the result suggests they do. The calcium or magnesium content is only a result of the geology, so there is no way to make a meaningful or useful estimate of the contributing ions.

Click to expand...

I'd guess (and it would be no more than that) that the utility has added some hardness and alkalinity to raise the saturation index to its current value (based on my 60/40 guess) of -0.33 (undersaturated) WRT CaCO3 in order to protect their distribution system. Halve the alkalinity and hardness numbers and that increases to 0.92 undersaturated. Halve them again (getting closer to my general impressions of what water in that region is like) and you are undersaturated by 1.53.

mabrungard said:

.. The thing that is missing is the certification that they are indeed pure and free from dangerous impurities.

Click to expand...

The thing that is missing is the certification that they are handled and packaged in a facility inspected and approved for the packaging of food (FCC) or drug (NF) products. If you check assays in catalogues you will find them about the same. For example, sodium hydroxide is made using a mercury cathode in an electrolysis cell. You might, therefore, expect some Hg in sodium hyrdoxide and there is: about 0.1 mg/Kg in both ACS and FCC. OTOH ACS grade sulfuric acid contains less arsenic and heavy metals than FCC and NF grades.

Thanks for the responses. Some background of this water...
It was originally tapped for use as supplied water for the entire city. This is well #5 of six.
The well taps an aquifer that is approximately 250' deep.
As the city grew, water demands couldn't keep up, so the aquifer was abandoned, and all the well heads were capped with exception of this one, which freely flows from a pipe at a kiosk at a rate of 10 gallons per minute. It is made available to the public for those that prefer un-chlorinated, and un-fluoridated water. The water is not treated in any way.

As for my system and styles, I brew mostly light to medium ales, some hoppy IPA's, and some darker amber ales.
I use a direct fired mash tun, and I do have a pretty significant HLT, so I could batch all my water.

I just spent the day cleaning and going through my RO system... I have a home anodizing system to go along with my aluminum machining projects (thus the reason for large amounts of RO water) . I have a 40 gallon tank full of dilute sulfuric acid, so I am familiar with acid use (Always Add Acid... the 3 "A's") and safety protocol. No, I won't be using battery acid for brewing.
None the less, at least for tomorrow's brew, I will be building up from RO water.

I'm thinking a simple addition of 4g gypsum, and 6g calcium chloride could be a good starting point. Brewers friend calcs the mash ph will be 5.71. Should I think about lowering that with a bit of lactic acid? Thoughts on those water additions?

That mash pH prediction is only valid in limited circumstances. I can't help but recommend you find better software to assist you with your brewing water calculations.

acidrain said:

I'm thinking a simple addition of 4g gypsum, and 6g calcium chloride could be a good starting point. Brewers friend calcs the mash ph will be 5.71. Should I think about lowering that with a bit of lactic acid? Thoughts on those water additions?

Click to expand...

You don't say how much water you are treating or what your grist bill is like so it's hard to comment. You will need some acid for most beers.

Given the usual 5 gal, typical pale ale malt as a base, and reasonable amounts of flavor malts (crystal) 10 grams of added salts seems a lot. Don't rely on calcium to set mash pH. It does have an effect but acid is really required to do the job. I'd start with 2 g gypsum and 3 g calcium chloride and use 2% sauermalz based on the thinking that 5.7 is a reasonable pH to expect (under the assumptions I made) with the alkalinity you have and the added calcium. Each % sauermalz lowers pH by approximately 0.1. You can use lactic or another acid for this job. The main advantage of sauermalz comes through the 0.1pH/% rule which makes it easy to figure out what to do and do it.

It would really be best if you made a test mash with a pound of grist and a quart or so of water and measured the pH adjusting the acid or sauermalz to hit 5.4 - 5.6.

ajdelange said:

It would really be best if you made a test mash with a pound of grist and a quart or so of water and measured the pH adjusting the acid or sauermalz to hit 5.4 - 5.6.

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Excellent idea... this I will do.

BTW, 6 gallon batch, about 9 gallons total water use for this batch.

Experiment results...
I was mainly looking for PH levels, and efficiency. I brewed two exact 2.25 gallon batches. One with RO water and gypsum & calcium chloride additions, and one with the spring water. The RO water batch had 1.5g of calcium chloride, and 1g gypsum added to just the mash. Pure RO water was used for the sparge.
BTW, my ph meter is a little wonky. I did just re-calibrate it, but it takes a long time to settle down and give a steady reading. That may explain some of the readings, but maybe the PH does go up and down during the mash... I don't know... this is the first time I've take mash PH readings.

RO water (neat) 6.11ph
Spring water (neat) 7.48ph

.................RO water batch.................Spring water batch
........................PH............SG...............PH..............SG
15 min..............5.38............................5.38
30 min..............4.93............................5.29
45 min..............5.01............................5.34
1st running........5.21.........1.067............5.34...........1.075
2nd running.......5.50.........1.012.............5.66...........1.015
pre-boil.............5.39.........1.026............5.68...........1.028

The mash PH between the two batches is surprisingly close.
The pre-boil SG is pretty close too, but by these observations, it looks like the spring water actually had better efficiency (although it's impossible to exactly duplicate the two runs).
The main difference is in the pre-boil PH. The Neat PH of the two waters is pretty significant, so it kind of makes sense that the spring water has a higher pre-boil PH.

Now what to do with these two worts.
I could boil and hop each and see if there is a taste difference (absolutely no taste difference between the two worts now).
I could hop the RO water batch and compare it to a finished beer of the exact same recipe that I already have on tap, and keep the second one for starters. I could just accept the results as they are, mix the two worts together and finish for a kegs worth.

acidrain said:

Experiment results...
I was mainly looking for PH levels, and efficiency.

Click to expand...

Thanks for taking the time to experiment and, most importantly, record your results.

BTW, my ph meter is a little wonky. I did just re-calibrate it, but it takes a long time to settle down and give a steady reading.

Click to expand...

That is likely due to an aging pH probe.

RO water (neat) 6.11ph
Spring water (neat) 7.48ph

Click to expand...

the pH of the water actually matters little but as expected the lower mineral content R/O water has a lower pH. Likely due to the presence of dissolved CO2.

.................RO water batch.................Spring water batch
........................PH............SG...............PH..............SG
15 min..............5.38............................5.38
30 min..............4.93............................5.29
45 min..............5.01............................5.34
1st running........5.21.........1.067............5.34...........1.075
2nd running.......5.50.........1.012.............5.66...........1.015
pre-boil.............5.39.........1.026............5.68...........1.028

The mash PH between the two batches is surprisingly close.

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Since your meter can not be trusted to the 0.01, I would agree that both mashes were close. You got better conversion efficiency on the spring water batch. What was the grain amount and the mash water volume?

I'm surprised to see that your pre-boil sg is that close when your 1st runnings were off by that much. Did you stir your mash before taking the 1st runnings reading?

The main difference is in the pre-boil PH. The Neat PH of the two waters is pretty significant, so it kind of makes sense that the spring water has a higher pre-boil PH.

Click to expand...

Given the trend of the pH readings, the mash pH of the R/O water mash was likely quite a bit lower than the spring water batch. and since you sparged with R/O water you did not add many minerals that could raise the pH from 1st runnings to pre-boil. This is different with the spring water. It most likely has considerable alkalinity and thus caused a higher mash pH and also raised the pH during sparging.

What was the recipe? Did you have lots of dark malts and/or acid malt in the grist?

Now what to do with these two worts.
I could boil and hop each and see if there is a taste difference (absolutely no taste difference between the two worts now).

Click to expand...

Why not. Add a single 60 min hop addition to aim for ~20 IBU and see what you get.

Kai

Kai, Thanks for your thoughts and effort.
I think you're right about the probe... It has been stored a long time without solution. I'll hunt down a new one.

I stirred well before each reading, so I don't think that was an issue.
I just ran out and re-measure the PH of both batches. It's cold now, and I didn't bother heating samples, but the readings were:
5.92ph RO water batch
6.20ph Spring water batch

The recipe is a simple light ale:
4lb- 8oz US two-row
3oz Vienna malt
1.5oz Chrystal 20L
1.5oz Chrystal 80L

Mash 6.09 qts. at 154F 60 min.
Sparge 3.15 gal at 168F 10 min.

Est. pre-boil gravity: 1.031 @ 72% efficiency
Est. pre-boil volume: 4.09 gal.

The only variable I can think of if the grains were not thoroughly mixed. Seems unlikely though.

This wasn't my normal set up. I did this on the stove with a smaller pot, then simply strained the mash through a sieve. In hind sight, it would have been much easier to do a BIAB, but this was probably more representative of my direct fired, bottom draining FB mash tun.

It looks like my pre-boil volumes are about right on with the estimated, so that means my efficiency was less than 60% both batches.

Hmm... hop both batches separately... I'll have to use my last two fermenting buckets, but what the hell... might as well see this all the way through.
I wonder if I'll taste a difference between the two after hopping the pre-pitch wort?

Thanks a bunch! -Acid