Anyone send their water to be tested for mineral content?

I'm thinking about starting to add salts to my water and such. Anyone send in their water to be tested? Where to and how much did you pay?

Good question, my city water report gives no information about hardness or mineral content. It only gives the information about radon, clorine, etc.

I know the guys at the brewing network have talked about it -- but I didn't know if it was something normal to do or not...

I want to but to get a real decent test done, one that tells you not only what minerals are in there but also if there are any bad chemicals, is expensive. Say $200 or so. If its a local water source, you can probably get the info free from the water district and the issue of chemicals may not be an issue at all in a city-water situation. In my case I have a source of water that comes from an underground spring 400 feet down. I pump it out of the ground myself. The water is clear and I drink it all the time but I would like to get a test done just to know what all is there.

Here is a link to a testing facility that I found and seemed like a good place to use. Welcome to Envirotek

Dennis

The lab that everyone seems to use is Ward Laboratories, Agricultural Testing, Consulting, Kearney, Nebraska

I'm planning on getting my water tested one of these days.

W-6 Household Mineral Test $16.50
Sodium
Calcium
Magnesium
Potassium
Carbonate
Bicarbonate
Chloride
Sulfate
Nitrate
Electrical Conductivity
Est. Total Dissolved Solids
pH
Total Hardness (Lime)
Total Alkalinity

I've used Ward Labs. Test above tells you everything you need to know. They sent a free test jar and response was super fast.

Kilted Brewer said:

I've used Ward Labs. Test above tells you everything you need to know. They sent a free test jar and response was super fast.

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Kilted: Do you use a carbon filter or anything? I think I'm going to finally submit my water for testing and I'm not sure if I should take the sample after my carbon filter or before. Ideally I'd do both, but I don't want to fork over the cash for that. Would be nice to see if the filter is affecting the water in some way

Bokonon said:

Kilted: Do you use a carbon filter or anything? I think I'm going to finally submit my water for testing and I'm not sure if I should take the sample after my carbon filter or before. Ideally I'd do both, but I don't want to fork over the cash for that. Would be nice to see if the filter is affecting the water in some way

Click to expand...

Good question -- what do you send in?

If you request, they will send you a sample jar. But you can use a drinking water bottle.

my old company had an in-house lab. they allowed employees to test their home water once a year for free. I got a full analysis with the idea of possibly using it for brewing. i read the results, water was fine, haven't done anything with it since. maybe one day...

I don't use a filter so I just sent in a straight tap water sample. I have heard others that have sent in multiple samples. i would say send in both if you really want to know, or just send in one and always use that as your water.