How Do I Know My Alkalinity?

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JeffoC6

JeffoC6

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So I found a 2011 water report online for my home town. I have not brewed with my tap water (have used Poland Spring water only) because I'm pretty sure my tap water sucks. However, I can't really tell because, well, I'm not the sharpest tag in the drawer.

Anyway, in looking at this water report, I don't show alkalinity anywhere. I just see measurements for:
Barium
Chromium
Selenium
Nitrate
Chlorine
Combined Radium
Uranium
Lead
Copper

Am I missing something?
 
What you’re missing is generally referred to as ‘secondary constituents.’

Besides the alkalinity, you would do well to get the calcium and magnesium, plus the sodium, sulfate and chloride.

It’s worth a shot to call the water department to get those numbers. It’s usually difficult to get the right person on the phone, but when you do, they LOVE to talk about water.
 
What you are looking at is a Water Quality report. These report generally only report ions that have regulated limits and could potentially be harmful to your health. The ions that we care about in brewing (calcium, magnesium, sodium, chloride, sulfate, bicarbonate) don't fall into that category and don't have to be reported.

Many brewers get their water tested at Ward Labs. There are also ways with which you can test your water at home. Those home tests can tell you alkalinity and Calcium+Magnesium, which are the ions that matter for mash pH. Here is some more detail on water testing: How to read a water report

Kai
 
Kaiser said:
What you are looking at is a Water Quality report. These report generally only report ions that have regulated limits and could potentially be harmful to your health. The ions that we care about in brewing (calcium, magnesium, sodium, chloride, sulfate, bicarbonate) don't fall into that category and don't have to be reported.

Many brewers get their water tested at Ward Labs. There are also ways with which you can test your water at home. Those home tests can tell you alkalinity and Calcium+Magnesium, which are the ions that matter for mash pH. Here is some more detail on water testing: How to read a water report

Kai
Click to expand...

I think the Ward Labs testing was $16.50, so it's definitely worth it!

(PS- Hi there Kaiser- nice to "see" you again!)
 
Yooper said:
(PS- Hi there Kaiser- nice to "see" you again!)
Click to expand...

Yes, Hi there. I have been active on-line again, but am most likely will be sticking to the Brewing Science part of HBT. Everytime I come back here I feel the ads are getting bigger ;)

Kai
 
Just for future knowledge Alkalinity refers to PH as well anything north of a ph pf 7 is considered alkaline below 7 acidic.
 
Yea it can be a little confusing. Alkalinity is a measure of all bases in solution. Laymans terms if you have high alkalinity, it will be very difficult to get your wort down to pH 5.2 to 5.6 range of typical wort.

Generally if you have high alkalinity, you need to either do a 50:50 mix of distilled (which has close to zero alkalinity) and your carbon filtered(to remove chlorine) tap water, or ditch your tap completely and go half spring water/distilled. You want some ions in the water but not too much alkalinity or the grains can't bring the pH down to get good mash.

I found this on the google machine. It is merril creek near stewartsville.

http://nj.usgs.gov/publications/adr/adr2007/PDF/01455240.2007.pdf

Even though it's old, it can be helpful. Alkalinity is usually the same as Hardness, even though you have some other ions such as silicate in there that add to bases. So your CaCO3 hardness is 50ppm, which is not bad. Calcium is a little low around 15ppm. Look up Palmer's howtobrew.com to see what he recommmends for those ions.
 
ggoodman said:
Just for future knowledge Alkalinity refers to PH as well anything north of a ph pf 7 is considered alkaline below 7 acidic.
Click to expand...

Um, not even close!

pH and alkalinity have loose relationship to each other, but there are cases where a solution can have higher pH and low alkalinity and conversely another solution can have lower pH and high alkalinity. It is not true that a pH greater than 7 is an indicator of alkalinity, just as a pH of less than 7 indicates a solution doesn't have alkalinity.

For the purposes of potable water treatment and testing, water has 'zero' alkalinity when its pH is reduced to somewhere between 4.3 and 4.5. (different pH standards exist in the water testing world!) Therefore, water with a pH of greater than 4.5 will have some alkalinity.

Alkalinity is actually a measure of the Basic buffering of the solution and is most frequently the result of carbonate, bicarbonate, carbonic acid, and/or hydroxyl ions in potable waters.
 
ggoodman said:
Just for future knowledge Alkalinity refers to PH as well anything north of a ph pf 7 is considered alkaline below 7 acidic.
Click to expand...

That is the high school chemistry definition of pH. In dealing with brewing water, however, acidity and alkalinity have different meanings. They refer to the buffering capacity of a solution. Alkalinity is the amount of acid which must be added to a liter of the water in question in order to lower its pH to a value near 4.5 (as Martin has pointed out). This, in potable water, is the acid required to convert all the carbonate and bicarbonate in a water to carbon dioxide gas. This is what we must do in the mash tun in order to get the mash pH into the proper range and that's why alkalinity is such an important measure to brewers - independent of pH.

Acidity is the amount of base that must be added to a sample to raise its pH to a particular value, usually 7 or 8.3. pH is really a measure of an aqueous solutions ability to donate protons (hydrogen ions). pH and alkalinity are almost independent of one another. IOW for any pH between say 5 and 8 I can prepare water with any desired pH and any desired alkalinity. They may be weird waters super saturated with respect to calcium carbonate and/or carbon dioxide at ambient pressure but they are feasible under the correct conditions (high CO2 pressure). OTOH when pH rises above 8.3 then pH and alkalinity are no longer independent as a portion of the alkalinity is attributable to the hydroxyl ion. Non carbonate water at pH 11 has alkalinity 52.5 or so. At pH 10 the alkalinity is 7.5 and at pH 9, 3.0. Distilled water (pH 7) has alkalinity 2.5 thus, technically speaking alkalinity and pH are never totally independent but for practical purposes they are as long as the pH is less than about 9.
 
ajdelange said:
That is the high school chemistry definition of pH. In dealing with brewing water, however, acidity and alkalinity have different meanings. They refer to the buffering capacity of a solution. Alkalinity is the amount of acid which must be added to a liter of the water in question in order to lower its pH to a value near 4.5 (as Martin has pointed out). This, in potable water, is the acid required to convert all the carbonate and bicarbonate in a water to carbon dioxide gas. This is what we must do in the mash tun in order to get the mash pH into the proper range and that's why alkalinity is such an important measure to brewers - independent of pH.

Acidity is the amount of base that must be added to a sample to raise its pH to a particular value, usually 7 or 8.3. pH is really a measure of an aqueous solutions ability to donate protons (hydrogen ions). pH and alkalinity are almost independent of one another. IOW for any pH between say 5 and 8 I can prepare water with any desired pH and any desired alkalinity. They may be weird waters super saturated with respect to calcium carbonate and/or carbon dioxide at ambient pressure but they are feasible under the correct conditions (high CO2 pressure). OTOH when pH rises above 8.3 then pH and alkalinity are no longer independent as a portion of the alkalinity is attributable to the hydroxyl ion. Non carbonate water at pH 11 has alkalinity 52.5 or so. At pH 10 the alkalinity is 7.5 and at pH 9, 3.0. Distilled water (pH 7) has alkalinity 2.5 thus, technically speaking alkalinity and pH are never totally independent but for practical purposes they are as long as the pH is less than about 9.
Click to expand...

Wow that had to take a while to type up.

You can complicate this as much as you like or keep as simple as you like. Having had Chem 1, 2 organic and biochem I too can make this very complicated or we can keep it simple.

below ph 7 acidic, above 7 basic or alkaline. This definition is by no means limited to highschool as you will find it micro bio, Anatomy and phyisiolgy, pathology, and a long list of other classes that are def not high school courses.

oop it's 5 o'clock time for beer.
 
ggoodman said:
below ph 7 acidic, above 7 basic or alkaline. This definition is by no means limited to highschool as you will find it micro bio, Anatomy and phyisiolgy, pathology, and a long list of other classes that are def not high school courses.

oop it's 5 o'clock time for beer.
Click to expand...

Yep, that's right.

Except defining the pH as "basic" isn't the same as discussing the alkalinity of the water.

If you read AJdeLange's post again, slowly, this is explained here:

ajdelange said:
In dealing with brewing water, however, acidity and alkalinity have different meanings. They refer to the buffering capacity of a solution. Alkalinity is the amount of acid which must be added to a liter of the water in question in order to lower its pH to a value near 4.5 (as Martin has pointed out). This, in potable water, is the acid required to convert all the carbonate and bicarbonate in a water to carbon dioxide gas. This is what we must do in the mash tun in order to get the mash pH into the proper range and that's why alkalinity is such an important measure to brewers - independent of pH.
Click to expand...
 
Sorry I let my feathers get ruffled by the high school comment.

How can one measure the buffer capacity of the Water to determine what we must do in the mash ton.
 
ggoodman said:
Wow that had to take a while to type up.
Click to expand...

No, it didn't.

ggoodman said:
You can complicate this as much as you like or keep as simple as you like. Having had Chem 1, 2 organic and biochem I too can make this very complicated or we can keep it simple.
Click to expand...

It is indeed quite simple. Alkalinity is the amount of acid needed to move water sample to a specified pH (around 4.5). That's all there is to it.

ggoodman said:
below ph 7 acidic, above 7 basic or alkaline.
Click to expand...
Because alkalinity means something else (buffering capacity) in the water and brewing (and many other) industries it is misleading to imply that pH higher (lower) than 7 implies more (less) alkalinity. You can have alkalinity of 50 at pH 5, pH 6, pH 7, pH 8, pH 9 or any pH in between. At pH 5.57 you can have alkalinity of 2, 22, 103 or 200 or any value in between. pH and alkalinity are virtually independent.
 
ggoodman said:
How can one measure the buffer capacity of the Water to determine what we must do in the mash ton.
Click to expand...

The standard procedure is to measure out 100 mL of sample and place it in a beaker with a stir bar and either a pH electrode or indicator (bromcresol green - methyl red). This is titrated with 0.1 N acid (hydrochloric or sulfuric) until the end point is reached. In the ISO method the end point is 4.5 in the AWWA method the end point is arbitrary but end points are suggested depending on the anticipated alkalinity. 0.1 N acid going into 0.1 L of sample implies 1 mEq/L alkalinity for each mL of acid consumed. It is standard practice in the US to multiply the mEq/L by 50 giving units of 'ppm as calcium carbonate'.
 

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