Reducing alkalinity with slaked lime

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Yooper

Yooper

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I haven't brewed in a while, and am eager to get back to brewing in late March. :ban:

In the meantime, I've been thinking about reducing alkalinity with slaked lime. Using Braukaiser.com's article, with AJ deLange as an influence, I'm reading and rereading this article: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Alkalinity_reduction_with_slaked_lime

I need to get the lime and the GH/KH test kit. In the meantime, I'm trying to work my head around the spreadsheets, and how much CaCl2 I have to add to have sufficient calcium to form calcium carbonate.

My understanding is that the last spreadsheet, using the GH/KH numbers, can guestimate the probable amount of calcium left. Is there anything that I'm missing?

I'm trying to think of a vessel that I can use permanently for this procedure, as once the chalk precipitates out, it doesn't matter if it stays in there, unlike my BK. I guess a large stainless pot that I no longer use would be ideal.

I see the recommendation to add chalk (to provide nucleation points), and to stir but not aerate. Any other tips?
 
Depending on how much of your hardness is temporary and how much permanent the decarbonation process may leave you with less than the desired calcium level in which case you will want to supplement the calcium before you brew. If you plant to do that then add the extra calcium before you add the lime. This can get your alkalinity below the oft cited 50 ppm as CaO3.

It is IMO, very important to use a pH meter when decarbonating with lime and to add in enough source water to bring the pH back to 8.3. If you don't do this you may wind up with un - neutralized hydroxyl alkalinity and you are doing this in the first place to get alkalinity down. Do a web search on 'Hubert Hanghoffer lime'. Actually don't do that. If you do all you will find is references to me telling people to do that. Go here:
http://hbd.org/hbd/archive/2540.html#2540-8
and read Hubert's post. If you want to look for his website (if it's still up) it's pretty interesting too.
 
ajdelange said:
Depending on how much of your hardness is temporary and how much permanent the decarbonation process may leave you with less than the desired calcium level in which case you will want to supplement the calcium before you brew. If you plant to do that then add the extra calcium before you add the lime. This can get your alkalinity below the oft cited 50 ppm as CaO3.

It is IMO, very important to use a pH meter when decarbonating with lime and to add in enough source water to bring the pH back to 8.3. If you don't do this you may wind up with un - neutralized hydroxyl alkalinity and you are doing this in the first place to get alkalinity down. Do a web search on 'Hubert Hanghoffer lime'. Actually don't do that. If you do all you will find is references to me telling people to do that. Go here:
http://hbd.org/hbd/archive/2540.html#2540-8
and read Hubert's post. If you want to look for his website (if it's still up) it's pretty interesting too.
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Thank you! I will look at that.

You're saying to use the meter and check the pH, right after adding the lime and get it down to 8.3? Kai's instructions say that the pH should be 9-11, so I'm not questioning you- just asking for clarification!
 
First step is to calculate the amount of lime to add. It is important in this step to include extra to neutralize any acidity in the water as well as the amount required to remove the bicarbonate. You will calculate the wrong amount. Add this to half the water. This insures a high enough pH that magnesium will precipitate. If you want to get rid of the magnesium decant. You will now have water from which you have removed calcium and magnesium but it will be very alkaline as there is approximately twice as much lime in there as you needed. This needs to be neutralized and the 'acid' in this case is bicarbonate ion from the source water. You add source water until the lime is neutralized until the pH is around 8. The acid gives up its hydrogen ion
HCO3- --> H+ + CO3-- which neutralizes an (OH-) ion forming water and the CO3-- finds a calcium with which it coalesces and precipitates out. Of course as you approach pH 8.3 a smaller and smaller fraction of bicarbonate ions give up the proton. At pH 8.3 it is only 1 % and that is why there is a limitation as to how much bicarbonate you can precipitate. Clearly you get at least half (if calcium hardness exceeds alkalinity) and the practical limit seems to be about 50 ppm as CaCO3.

DeClerck's procedure does not involve a pH meter (but probably would have if he had ones like the ones we have today available to him). He recommends calculating additions of 10% more lime and 10% less lime than what you calculate neutralizing acidity and capturing bicarbonate and then doing 3 tests on samples. Each sample is analyzed and the dose that gave the best decarbonation is scaled up to the volume of water to be treated.
 
That makes sense! Thank you so much.

I was simply diluting my tap water 30-50% RO for most beers, but the last couple had a bit of harshness to them. I suspect that the RO "machine" at the store hasn't been maintained and I'm hesitant to try it again. We live in a small town, and that's the only one around. I can't really justify my own RO system, so I thought the slaked lime would be just the ticket- using my own good tap water (just high in alkalinity)- if it's as easy as it seems.
 
Yes, if the water has high temporary hardness (say temp hardness > than 75% of total hardness), then a water is well suited for lime softening. As the temp hardness percentage falls in comparison to the total hardness, the suitability of lime softening diminishes. A water with high temporary hardness should not require another calcium source other than the Ca(OH)2.

Hubert's site has some basic errors regarding lime treatment, but its mostly correct. I see that he is a chemist and may not be aware of the proper calculations used in water treatment. There are additional criteria that should be considered when contemplating lime treatment. A primary issue is if magnesium removal should be performed for the water. That changes the dosing of lime, the targeted peak pH for the treatment, and if split treatment is suitable.

The next version of Bru'n Water already has lime treatment and boiling treatment calculators built in. Hopefully that version can be beta tested and issued in the next month or so.

I have started to recommend that users of vending machine RO water should have a pocket TDS meter with them so they can quickly assess if that machine is putting out 'good' water. The meters are cheap. TDS should be less than 20 ppm from a properly operating machine. Don't buy the water if its over 50 ppm.

The next version of Bru'n Water will include a TDS calculation for the user's tap water profile or treated water profile so that they can perform a quick double check of their water with a TDS meter. A typical TDS meter accuracy is better than 5%, so that tool might be worthwhile to have around. That is especially true when dealing with a water supply that might vary with time or time of year.
 
mabrungard said:
Yes, if the water has high temporary hardness (say temp hardness > than 75% of total hardness), then a water is well suited for lime softening. As the temp hardness percentage falls in comparison to the total hardness, the suitability of lime softening diminishes. A water with high temporary hardness should not require another calcium source other than the Ca(OH)2.

A typical TDS meter accuracy is better than 5%, so that tool might be worthwhile to have around. That is especially true when dealing with a water supply that might vary with time or time of year.
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My water is low in magnesium, or at least relatively low, so I don't think magnesium reduction is an issue for me. But my calcium was 57 ppm, while my CaCo3 is 228. I was thinking I'd have to add some CaS04 or CaCl2, from what I understand of Kai's article.

I think a TDS meter would be a great new toy for me! Would that "work" instead of the GH/KH tests that Kai mentions in his instructions?
 
Sort of. They measure conductivity and convert that to weight using a calibration derived, usually, from sodium chloride. Clearly if your TDS reading goes down you have removed something but how much of what isn't so easy to say.

The alkalinity test kits are not specific for bicarbonate but as bicarbonate better be the only alkaline thing found in you municipal water an alkalinity test measures bicarbonate well. The hardness tests respond to calcium and magnesium (but also strontium and iron etc all of which should be low and thus not a significant contributor to error) and can be made to measure calcium only by dropping the magnesium first (just as you do in the softening procedure i.e. by high pH). Thus they can measure calcium and magnesium hardnesses separataely.
 
I'm leaving South Texas in just over a week (sob!) and will be home around Monday the 19th. I'd like to brew almost right away, since I'm very low on homebrew!

I only have my wee netbook here, so I was wondering if some helpful (and smart) soul could help me guestimate the slaked lime and calcium chloride I'd need to drop the alkalinity. I can't get to Kai's or Martin's spreadsheet from this goofy netbook.

My water is:
calcium 57
magnesium 26
sodium 9
chloride 14
sulfate 45
bicarb 228

I'm not sure of the recipe exactly, but it'd be a 10 gallon batch of an IPA. Probably 20 pounds-ish of two row, and 2 pounds cara/crystal malts. (I can only fit 23 pounds in my MLT). Using 1.25 quarts per pound, strike water would be 27.5 quarts. I'd sparge with about 8 gallons of water.

Can anybody who has excess time and the inclination run that? I know I'd have to add some calcium chloride (or CaS04) to the lime to drop the alkalinity. If anybody can help me calculate this in advance of brew day, I'd really appreciate it!

I'm ordering the aquarium alkalinity test set and the slaked lime online to have it when I get home.
 
Yooper said:
I'm leaving South Texas in just over a week (sob!) and will be home around Monday the 19th. I'd like to brew almost right away, since I'm very low on homebrew!

I only have my wee netbook here, so I was wondering if some helpful (and smart) soul could help me guestimate the slaked lime and calcium chloride I'd need to drop the alkalinity. I can't get to Kai's or Martin's spreadsheet from this goofy netbook.

My water is:
calcium 57
magnesium 26
sodium 9
chloride 14
sulfate 45
bicarb 228

I'm not sure of the recipe exactly, but it'd be a 10 gallon batch of an IPA. Probably 20 pounds-ish of two row, and 2 pounds cara/crystal malts. (I can only fit 23 pounds in my MLT). Using 1.25 quarts per pound, strike water would be 27.5 quarts. I'd sparge with about 8 gallons of water.

Can anybody who has excess time and the inclination run that? I know I'd have to add some calcium chloride (or CaS04) to the lime to drop the alkalinity. If anybody can help me calculate this in advance of brew day, I'd really appreciate it!

I'm ordering the aquarium alkalinity test set and the slaked lime online to have it when I get home.
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Hopefully AJ or Martin can correct me if I'm wrong on this. Your alkalinity is about 188 mg/l as CaCO3 I'd guess. Your calcium hardness as CaCO3 is about 54*2.5, or 135. So, you need another 188-135, or 53, mg/l as CaCO3. This is about 21.2 Calcium as the ion. You'll also need another ~75 mg/l calcium as CaCO3 to end up with 50 mg/l calcium, assuming you drop your alkalinity to 50 mg/l as CaCO3, since the calcium drops the same amount (roughly) as the alkalinity. With gypsum as an example, this would be about .8 grams/gallon. This would put your total sulfate to about 200 ppm, though, so you may want to sub some calcium chloride (probably fine for an IPA though). The amount of slaked lime I normally add, which gets me down to ~50 mg/l alkalinity (aquarium test kit), is (.74*alkalinity / 1000 * 3.785) grams / gallon. In your case, that's about .526 grams / gallon. You'll want to treat something like 15.5 or 16 gallons of water (so you have room to rack off the water). So, 16 *.526 = 8.416 grams of lime. Your gypsum would be about .8 * 16, or 12.8 grams.

EDIT: Oops, you said calcium chloride.
 
Yooper said:
I'm leaving South Texas in just over a week (sob!) and will be home around Monday the 19th. I'd like to brew almost right away, since I'm very low on homebrew!

I only have my wee netbook here, so I was wondering if some helpful (and smart) soul could help me guestimate the slaked lime and calcium chloride I'd need to drop the alkalinity. I can't get to Kai's or Martin's spreadsheet from this goofy netbook.

My water is:
calcium 57
magnesium 26
sodium 9
chloride 14
sulfate 45
bicarb 228

I'm not sure of the recipe exactly, but it'd be a 10 gallon batch of an IPA. Probably 20 pounds-ish of two row, and 2 pounds cara/crystal malts. (I can only fit 23 pounds in my MLT). Using 1.25 quarts per pound, strike water would be 27.5 quarts. I'd sparge with about 8 gallons of water.

Can anybody who has excess time and the inclination run that? I know I'd have to add some calcium chloride (or CaS04) to the lime to drop the alkalinity. If anybody can help me calculate this in advance of brew day, I'd really appreciate it!

I'm ordering the aquarium alkalinity test set and the slaked lime online to have it when I get home.
Click to expand...

Assuming a water pH of 7 you would have alkalinity (it would be so much better if people would report alkalinity and pH rather than bicarbonate) of 189 and a total carbo content of 4.6 mmol/L. 19.4% of that or 0.89 mol is carbonic. The rest, 0.805*4.6 = 3.7 mmol is bicarbonate. The first thing that needs to be done is conversion of the carbonic to bicarbonate:
2H2CO3 + Ca(OH)2 --> Ca++ + 2H2O + 2HCO3-
thus 1 mmol of lime is required for each 2 mol of carbonic and we would need 0.89/2 = 0.445 mmol of lime per liter for this purpose. Having converted all the carbonic to bicarbonate we'd have about 4.6 mmol of bicarbonate to dispose of and realistically expect we might get rid of 3.6. The reaction here is
Ca++ + 2HCO3- + Ca(OH)2 --> 2CaCO3 + 2H2O

Thus, again, 1 mmol of lime takes out 2mmol of bicarbonate (and 1 mmol of Ca++). For the 3.6 mmol/L we would, thus, require 1.8 mmol of lime. The total lime requirement would then be 0.445 + 1.800 = 2.245 mmol/L. Multiplying that by 74, the molecular wt of Ca(OH)2 gives 166 mg/L or 628 mg/gal. You would take out 2.245 mmol of calcium per liter (89.8 mg) but you only have 57 so you would need to add at least 32 mg/L just to have enough for the alkalinity reduction. As you will doubtless want more than that to, say, the extent of 30 mg/L residual you would have to add 30 mg/L additional for a total of 62 mg/L i.e. 1.5 mmol of CaCl2 (1.5*147 = 220 mg/L) or CaSO4.2H2O (258 mg/L).

De Clerck recommends preparation of 3 doses of lime. One at 0.9*166 mg/L, one at 166 mg/L and one at 1.1*166 mg/L. Three liters would then be softened and the dose that worked best would be scaled up for the whole volume.

As I expect you'll want to go after some of that magnesium add the entire calculated dose to 1/3 the water. That should drop 1/3 the magnesium. Decant off that and then add the remaining 2/3 of the water. Your final pH should be in the eights.
 
ajdelange said:
Assuming a water pH of 7 you would have alkalinity (it would be so much better if people would report alkalinity and pH rather than bicarbonate) of 189 and a total carbo content of 4.6 mmol/L. 19.4% of that or 0.89 mol is carbonic. The rest, 0.805*4.6 = 3.7 mmol is bicarbonate. The first thing that needs to be done is conversion of the carbonic to bicarbonate:
2H2CO3 + Ca(OH)2 --> Ca++ + 2H2O + 2HCO3-
thus 1 mmol of lime is required for each 2 mol of carbonic and we would need 0.89/2 = 0.445 mmol of lime per liter for this purpose. Having converted all the carbonic to bicarbonate we'd have about 4.6 mmol of bicarbonate to dispose of and realistically expect we might get rid of 3.6. The reaction here is
Ca++ + 2HCO3- + Ca(OH)2 --> 2CaCO3 + 2H2O

Thus, again, 1 mmol of lime takes out 2mmol of bicarbonate (and 1 mmol of Ca++). For the 3.6 mmol/L we would, thus, require 1.8 mmol of lime. The total lime requirement would then be 0.445 + 1.800 = 2.245 mmol/L. Multiplying that by 74, the molecular wt of Ca(OH)2 gives 166 mg/L or 628 mg/gal. You would take out 2.245 mmol of calcium per liter (89.8 mg) but you only have 57 so you would need to add at least 32 mg/L just to have enough for the alkalinity reduction. As you will doubtless want more than that to, say, the extent of 30 mg/L residual you would have to add 30 mg/L additional for a total of 62 mg/L i.e. 1.5 mmol of CaCl2 (1.5*147 = 220 mg/L) or CaSO4.2H2O (258 mg/L).

De Clerck recommends preparation of 3 doses of lime. One at 0.9*166 mg/L, one at 166 mg/L and one at 1.1*166 mg/L. Three liters would then be softened and the dose that worked best would be scaled up for the whole volume.

As I expect you'll want to go after some of that magnesium add the entire calculated dose to 1/3 the water. That should drop 1/3 the magnesium. Decant off that and then add the remaining 2/3 of the water. Your final pH should be in the eights.
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Well, I was close with my predicted amount of lime. Mine is about .85 x your amount. However, when I went with the amount you are proposing for my water (proportionally) I seemed to have extra lime left over. Perhaps my bicarb isn't quite as high as my report says?

EDIT: My number is closer to 90% of yours if I use 189 alkalinity.
 
Yooper said:
That makes sense! Thank you so much.

I was simply diluting my tap water 30-50% RO for most beers, but the last couple had a bit of harshness to them. I suspect that the RO "machine" at the store hasn't been maintained and I'm hesitant to try it again. We live in a small town, and that's the only one around. I can't really justify my own RO system, so I thought the slaked lime would be just the ticket- using my own good tap water (just high in alkalinity)- if it's as easy as it seems.
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If I brewed as much as you do, I'd certainly think about buying an RO system. Having to mess with the water like that has got to be a serious amount of time and effort.

I'm thinking about it and I only brew once a month, on average.
 
Homercidal said:
If I brewed as much as you do, I'd certainly think about buying an RO system. Having to mess with the water like that has got to be a serious amount of time and effort.

I'm thinking about it and I only brew once a month, on average.
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Yes, I'm kicking around the idea.

My pH was 8.2 in Ward's testing, but recently it was more like the high 7's when I tested it at home with my new pH meter. My alkalinity (Hco3) was 208, I believe. I don't know if that changes AJ's figures.

I'm going to have to read and reread and reread again AJ's post, as I don't quite get it yet.
 
Yooper said:
Yes, I'm kicking around the idea.

My pH was 8.2 in Ward's testing, but recently it was more like the high 7's when I tested it at home with my new pH meter. My alkalinity (Hco3) was 208, I believe. I don't know if that changes AJ's figures.

I'm going to have to read and reread and reread again AJ's post, as I don't quite get it yet.
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If the alkalinity actually is higher then you'll need more lime and more calcium.
 
afr0byte said:
If the alkalinity actually is higher then you'll need more lime and more calcium.
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I don't really want someone to do the work for me (alright, yes I do :cross:) but without "seeing" it I'm having trouble understanding where to start.

I understand about doing the 1/3 of the water first (as described by ajdelange) but I'm not sure where to start with the amount of lime and the amount of CaCl2.
 
I lime-soften my water. I didn't find the calculators super helpful in predicting how much lime I'd need, but I think that's operator error, and nothing wrong with the calculators. I mostly just follow Martin's and AJ's general instructions and just add lime a bit at a time (1tbsp at a time for about 25 gallons of until I hit my target pH. I've found 11.5 to be the minimum to get any decent precipitation, and around 12 precipitates out pretty well. I let the hardness precipitate out overnight, then adjust the water pH with acid down to 8, then check my GH/KH at that point.

It works pretty well. The GH/KH test results are always within 1*dH on each batch, which is pretty consistent given that I don't measure how much lime I add. After you do it a few times you'll get a feel for how much lime you need to add based on how the water looks.

So I guess I'm saying don't get too bogged down in the math, because it's pretty straightforward.
 
The real beauty of Hubert's method is that you don't have to calculate or weigh out anything. Just add lime, gradually, to 1/3 of the water until pH reaches 11+ (but don't go too far). Add some chalk before adding the lime and stir well to get it in suspension and keep it there as you add the lime. Also add any supplemental calcium salts.The chalk doesn't do anything but serve as precipitation sites for the chalk which is to precipitate. Let it sit and settle and then decant.

Now add some more chalk to the decanted water, stir and start to add untreated tap water. Stir and monitor the pH. When the pH gets to around 8.5 you are finished. The bicarbonate in the added untreated water is neutralizing the excess OH- from the extra lime you added to get to pH 11+

Ca++(from water) +2HCO3- + Ca++(from lime) +2(OH-) ---> CaCO3 + H2O
As the reaction takes place OH- is consumed and you can see the pH drop. This neutralization of the OH- is very important. At pH 11 the OH- contributes alkalinity of 50 ppm as CaCO3. At pH 10 it contributes 5 and at pH 9 only 0.5 so once the pH has pulled back below 9 you should be OK.

Or the other thing you can do without measuring chemicals is add lime (plus chalk and extra calcium) until pH 11+ is reached, allow time for precipitation, decant and then bubble air through for a few days or until the pH falls back to the pH you want. This is better than neutralizing with another acid in the sense that you don't get any of the anion of the other acid.
 
I'm going to preface this by saying AJ knows way more about water and chemistry than I do, and I have nothing but respect and appreciation for his help, so the following are just some practical experiences, YMMV and so on.

ajdelange said:
Now add some more chalk to the decanted water, stir and start to add untreated tap water.
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I tried treating my water this way, and the chalk I added to the untreated water took a really, really long time to clear. Like three days later it still wasn't clear. So I wouldn't recommend adding more chalk to the un-lime-treated portion.

ajdelange said:
and then bubble air through for a few days or until the pH falls back to the pH you want. This is better than neutralizing with another acid in the sense that you don't get any of the anion of the other acid.
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I tried this with a pump and two aerating stones, and the pH fell a few tenths of a pH over three days. If you can use pure CO2, a la German mash acidification, then this is a reasonable approach. Otherwise, if you want your water to be usable within the fortnight, a liquid acid is a much better solution.
 
Thank you both for "dumbing it down" for me. It make sense to me now, or at least the fog has lifted a bit.

Since I need to add some calcium (as I assume the calcium carbonate doesn't 'count' as calcium), can one of you tell me how much CaCl2 to add at the beginning, based on my water profile? And then how much Ca++ and chloride will remain in the end product?

I won't be bubbling co2 or air through this- I guess I could do it with an aquarium stone/aerator if I had to, though.
 
Hmm, so, I've done lime softening a few times, but I never bothered to modify the pH at all (after the treatment has finished, that is). I just checked to see that the alkalinity had dropped to 3 kH (roughly, based on an aquarium titration kit). Then again, I'm not really doing split treatment for magnesium, since I only have 9 ppm magnesium, and therefore my pH only gets up to the high 9's initially (based on the example on Kai's site). Actually, I suppose I do start with half the water to stir everything in and get the precipate starting to form, then I immediately add the rest of the water. I get clear water with a lot of precipitate by 8-12 hours. Should I be checking/adjusting the pH if th kH is down to 3 degrees? That seems low enough in alkalinity that I don't really have to worry about the pH of the water.
 
ajdelange said:
Assuming a water pH of 7 you would have alkalinity (it would be so much better if people would report alkalinity and pH rather than bicarbonate) of 189 and a total carbo content of 4.6 mmol/L.
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EDIT: n/m, I think Kai's page on the carbonate system answered my question.

Could you possibly explain what "carbo" content is? Also, I've not had chemistry since my sophomore year of high school, so I'm not sure how you got from 189 mg/L to 4.6 mmol/L. As far as I can tell, from refreshing myself via google searches, you'd just divide 189 in mg/L by the molecular weight of the "total carbo content" to get to 4.6 mmol/L. So, the molecular weight of the total carbo content must be ~41. However, I can't think of what that molecule would be.
 
Yooper said:
Yes, I'm kicking around the idea.

My pH was 8.2 in Ward's testing, but recently it was more like the high 7's when I tested it at home with my new pH meter. My alkalinity (Hco3) was 208, I believe. I don't know if that changes AJ's figures.

I'm going to have to read and reread and reread again AJ's post, as I don't quite get it yet.
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Hmm, I reread this. On Ward Labs the alkalinity is reported as CaCO3. Was the (Hco3) a typo?
 
Nateo said:
I'm going to preface this by saying AJ knows way more about water and chemistry than I do, and I have nothing but respect and appreciation for his help, so the following are just some practical experiences, YMMV and so on.
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I may know some of the theory but my water is not hard enough to make it worthwhile for me to soften it this way plus I have moved on to RO. The point is that I have only done this a few times on an experimental basis and thus your practical experience is of great value.



Nateo said:
I tried treating my water this way, and the chalk I added to the untreated water took a really, really long time to clear. Like three days later it still wasn't clear. So I wouldn't recommend adding more chalk to the un-lime-treated portion.
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Don't know what's happening here. In this second phase additional chalk precipitates whether you add nucleation chalk or not. Why would the nucleation chalk take longer to settle than the chalk which forms during the reaction. In commercial plant some of the precipitant is fed back into the incoming stream for this nucleation function.



Nateo said:
I tried this with a pump and two aerating stones, and the pH fell a few tenths of a pH over three days. If you can use pure CO2, a la German mash acidification, then this is a reasonable approach.
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There isn't much CO2 in the air. OTOH it is free. CO2 from a bottle will obviously speed the process but if you can wait (or push more air) you can save your CO2 for other uses.

Nateo said:
Otherwise, if you want your water to be usable within the fortnight, a liquid acid is a much better solution.
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And that's fine as long as you are willing to accept the acid anion.

And remember that you don't have to do this if you use the split treatment. The acid in that case is the bicarbonate from additional untreated water.
 
Yooper said:
can one of you tell me how much CaCl2 to add at the beginning, based on my water profile?
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Back in #14 I calculated 220 mg/L CaCl2 per liter of water treated. Note no water of hydration specified in that - assume your product is about 80% CaCl2 by weight).

Yooper said:
And then how much Ca++ and chloride will remain in the end product?
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The calculation in #14 was based on a calcium residual of 30 mg/L assuming that the bicarbonate was reduced to an alkalinity of 50. The chloride calculates out to 119 mg/L. All these are very iffy. You will really need to experiment.
 
afr0byte said:
Could you possibly explain what "carbo" content is? Also, I've not had chemistry since my sophomore year of high school, so I'm not sure how you got from 189 mg/L to 4.6 mmol/L.
Carbo is my collective term for carbonic, bicarbonate and carbonate. The three species distribute themselves dependent on pH. At pH 7 19.4% of the total moles of carbo are in the form of carbonic acid and 80.5% in the form of bicarbonate ion. If someone reports bicarbonate at x mg/L we divide x by 61 (the molecular weight of bicarbonate) to get the number of moles of bicarbonate. That divided by 0.805 gives the total moles carbo (at pH 7). And that in turn multiplied by 0.194 gives the moles of carbonic.

afr0byte said:
However, I can't think of what that molecule would be.
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The three species are H2CO3, HCO3- and CO3--. The common element is CO3 which doesn't exist but if it did you would add 2 hydrogens to it to get carbonic acid, add a hydrogen and an electron to it and you would have a bicarbonate ion and add 2 electrons to is and you would have a carbonate ion.

[Edit]Thinking about it a bit more I suppose I could talk about the distribution of the moles of carbon but calling it carbo has become a habit for me to the point where I do it without thinking about it because I usually explain it as it probably isn't familiar. Textbooks symbolize it by CT with the T as a subscript which I guess you could read as 'total carbon'.
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ajdelange said:
Back in #14 I calculated 220 mg/L CaCl2 per liter of water treated. Note no water of hydration specified in that - assume your product is about 80% CaCl2 by weight).


The calculation in #14 was based on a calcium residual of 30 mg/L assuming that the bicarbonate was reduced to an alkalinity of 50. The chloride calculates out to 119 mg/L. All these are very iffy. You will really need to experiment.
Click to expand...

Thank you! I have to read these things over and over to "get it". I appreciate your help so much!
 
Huh, I just did another test treatment of ~1.5 gallons. It was only about half an hour ago that I did the treatment. It's already precipitated quite a bit of, presumably, chaulk. I tested the pH and it'd already gone down to about 7.3. That pH reading of 7.3 seems kind of odd to me, since that's what the water pH reading had been when I started the treatment. Perhaps I didn't mixing in the top up water well enough? I had treated 1 gallon, mixed, and then added another ~.5 gallons.

EDIT: I used my kH kit and got 2 or 3 dH (definitely 3 was yellow, but 2 seemed yellow too).
 
Yooper: For your water I'd probably go AJ's route, and only treat part of the water.

The reason I treat the whole amount of water is that I have really high magnesium levels in my well water, and about twice as much bicarbonate. Treating the whole amount up to 12 gets rid of most of the Mg.

It takes a bit of practice, but by the third batch you should have a feel for it.
 
I treated some water (way more than I needed, but the measurement error was less of a factor with the larger volume) yesterday to do a sample mash for this coming weekend's brew session. I figured I'd post a picture of the bottom of the treatment vessel (the largest non-brewing-pot that we have). The measured alkalinity was ~53 ppm as CaCO3. The measured calcium (aquarium calcium test kit) ended up being in the 60-80 ppm range.

limetreatedwater.jpg
 
I use a 32g Rubbermaid trashcan for my lime softening. The gray and white ones are food grade. The gray ones are easy to find in hardware stores. I've found I need to treat about 20-25% more water than I plan on needing. 25 gallons is a good amount for a 10 gallon batch.
 
Nateo said:
I use a 32g Rubbermaid trashcan for my lime softening. The gray and white ones are food grade. The gray ones are easy to find in hardware stores. I've found I need to treat about 20-25% more water than I plan on needing. 25 gallons is a good amount for a 10 gallon batch.
Click to expand...

Huh, thanks for the tip. I normally use my extra 10 gallon pot (I do 5 gallon batches). But, with bigger beers I may need more than the 9ish gallons I've gotten post treatment. Plus, we need to buy some garbage cans to store our trash in the garage (we saw a mouse the other day), so I'll be buying some anyways.
 
Nateo said:
I use a 32g Rubbermaid trashcan for my lime softening. The gray and white ones are food grade. The gray ones are easy to find in hardware stores. I've found I need to treat about 20-25% more water than I plan on needing. 25 gallons is a good amount for a 10 gallon batch.
Click to expand...

That's a great idea! I don't seem to have any big enough vessels that I want to devote to this.

A couple of questions, then. How do you decant? Do you pump? I'm trying to visualize this.

I assume I could treat 1/3 of the water (as per AJ's instructions) to reduce magnesium, decant to the larger vessel and then leave it sit overnight. Does that seem doable?
 
Yooper - I have maybe 4 feet of silicone tubing I use for my pump. I place the trash can on a stool (before filling it), then use the tube as a siphon, and place a few buckets on the floor by it to fill. After I siphon off all as much as I can, I swirl up the precipitate still in the can, then dump that in a pot to save for next time. I'll rinse the can, then dump the water I decanted back into the empty can. I'm working on a bulkhead for it, like on a bottling bucket, so I don't have to mess with the silicone tubing anymore.

You could definitely treat part of the water in a smaller bucket, then dump it in the can to treat the rest of the water.
 
Nateo said:
Yooper - I have maybe 4 feet of silicone tubing I use for my pump. I place the trash can on a stool (before filling it), then use the tube as a siphon, and place a few buckets on the floor by it to fill. After I siphon off all as much as I can, I swirl up the precipitate still in the can, then dump that in a pot to save for next time. I'll rinse the can, then dump the water I decanted back into the empty can. I'm working on a bulkhead for it, like on a bottling bucket, so I don't have to mess with the silicone tubing anymore.

You could definitely treat part of the water in a smaller bucket, then dump it in the can to treat the rest of the water.
Click to expand...

Thanks! My next batch should be on Wednesday or Thursday (assuming my lime and aquarium test kit come today) and I need about 13 gallons of water for my 8.25 gallon batch. Lifting 13 gallons of water bucket by bucket will doable, but not fun. I wonder if in the future, I could do the water treatment on my brew stand (where the MLT goes) and use the pump to decant. I'd have to add fittings to whatever vessel I decide on, but that sure seems easier than siphoning/pouring. I wonder if I could do it without disturbing the precipitate, though.

Or...............decant via gravity to my MLT on a stool with the treatment vessel on the stand. Then simply pump from my MLT to my HLT. I think that would work!
 
Yooper said:
Lifting 13 gallons of water bucket by bucket will doable, but not fun.
Click to expand...

You're right. I'm planning on getting another can, and building a stand for it, so I can use a valve to dump water from the higher can into the lower can, then having a valve on the lower one I can hook my pump to, and pumping the finished water into my HLT.
 

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