sparkyaber
Well-Known Member
I have been doing kit beers for over a year now and have decided to finally make the jump to AG. I have all of the equipment ready and am just waiting for a nice warm (above 40) day.
In the mean time I have been doing some research on the water here. I got my test results from ward last week and drew out my water on palmers nomograph. Looks to me like I have pretty hard water. I read the section in palmers book a bunch of times, but still am having a hard time grasping the concept of the ph of the mash, the additions, well pretty much everything. I see how If I add calcium I can lower my ph, but I would have to add a ton for a light beer. (like about 5 tablespoons of calciumSulfate). Now the way I read it is that I could split this between CaSO4, and CaCl2. Is that right? Is that all there is to it? I think this should be pretty hard. There is something I am not getting. I don't like to screw up, especially if I can figure it out in the first place. So basically what I am asking is if someone could explain it in laymans terms what I am looking at........
Here is my water test results:
pH 8.0
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est 236
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 0.39
Cations / Anions, me/L 4.1 / 4.2
ppm
Sodium, Na 7
Potassium, K 1
Calcium, Ca 55
Magnesium, Mg 12
Total Hardness, CaCO3 188
Nitrate, NO3-N < 0.1 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 2
Chloride, Cl 9
Carbonate, CO3 6
Bicarbonate, HCO3 221
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 191
"<" - Not Detected / Below Detection Limit
I can plot all of those on the nomograph, and came out with a base malt mash ph of about 5.94, or 140 ra.
Who wants a challenge??
One last thing, I did seach around for a while, but really did not find anything.
In the mean time I have been doing some research on the water here. I got my test results from ward last week and drew out my water on palmers nomograph. Looks to me like I have pretty hard water. I read the section in palmers book a bunch of times, but still am having a hard time grasping the concept of the ph of the mash, the additions, well pretty much everything. I see how If I add calcium I can lower my ph, but I would have to add a ton for a light beer. (like about 5 tablespoons of calciumSulfate). Now the way I read it is that I could split this between CaSO4, and CaCl2. Is that right? Is that all there is to it? I think this should be pretty hard. There is something I am not getting. I don't like to screw up, especially if I can figure it out in the first place. So basically what I am asking is if someone could explain it in laymans terms what I am looking at........
Here is my water test results:
pH 8.0
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est 236
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 0.39
Cations / Anions, me/L 4.1 / 4.2
ppm
Sodium, Na 7
Potassium, K 1
Calcium, Ca 55
Magnesium, Mg 12
Total Hardness, CaCO3 188
Nitrate, NO3-N < 0.1 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 2
Chloride, Cl 9
Carbonate, CO3 6
Bicarbonate, HCO3 221
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 191
"<" - Not Detected / Below Detection Limit
I can plot all of those on the nomograph, and came out with a base malt mash ph of about 5.94, or 140 ra.
Who wants a challenge??
One last thing, I did seach around for a while, but really did not find anything.