Leftover Two Part Solution

I have been brewing for a few years now with RO water with out adjusting the water chemistry. While the brews have been pretty good, they always seem to be missing something. After doing a lot of reading about brewing water chemistry I now understand the importance of making these adjustments. Having kept a reef aquarium in the past, I have some left-over water adjustment chemicals from TwoPartSolution and was wondering if I could reuse them for brewing. I have several sealed bags of the following:

High Purity Anhydrous Calcium Chloride
High Purity Soda Ash (Sodium Carbonate)
High Purity Magnesium Sulfate and Magnesium Chloride Mix

merc1 said:

I have been brewing for a few years now with RO water with out adjusting the water chemistry. While the brews have been pretty good, they always seem to be missing something. After doing a lot of reading about brewing water chemistry I now understand the importance of making these adjustments. Having kept a reef aquarium in the past, I have some left-over water adjustment chemicals from TwoPartSolution and was wondering if I could reuse them for brewing. I have several sealed bags of the following:

High Purity Anhydrous Calcium Chloride
High Purity Soda Ash (Sodium Carbonate)
High Purity Magnesium Sulfate and Magnesium Chloride Mix

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You could certainly use the calcium chloride. It is the only salt most brewers should be using in most cases. Are you sure it is the anhydride? That stuff is hard to weigh out because it picks up water from the air so readily. If you do decide to use it be sure to compensate for the difference between molecular weights of the dihydrate (which is what all the spreadsheets and calculators assume you will be using) and the anhydride.

You will have little use for the soda ash other than cleaning. Brewers should be combating carbonate, not adding it to their brew water. Soda ash is a very strong base which pushes mash pH in the wrong direction.

Magnesium is not generally considered good in brewing because it lends bitter flavor and can be laxative. If, however, you needed to get a bit of extra sulfate or chloride into a treatment and didn't want to raise calcium and or sodium you could use some of this. Do you know what the ratio of chloride to sulfate is?

Finally there is the question of food grade. These chemicals are probably not and, therefore, you may not want to put them into something that is going to be consumed by humans. That's a decision you will have to make.

You could certainly use the calcium chloride. It is the only salt most brewers should be using in most cases. Are you sure it is the anhydride? That stuff is hard to weigh out because it picks up water from the air so readily. If you do decide to use it be sure to compensate for the difference between molecular weights of the dihydrate (which is what all the spreadsheets and calculators assume you will be using) and the anhydride.

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Yep, I am sure it is anhydride... sounds like making use of it would be more of a pain than it is worth.

Finally there is the question of food grade. These chemicals are probably not and, therefore, you may not want to put them into something that is going to be consumed by humans. That's a decision you will have to make.

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I was making an assumption (perhas a bad one) that high purity meant lab grade. I am not going to take any chance here and just go with the food grade stuff. Thanks again for the reply.

enough about DIY 2 part, post a pic of your reef!

B