Water: German Degrees of Hardness and Calcium

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MattHollingsworth

MattHollingsworth

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Hey guys.

So, looking for my local water analysis online and found it.

It lists "total hardness" as 20, as measured using German Degrees of Hardness.

I then found this calculator for converting that:

Cactus2000: Converter for hardness of water

And it says that I'd have 142.94 mg Ca2+/l.

Lists all sorts of other stuff as well.

Firstly, I thought maybe someone would have a use for the calculator. Secondly, I cannot quite wrap my head around this. Is this an accurate way of generating my Calcium number? The water analysis doesn't list just Calcium on it. Thoughts?
 
Wow that is 356 ppm. That is seriously hard water, I thought ours was bad at 227.


Edit: Our report also does not have calcium, they seem to lump it into the hardness number. If you contact your local water supplier they usually will supply you with a detailed analysis. That should have the calcium listed.
 
MattHollingsworth said:
Hey guys.

So, looking for my local water analysis online and found it.

It lists "total hardness" as 20, as measured using German Degrees of Hardness.

I then found this calculator for converting that:

Cactus2000: Converter for hardness of water

And it says that I'd have 142.94 mg Ca2+/l.

Lists all sorts of other stuff as well.

Firstly, I thought maybe someone would have a use for the calculator. Secondly, I cannot quite wrap my head around this. Is this an accurate way of generating my Calcium number? The water analysis doesn't list just Calcium on it. Thoughts?
Click to expand...

142.94 is your Calcium number. Many atoms don't exist alone, e.g., a single Ca atom. They exist as a molecule or ion of multiple atoms, e.g. Ca2+, which means 2 Calcium atoms combined to result in a postively charged ion. So, when we say Ca on here, we really mean Ca2+... and mg/L is the same as ppm.
 
MattHollingsworth said:
It lists "total hardness" as 20, as measured using German Degrees of Hardness.

I then found this calculator for converting that:

Cactus2000: Converter for hardness of water

And it says that I'd have 142.94 mg Ca2+/l.
Click to expand...

Total Haddness is a sum of Mg and Ca hardness, so if you dont' know how much Mg you have, there is no way to calculate Ca accurately.

I see that they are just assuming Mg=0; which is not true in most cases. You can theat it as maximum possible level of Ca, but most probably you have some 110-120 ppm. Which is just right for homebrewing.
 

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