Newbie with a Ward report - is a big bicarb number an issue or not?

I thought I could work this out. I was wrong.

I have hard, but tasty well water and finally paid for a Ward test as I want to move to All Grain and needed a baseline. The numbers are in and... I'm not sure.

When I put these in Bru'n Water the calcium. magnesium and bicarb are higher than ~75% of the profiles (the bicarb is really high) but is it a big deal? Looking at Palmer's numbers Mg is slightly high - 32 vs 30 - but the rest are OK except Bicarb at 400+ (but bicarb doesn't seem critical from what I've read in a number of places so how big an issue is this?). The other worry is that the Cation/Anion diff is 0.50 which is high according to Bru'n.

If I select profiles - it seems I'm not far off the mark except for the bicarb. (How big an issue is it if I'm 23ppm off on Sulfate compared to say Rochfort?)

I'm looking to brew Belgian styles and maybe an Oktoberfest (for SWMBO) and Pilsners are not on my radar - should I be more concerned about the mash pH, nailing mash temps, and controlling fermentation temp than chemistry with this water for now?

For lighter beers I've been boiling my water the day before to precipitate some of the hardness out - should I just stick with this approach for now?

Ward Numbers
---
pH 7.6
Sodium, Na 5 ppm
Potassium, K 3 ppm
Calcium, Ca 79 ppm
Magnesium, Mg 32 ppm
Total Hardness, CaCO3 331 ppm
Nitrate, NO3-N 0.4 ppm
Sulfate, SO4-S 3 ppm
Chloride, Cl 10 ppm
Carbonate, CO3 < 1.0 ppm
Bicarbonate, HCO3 419 ppm
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 345 ppm
Total Phosphorus, P 2.46 ppm
Total Iron, Fe < 0.01 ppm
(And apologies to those guys and girls out there with crapola water who'd be more than happy with this water on tap.)

That level of alkalinity is too high for most beer styles. You'd need to add a lot of acid to get your mash pH down to a reasonable range. You could look into boiling your water (to remove the temporary hardness - this will lower Ca and HCO3/CO3) or adding lime (CaOH), but it might be easier to just use RO water. It's easy and cheap to add Ca/Mg/SO4/Cl back into your water.

Edit: I just noticed that you've already been boiling to reduce hardness. You should keep doing this for all of your beers (except maybe an imperial stout), then add some Calcium chloride and gypsum back into the water. I'm not sure how much bicarbonate you'll remove by boiling though - hopefully someone who knows more about it can answer that, and possibly the lime option.

GrumpyOldGit said:

I thought I could work this out. I was wrong.

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It can get pretty complicated.

GrumpyOldGit said:

When I put these in Bru'n Water the calcium. magnesium and bicarb are higher than ~75% of the profiles (the bicarb is really high) but is it a big deal?

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The bicarbonate numbers in Bru'n water profiles are meaningless. They are just there to balance the other ions in the profile at pH 8. But then the bicarbonate in your water isn't really important either. You should be looking at the alkalinity. When you make beer you are going to have to dispose of that alkalinity somehow or other so that's what you need to worry about. Now in most cases most of the alkalinity is attributable to bicarbonate. In the case of your water the alkalinity breakdown looks like this:

Alkalinity Breakdown
H+ 1.99 0.58%
OH- 0.01 0.00%
Bicarbonate 337.84 98.21%
Carbonate 1.15 0.33%
Phosphate 2.99 0.87%
Sulfate 0.02 0.01%
Silicate 0.00 0.00%

Total 344.00

Most of the alkalinity is attributable to bicarbonate but it isn't the only contributor to it. The interesting thing about your water is the relatively high level of phosphate which contributes almost 3 ppm to the alkalinity.

In the case of a recent poster from St Louis with water pH 9.6 the breakdown is:

Alkalinity Breakdown
H+ 1.99 4.24%
OH- 1.36 2.90%
Bicarbonate 29.41 62.58%
Carbonate 9.98 21.24%
Phosphate 0.26 0.55%
Sulfate 0.05 0.11%
Silicate 0.00 0.00%

Total 47.00

In his case only 63% of the alkalinity is attributable to bicarbonate. It is too bad that many of the calculators and spreadsheets encourage people to think that bicarbonate is the important parameter. Why they do this I have never been able to figure out. I suppose it's easier to picture a bicarbonate ion that grasp the more significant, but more abstract concept of alkalinity.

GrumpyOldGit said:

... but the rest are OK except Bicarb at 400+ (but bicarb doesn't seem critical from what I've read in a number of places so how big an issue is this?).

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You saw me say that here and it is true. I guess if I'd just shut up (you think you are a grumpy old git?) people could go back to being be dumb but happy. When the beer is in the bottle you have to have disposed of the bicarbonate but you also have to have disposed of the carbonate, OH- and phosphate ions (or, more accurately, converted them to other forms of phosphate ion). The value in the alkalinity measure (and why chemists devised it) is that it is a measure of how much acid you need to effect that disposal. The fact that your alkalinity is 345 ppm as CaCO3 (7.9 mEq/L) is a big problem. You will need approximately 0.9*7.9 = 7.18 mEq/L acid to reach mash pH (this is another reason to look at alkalinity: just divide it by 50 and multiply by 0.9 to get an estimate of the acid needed to neutralize the water to pH 4.4 - 4.5).

GrumpyOldGit said:

The other worry is that the Cation/Anion diff is 0.50 which is high according to Bru'n.

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Well it is. That means they mis-measured something by half a mEq/L. The implications are that the alkalinity measurement was off by 25 or the sodium measurement off by 12.5 or the sulfate measurement by 24 etc. The imbalance is a measure of the quality of the report and an 0.5 difference isn't good and Ward Labs knows it. I have encouraged people in the past to contact them and mention this. In many cases they will re do the analysis gratis. It has always amazed me that they would, in cases, where the quality is that bad, advertise same at the top of the report and send it out. Clearly most people don't know the difference and I'll bet they don't get many complaints.

GrumpyOldGit said:

If I select profiles - it seems I'm not far off the mark except for the bicarb.

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As noted earlier a disagreement between what you have and what a profile says is, WRT bicarbonate, meaningless. You should be concerned about 0.9*alkalinity/50 because all mashes require about that much acid per liter of strike water.

GrumpyOldGit said:

...should I be more concerned about the mash pH,

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Yes, because if you reach proper mash pH you will have used about (but not exactly) 0.9*alkalinity/50 mEq/L.

GrumpyOldGit said:

(How big an issue is it if I'm 23ppm off on Sulfate compared to say Rochfort?)

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That depends on the target level. If it is 230 then no, you don't have to worry. If the target is 40 then perhaps you do. What counts is 10*log(realized/target). Shooting for 230 and being off by 23 gives 10*log((230-23)/230) = -0.45 or 10*log((230+23)/230) = +0.41. OTOH 10*log((40-23)/40) = -3.7and
10*log((40+23)/40) = 2.0. The human body responds to the logarithm of a stimulus (above the threshold of detectability) and it generally takes a doubling (10*log(2) = 3) to be plainly noticeable and 1 log unit to be noticeable if you are really looking. I hypothesize that taste behaves the same as sound and light and that's why I tell people to look at log ratios. The fact that it takes a doubling or halving to make a big difference is why I don't sweat profiles but instead encourage people to research the style and shoot for ion concentrations that are consistent with what they learn.

GrumpyOldGit said:

For lighter beers I've been boiling my water the day before to precipitate some of the hardness out - should I just stick with this approach for now?

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Your calcium is 79/20 = 4 mEq/L and your alkalinity 345/50 = 6.9. Boiling removes equal amounts of each to the point that the lower of the two is around 1. Thus after boiling you will have about 1 mEq/L Ca and 3.9 mEq/L of alkalinity. That's a lot (195 ppm as CaCO3). Rather than just boil add at least 3 mEq/L calcium. Then you start with 7 mEq/L calcium and 6.9 of alkalinity and should wind up with 7 - 5.9 = 1.1 of calcium and 6.9 - 5.9 = 1 of alkalinity. If you add the 3 mEq/L calcium as calcium chloride you are also adding 3 mEq/L chloride = 3*35.45 = 106.35 mg/L and that's OK but getting up there. More than guidelines for some styles. You can also use gypsum but that raises sulfate; or some chloride and some sulfate.

Your water's high alkalinity is a problem for you. You can decarbonate and adjust from there which leads to other problems all of which are solvable by using RO.

My bicarbonate level is 229; alkalinity 197; hardness 12. I typically use 50% RO water (45 cents a gal) and adjust with cal chloride, gypsum, an Epsom salts; using EZ WATER CALC.
Cheers

doomXsaloon said:

My bicarbonate level is 229; alkalinity 197; hardness 12. I typically use 50% RO water (45 cents a gal) and adjust with cal chloride, gypsum, an Epsom salts; using EZ WATER CALC.
Cheers

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That means you have at least 23*(197 -12)/50 = 85 mg/L sodium. Sure you didn't leave a 0 off there? 23*(197 -120)/50 = 35.42 is a lot more reasonable.

ajdelange said:

Your calcium is 79/20 = 4 mEq/L and your alkalinity 345/50 = 6.9. Boiling removes equal amounts of each to the point that the lower of the two is around 1. Thus after boiling you will have about 1 mEq/L Ca and 3.9 mEq/L of alkalinity. That's a lot (195 ppm as CaCO3). Rather than just boil add at least 3 mEq/L calcium. Then you start with 7 mEq/L calcium and 6.9 of alkalinity and should wind up with 7 - 5.9 = 1.1 of calcium and 6.9 - 5.9 = 1 of alkalinity. If you add the 3 mEq/L calcium as calcium chloride you are also adding 3 mEq/L chloride = 3*35.45 = 106.35 mg/L and that's OK but getting up there. More than guidelines for some styles. You can also use gypsum but that raises sulfate; or some chloride and some sulfate.

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So am I right in saying that if the OP were to add 0.1g/L each of CaCl2 and Gypsum, giving (approximately) 60ppm=3mEq/L Calcium, that boiling should reduce the level of Calcium to 1.1mEq/L (22ppm) and 1mEq/L alkalinity (50ppm). This would then raise the Chloride by 64ppm (to 74ppm total) and the sulfate by 56ppm (to 59ppm total), which are already high for some styles and would need to be increased again with the addition of more Calcium as 22ppm is quite low (often quoted as being too low - 50ppm minimum).

Yes but don't worry about the 20 ppm calcium. That's fine for many if not most beers. Minimum 50 is another one of those shibboleths that's falling by the wayside.

ajdelange said:

That means you have at least 23*(197 -12)/50 = 85 mg/L sodium. Sure you didn't leave a 0 off there? 23*(197 -120)/50 = 35.42 is a lot more reasonable.

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No, I checked it again...hardness is 12. I have no idea how you did the math, but yes, my sodium level is 83.
So what does it all mean?
Thanks, and sorry to the OP,,,didn't mean to hijack....

doomXsaloon said:

No, I checked it again...hardness is 12. I have no idea how you did the math, but yes, my sodium level is 83.
So what does it all mean?
Thanks, and sorry to the OP,,,didn't mean to hijack....

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Does your water go through a water softener?

doomXsaloon said:

No, I checked it again...hardness is 12. I have no idea how you did the math, but yes, my sodium level is 83.

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Well an alkalinity of 197/50 = 3.94 mEq/L means that there are 3.94 mEq of negative charges in each liter of water attributable to carbonate and bicarbonate (for the most part). Hardness of 12 means there are 12/50 = 0.24 meq/L of positive charges from magnesium and calcium to balance those negative charges. Obviously 12/50 can't completely balance 197/50. There are (197 - 12)/50 left over. In most water such uncancelled negative charges are balanced by sodium (and perhaps a little potassium). Thus we can estimate that there are (197 -12)/50 = 85 mEq of positively charged sodium ions in each liter. 1 mEq of sodium ions weigh 23 grams hence the estimate of 23*(197 -12)/50 = 85. I said "at least" because if the water contained negatively charge chloride and sulfate ions there would have to be more sodium to balance them.

doomXsaloon said:

So what does it all mean?

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It could indeed mean that your water has been through a softener but the readings out of them are usually lower - a couple of ppm. It also means that if you want to supplement chloride in your water you should avoid NaCl as your sodium is pretty high already.

ajdelange said:

It can get pretty complicated.
Your water's high alkalinity is a problem for you. You can decarbonate and adjust from there which leads to other problems all of which are solvable by using RO.

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Thanks so much for this - I've read (and re-read) a few times, I'm still uncertain about next steps beyond the mash.

I'd like to stay away from RO (partly as it's a bugger to find near me - they all seem to prefer pseudo-spring water - which I get out my faucet.)

I've requested the test as I want to move to all grain.

For the first few brews would I be OK to stick with the water as-is, but use Ez-Water to work out how much acid to bring the mash pH to 5.5?

I'm not going to try any Pilsners, but are there any other beers I should avoid? (I want to try a few Belgians and an Oktoberfest this end of the year, Brown, Scottish and Coffee Stout in the fall. Worth a shot or just going to be a waste of time/effort?)

I also asked Ward about the 0.5 ion diff and was told:

To me this looks like a good balance. We do not keep running the tests until they match exactly.
We show the cation/anion values so we know if the water analysis was performed correctly. We have always allowed some difference in the two because of analytical errors and the chance that there are other cations or anions present in the water that we cannot analyze. I hope this will explain the small differences.

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Disclaimer: I'm learning this as I write.

According to the report Cations are 6.9mEq/L, Anions are 7.3mEq/L.

Difference% = (7.3-9.9)/(7.3+6.9)x100% = 2.8%.

According to this
http://www.hill-laboratories.com/file/fileid/49066
that difference is a bit above what should be accepted.

GrumpyOldGit said:

For the first few brews would I be OK to stick with the water as-is, but use Ez-Water to work out how much acid to bring the mash pH to 5.5?

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Just keep in mind that each milliequivalent of bicarbonate you remove with acid is replaced by a milliequivalent of the anion of that acid. With the high amount of alkalinity you have to deal with this may mean more lactic than you can tolerate or more phosphate than seems reasonable. You don't need a spreadsheet to figure out how much acid you need. Just convert the alkalinity to mEq/L (345/50 = 6.9) and multiply by 0.9. That's how much acid you will need in mEq/L for the alkalinity. You will need a bit more for the malts' alkalinities but 2% sauermalz by weight should handle that.


I also asked Ward about the 0.5 ion diff and was told:

To me this looks like a good balance. We do not keep running the tests until they match exactly.

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To me this looks like a crock.

We show the cation/anion values so we know if the water analysis was performed correctly. We have always allowed some difference in the two because of analytical errors and the chance that there are other cations or anions present in the water that we cannot analyze. I hope this will explain the small differences.

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He's right about why they do it but a difference as large as he reported is indication of sloppy lab work. There is nothing they don't measure (strontium, silica, iron, mangnese...?) that could possibly be as large as half a mEq/L.

Gnomebrewer said:

Disclaimer: I'm learning this as I write.

According to the report Cations are 6.9mEq/L, Anions are 7.3mEq/L.

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The actual numbers are 6.87 and 7.44 (Ward labs doesn't always get them right) so the imbalance is (7.44 - 6.97)/(7.44 + 6.97) = 3.96% which is well above the 2% specified by the lab you referenced.

Since the lab isn't testing for all possible ions in the water, we do have to give them some slack. Ions such as silicate and phosphate can through the balance off since they may not be testing for them.

For his reported phosphate level the anion charge is 0.0043 mEq/L and for an assumed silica level of 30 mg/L (the maximum level usually encountered) it is 0.0028 so I don't think it's those. Iron, at the SMCL limit of 0.3 mg/L and assuming it is all Fe(III) would only give 0.016. I've heard that strontium is sometimes found as high as 10 mg/L. That would contribute 0.23.

This is just sloppy lab work or poor QC.