Can't see carbonate or bicarbonate in my water report

[Surly_goat]

I see residual alkalinity but can't find carb and bicarbonate. I'm trying to setup a bru'n water spread sheet. Maybe they are just zero. Anyone able to see something I'm missing?

Parameter Average Average Range Days Guideline
Exceeded
Canadian
Guideline Limit
Reason Guideline
Established
Alkalinity as CaCO3
(mg/L) 3.2 7.3 4.6-8.9 none
Aluminium Dissolved (µg/L) 61 21 13-31 none
Aluminium Total (µg/L) 188 29 15-85 none
Antimony Total (µg/L) <0.5 <0.5 <0.5 0 6 Health
Arsenic Total (µg/L) <0.5 <0.5 <0.5 0 10 Health
Barium Total (µg/L) 2.9 2.9 2.5-3.0 0 1000 Health
Boron Total (mg/L) <0.01 <10 <10 5
Bromate (mg/L) <0.01 <0.01 <0.01 0 0.01 Health
Bromide (mg/L) <0.01 <0.01 <0.01 0 none Health
Cadmium Total (µg/L) <0.2 <0.2 <0.2 0 5 Health
Calcium Total (mg/L) 1.30 3.07 2.26-3.57 none
Carbon Organic Dissolved (mg/L) 1.88 0.6 0.5-1.0 none
Carbon Organic Total (mg/L) 1.88 0.65 0.5-1.0 none
Chlorate (mg/L) <0.01 0.03 0.01 - 0.05 0 1.0 Health
Chloride Total (mg/L) 0.58 2.4 2.1-3.0 0 ≤ 250 Aesthetic
Chromium Total (µg/L) <0.05 <0.05 <0.05 - 0.05 0 50 Health
Color Apparent (ACU) 23 <1 <1 none
Color True (TCU) 12 <1 <1 0 ≤ 15 Aesthetic
Conductivity (umhos/cm) 12 26 21-34 none
Copper Total (µg/L) 4.9 <0.5 <0.5 0 ≤ 1000 Aesthetic
Cyanide Total (mg/L) <0.02 <0.02 <0.02 0 0.2 Health
Fluoride (mg/L) <0.05 <0.05 <0.05 0 1.5 Health
Hardness as CaCO3
(mg/L) 4.10 8.6 6.2-9.9 none
Iron Dissolved (µg/L) 64 <5 <5 none
Iron Total (µg/L) 247 <5 <5-34 0 ≤ 300 Aesthetic
Lead Total (µg/L) <0.5 <0.5 <0.5 0 10 Health
Magnesium Total (µg/L) 191 170 135-244 none
Manganese Dissolved (µg/L) 13.6 2.1 1.3-4.6 none
Manganese Total (µg/L) 14.7 5.2 1.7-12.0 0 ≤ 50 Aesthetic
Mercury Total (µg/L) <0.05 <0.05 <0.05 0 1.0 Health
Molybdenum Total (µg/L) <0.5 <0.5 <0.5 none
Nickel Total (µg/L) <0.5 <0.5 <0.5 none
Nitrogen - Ammonia as N (mg/L) <0.02 <0.02 <0.02 none
Nitrogen - Nitrate as N (mg/L) 0.07 0.06 0.03-0.09 0 45 Health
Nitrogen - Nitrite as N (mg/L) <0.01 <0.01 <0.01 0 3.0 Health
pH 6.5 7.2 7.0-7.4 0 6.5 to 8.5 Aesthetic
Phenols (µg/L) <5 <5 <5 none
Phosphorus Total (µg/L) <5 <5 <5 none
Potassium Total (mg/L) 162 152 134-183 none
Residue Total (mg/L) 21 24 18-29 none
Residue Total Dissolved (mg/L) 12 18 11-22 0 ≤ 500 Aesthetic
Residue Total Fixed (mg/L) 12 18 14-21 none
Residue Total Volatile (mg/L) 9 6 3-8 none
Selenium Total (µg/L) <0.5 <0.5 <0.5 0 50 Health
Silica as SiO2
(mg/L) 3.6 3.4 3.0-4.4 none
Silver Total (µg/L) <0.5 <0.5 <0.5 none
Sodium Total (mg/L) 0.63 1.51 1.34-1.78 0 ≤ 200 Aesthetic
Sulphate (mg/L) 0.8 1.0 0.8-1.3 0 ≤ 500 Aesthetic
Turbidity (NTU) 1.72 0.012 0.07-0.27 0 ≤ 1.0 Health
Uranium Total (µg/L) 0.043 0.009 0.009 0 20 Health
UV254 (Abs/cm) 0.076 0.011 0.007-0.016 none
Zinc Total (µg/L) <3 <3 <3 0 ≤ 5000 Aesthetic

 

[Surly_goat]

It's okay. I figured out a way to calculate it in bru'n water

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

For most encountered source water pH's bicarbonate is 61/50 x alkalinity. This is simply a ratio of their respective molecular weights.

 

[ajdelange]

You won't find biacarbonate or carbonate in many water reports because very few labs measure them. To do so is a pretty elaborate undertaking. What they do measure is alkalinity. A good brewing program needs to know the water's alkalinity and pH. As many of the popular ones, regrettably, ask for bicarbonate rather than alkalinity, some labs, such as Ward Labs which serves home brewers, calculate bicarbonate and carbonate (slightly incorrectly). You then enter the bicarbonate number and the program converts it back to alkalinity (either implicitly or explicity) usually using the 61/50 ratio (which is the ratio of the molecular weight of bicarbonate ion to half the molecular weight of calcium carbonate - there's a reason for this that I won't get into). This formula introduces additional small errors if the pH of the water is higher than 8 or below 7. The errors induced by doing things this way are usually small enough that they are not significant for the home brewing application. The real problem, IMO, with doing things this way is the confusion it causes people new to managing their brewing water chemistry.

In any case this is moot for OP as his alkalinity is very low.

 

[Surly_goat]

Crazy! Thanks for taking the time to explain!

 

[ajdelange]

Form the modern perspective it crazy but there was method in the madness. The ASBC Methods of Analysis contain procedures (MOAs) for measuring various parameters of interest to brewers such as alcohol content, beer color, bitterness, malt diastatic power etc. Water is obviously as important a part of beer as malt or hops but there were already mhundreds of published procedures in place for characterizing water when the MOAs were first conceived. Why would ASBC, then, produce a set of their own MOAs for water when they could just borrow standard ones from the water industry? Thus, with respect to water, the ASBC MOAs incorporate the tests in Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Waste Water published by the AWWA and others. Thus a brewer wishing to measure his water's alkalinity in conformity with the MOAs follows the Standard Methods procedure which uses ppm as CaCO3 as the unit of measure.

Why do they use those units? Alkalinity in ground water arises mostly from bicarbonate ion formed when carbonic acid dissolves limestone: CO2 + H2O + CaC03 --> Ca++ 2HCO3-. Thus each mmole of bicarbonate arose when a half mmole of limestone was dissolved and 61 mg of bicarbonate (1 mmol) is 'equivalent' in this sense, but only in this sense, to 50 mg (1/2 mmol) of limestone. If you give an analyst a sample of water and tell him its ground water and he measures alkalinity of 125 ppm as CaCO3 he knows right away that approximately 125 mg of limestone dissolved per liter to create this water. That's handy if you deal exclusively with ground water even though the amount dissolved is actually 122.15 mg/L (pHJ 9 sample). But we don't by any means deal exclusively with ground water. We'll note that if you put 2.5 mmol of lye into 1 L of distilled water and told the analyst to measure the alkalinity he'd come back and tell you 125 ppm as CaCO3 even though there is no CaCO3 was involved estimating that it contained that much limestone if you hinted that this was groundwater.

When alkalinity is measured 0.1 N (contains 0.1 mEq protons per mL) acid is added to 0.1 L of sample until a standard pH is reached. Because it is 0.1 N and the sample i 0.1 L the number of mL acid used is the number of protons per liter of sample and this is the alkalinity. In the Standard Methods procedure you multiply this by 50 to get ppm as CaCO3. In other methods you just report the mEq/L and are done. This make a lot more sense because it doesn't matter whether the alkalinity came from limestone or from sodium hydroxide. It is still the alkalinity and people don't get confused by seeing 'as CaCO3' when only a part or none of the alkalinity came from CaCO3.

So the reason the early spreadsheet authors use 'as CaCO3' is because there was lots of pressure on them to do so. It was the standard way of describing alkalinity. Why they persist in doing so today is probably because it is still the traditional way even though we now are aware that there are better ways. Why they still insist on expressing alkalinity in terms of bicarbonate is a question only they can answer. The usual answer, if you can get one at all, is 'it works'.