ugh just got our water test back and am not happy

[clay9_24]

I have been wondering what our water profile was for a bit and the results just came in tonight. Looks like our water is hard enough to cut diamonds and alkali enough that it might be better suited as battery acid.

Anyways, plugging the numbers into beersmith and ez water calculator I don't think we can ever pull the numbers down enough without a pre-boil or adding sulfuric acid.

Tell me what you all suggest. Trying to run 40 gallon batches so buying a ton of distilled water is going to be high.

Duster Tx well water: from Ward Laboratories

pH 7.2
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est, ppm 1122
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 1.87
Cations / Anions, me/L / 19.818.7

Sodium, Na 119
Potassium, K 8
Calcium, Ca 173
Magnesium, Mg 56
Total Hardness, CaCO3 666
Nitrate, NO3-N 7.2 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 28
Chloride, Cl 358
Carbonate, CO3 < 1
Bicarbonate, HCO3 450
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 369
Fluoride, F 0.32
Total Iron, Fe < 0.01
"<" - Not Detected / Below Detection Limit

 

[ajdelange]

I have been wondering what our water profile was for a bit and the results just came in tonight. Looks like our water is hard enough to cut diamonds and alkali enough that it might be better suited as battery acid.

Anyways, plugging the numbers into beersmith and ez water calculator I don't think we can ever pull the numbers down enough without a pre-boil or adding sulfuric acid.

Battery acid is sulfuric acid. You have 450/50 = 9 mEq/L of alkalinity. To knock that out totally with sulfuric acid would require 9 meq/L of that and that would put about 430 mg/L sulfate into your water. This is on top of the 84 mg/L SO4 you already have. Not, IMO, a practical approach.

Your total hardness well exceeds your alkalinity so decarbonation by boiling or lime treatment are possibilities. But this still leaves a lot of sulfate and sodium.

Tell me what you all suggest. Trying to run 40 gallon batches so buying a ton of distilled water is going to be high.

Sometimes one just has to accept that his water is not suitable for brewing. My recommendation for you would be to buy and install (if you don't already have one) a water softener and to follow that with an RO unit. These are now much less expensive than they used to be and produce reasonable volumes of water in a day.

 

[motobrewer]

yikes. i thought my water was hard, at about 1/2 your CaCO3....

I gotta buy RO from the store. $0.39 if i bring my own container.

if you wanna do 40 gallon RO unit is the only way to go.

 

[mabrungard]

You're out of luck. Get a big tank when you get your new RO unit.

 

[Homercidal]

At least you have a hot blonde in your avatar...

 

[Dan-]

Or you could move....

 

[clay9_24]

I now completely understand why our kolsch recipes failed. lol

I just figured that it does have 1/7th the calcium content of milk. Maybe we should bottle it as liquid vitamins.

 

[michaeltrego]

Total Hardness, CaCO3 666

That water is pure evil - don't brew with it!

 

[passedpawn]

That water is pure evil - don't brew with it!

Uh oh... if you rearrange the letters "Total Hardness", you get "Satans The Lord"!.

Not good.

 

[clay9_24]

i wonder what happens if i stir the boil backwards?

 

[jfrizzell]

I'm in a similar boat:

pH 6.5
Total Dissolved Solids: 992 ppm

Sodium, Na: 70 ppm
Potassium, K: 12 ppm
Calcium, Ca: 125 ppm
Magnesium, Mg: 73 ppm
Total Hardness , CaCO3: 613 ppm
Nitrate: < 0.1 ppm
Nitrite: < 0.1 ppm
Chloride, Cl: 278 ppm
Carbonate, CO3: 0.1 ppm
Bicarbonate, HCO3: 347.6 ppm
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3: 285 ppm
Iron, Fe: 2.18 ppm

I've never really worried about my water. I have a softener and have used softened water a few times but have also used my hard water. I really need to start looking at water adjustments as my next step in improving my beer. I've never really noticed any issues I could attribute to the water quality, but I'm sure they're there.

I have been wondering what our water profile was for a bit and the results just came in tonight. Looks like our water is hard enough to cut diamonds and alkali enough that it might be better suited as battery acid.

Anyways, plugging the numbers into beersmith and ez water calculator I don't think we can ever pull the numbers down enough without a pre-boil or adding sulfuric acid.

Tell me what you all suggest. Trying to run 40 gallon batches so buying a ton of distilled water is going to be high.

Duster Tx well water: from Ward Laboratories

pH 7.2
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est, ppm 1122
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 1.87
Cations / Anions, me/L / 19.818.7

Sodium, Na 119
Potassium, K 8
Calcium, Ca 173
Magnesium, Mg 56
Total Hardness, CaCO3 666
Nitrate, NO3-N 7.2 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 28
Chloride, Cl 358
Carbonate, CO3 < 1
Bicarbonate, HCO3 450
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 369
Fluoride, F 0.32
Total Iron, Fe < 0.01
"<" - Not Detected / Below Detection Limit

 

[SwampassJ]

If you have the containers some grocery stores sell RO water for 30-40 cents a gallon. Close enough to distilled as long as the machines are serviced regularly and much cheaper. But it's going to be a pain carrying 40+ watever your boiloff is back to your brew place. I suggest the RO machine like the others.