Water profile -how to fix...

[balto charlie]

I don't really know but I would like to find more info on the "Ideal" water profile per style.

check out the link I provided, section 3, recommended Ion concentration. It comes from from Zymurgy, '91 This is the missing link!

 

[conpewter]

Hey Revvy,

Tap pH 7.71
Sodium, 8 ppm
Potassium, 1 ppm
Calcium, 29.7 ppm
Magnesium, 6.5 ppm
Manganese 0 ppm
Nitrate, 0 ppm
Sulfate, 20 ppm
Chloride, 7 ppm
Total Alkalinity, 76 ppm
Total Hardness, 98 as CaCO3 (~37 ppm)
Non - Carbonate Hardness 22 ppm

Bicarbonate, 92ppm (calculated from Total Alkalinity)

As a check for your total hardness
Ca hardness as CaC03 = 74
Mg hardness as CaC03 = 26
= 100 (close to the 98 value that they tested for)

You are not really close to any particular brewing city's water, looks like you are between pilsen and london. You do have a profile that will be really easy to build other ones from since you are fairly low on most minerals.

 

[conpewter]

check out the link I provided, section 3, recommended Ion concentration. It comes from from Zymurgy, '91 This is the missing link!

Awesome thank you! I'm getting a water report from Ward Lab just to get very specific and because the report I got from the city was inconsistent with itself (water is usually electrically neutral, yet according to the mineral contents I was given it was not).

Anyway once I get that I'll definitely be making up water recipes from that list.

 

[conpewter]

Ok I ran the numbers on several parts of that chart and they are generally fairly consistant (anion and cations balance) except when concerning their "CO3" column. Basically most of us are going to have bicarbonates HCo3 in our water due to the PH level it is at, so that's what I deal with. (If you have the total alkalinity you can get a very close approximation of your HCo3 content)

Anyway their chart has 60 Co3 for a porter (which seemed low..) and when I used that number as my alkalinity it was not consistant. If on the other hand you double that number it is consistant.

So to use that chart it is easier to replace the Co3 column with a HCo3 column that has double the value of Co3 (Due to HCo3 being twice as effective I read).

 

[Revvy]

Thanks for your work, Con....

I really am only concerned because I want to try my hand at an IPA soon...



Also, would using 5-Star's 5-2 buffer render everything moot though?

 

[conpewter]

I threw this excel sheet together quickly to convert the Co3 to HCo3 as I think it should be (still yet to be tested and checked out). Also included the HowToBrew conversions and a section to record your brewing salts additions so you don't have to calculate every time you brew.

View attachment WaterProfiles.zip

 

[conpewter]

5.2 takes a lot of this guesswork out, but really only with the mash. If you have a lot of sulfates (like good IPA water does) it will help you get more utilization out of your hops, and too much sodium will affect how the beer tastes no matter if you use 5.2 or not. I think 5.2 is very very helpful (and I have some, and use it), but if your water is way out of wack for a style (like me... trying to brew a pale ale) then you need to identify some of the gross differences and correct them even using 5.2

 

[conpewter]

Revvy:

Ideal
STYLE = Pale ale
Ca 100-150
Mg 20
Na 20-30
So4 300-425
Cl 30-50
HCo3 0

Yours
STYLE = Pale ale
Ca 30
Mg 6.5
Na 8
So4 20
Cl 7
HCo3 92


Since there is no good way to get rid of bicarbonates I'm not positive what you'd want to do. Since yours are not way out there (I have 360ppm bicarbonates) I'd probably just brew with them and make sure to use 5.2 in the mash.

If you add 4.2 grams of Epsom salt
1.1 grams of canning salt (table salt)
12.2 grams of Gypsum

You get

Ca 123
So4 298
Mg 20
Na 23
Cl 29
Carb 92

Which is pretty close (except for the bicarbonates) to the ideal pale ale (notice the S04 for more hop bitterness etc)

 

[ChemE]

Revvy:

...Since there is no good way to get rid of bicarbonates I'm not positive what you'd want to do. Since yours are not way out there (I have 360ppm bicarbonates) I'd probably just brew with them and make sure to use 5.2 in the mash...

This isn't true. An RO/DI filter will totally eliminate bicarbonates. Now I totally realize that many people will not care enough about this to spend the $200 but I don't doubt that some will be willing to do so.

I did brew BierMuncher's Black Pearl Porter yesterday and I was able to construct the perfect water for it thanks to my RO/DI filter. I added 7 grams of chalk and 6 grams of salt to 5 gallons of RO/DI to create the following profile:

Ideal Porter/Stout (ideal according to me based on Palmer's descriptions of ions and the actions on the beer)
Ca 148.4
Mg 0
Na 124.8
SO4 0
Cl 192
HCO3 221.2

Only questionable value is the bicarb, it may be better to always keep this close to zero so as not to risk a high mash or sparge pH. My pH remained a constant 5.2 from dough in to the end of fly sparging.

 

[conpewter]

Ok edit to above

No good cheap way to get rid of bicarbonates.

RO = expensive and strips everything out of your water not just bicarbonates
Acid = leaves other componds (phosphates, sulfates, etc.)
Boiling = strips out the calcium as well and won't work if you don't have enough calcium

 

[balto charlie]

Ok I ran the numbers on several parts of that chart and they are generally fairly consistant (anion and cations balance) except when concerning their "CO3" column. Basically most of us are going to have bicarbonates HCo3 in our water due to the PH level it is at, so that's what I deal with. (If you have the total alkalinity you can get a very close approximation of your HCo3 content)

Anyway their chart has 60 Co3 for a porter (which seemed low..) and when I used that number as my alkalinity it was not consistant. If on the other hand you double that number it is consistant.

So to use that chart it is easier to replace the Co3 column with a HCo3 column that has double the value of Co3 (Due to HCo3 being twice as effective I read).

The Co3 column seems off to me as well. Later this week I will play with all of the voluminous notes I have taken. I have read that HCO3 is twice Co3 but in J Palmers line drawing diagram is seems to be only 25% difference. I could be mixing up effective hardness with total hardness:cross:

 

[BrewVegas]

Just got my results back from Ward Labs.

How do I read this?

Thanks!

 

[conpewter]

Looks like you have somewhat hard water as well. I'd compare it to the values given in the links posted earlier (the spreadsheet has been useful for me) and then you can know what additions to make (Downloading BreWater may help)

 

[conpewter]

Got my Ward Lab results and I'm glad I went with them instead of trusting the water department

Ward Lab
pH 7.1
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est 708
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 1.18
Cations / Anions, me/L 12.0 / 12.3
ppm
Sodium, Na 93
Potassium, K 4
Calcium, Ca 90
Magnesium, Mg 40
Total Hardness, CaCO3 392
Nitrate, NO3-N < 0.1 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 18
Chloride, Cl 171
Carbonate, CO3 < 1
Bicarbonate, HCO3 383
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 314


Water company:
Sodium, Na- 40 mg/l (ppm)
Potassium, K- to low to measure
Calcium, Ca- 70 mg/l (ppm)
Magnesium, Mg to low - Manganese 150 ug/l (ppb)
Total Hardness, CaCO3- 424 Mg/l
Nitrate, NO3-N - 0.18 mg/l (ppm)
Sulfate, SO4-S - 43 mg/l (ppm)
Chloride, Cl - .5-1.2 Free Mg/l (ppm) to 3-3.5 Total mg/l (ppm)
Carbonate, CO3
Bicarbonate, HCO3
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 - 320 mg/l (ppm)


So they totally missed Chloride (maybe mistook for chlorine? Cl2)
Also they were off on most of the rest of them. Anyway I have a solid starting point to make my water profiles now (Looks like I'll almost always be diluting by half with RO water or something)

 

[ChemE]

They also missed your Mg being 40 ppm which is already high enough to cause excessive bitterness. Grains are supposed to be good for another 10+ ppm of magnesium during mashing. I'd cut with RO or just spend the $100 for a decent RO and use RO + brewing salts. Depending on how often you brew one is cheaper than the other.

 

[SteveG]

The city water report is an average of different sampling points... The water coming out of your tap is not going to be the same as the water a block away. We are talking about water, aka the 'universal solvent', it's good at what it does... which is solvating ions. Looks like the take home message is the city water report is a good place to start, but if you want to know what is coming out of your tap and going into your beer... you need to send it to a lab.

 

[Revvy]

The city water report is an average of different sampling points... The water coming out of your tap is not going to be the same as the water a block away.

Hmmm I wonder just how different mine would be, I literally live a block from the water treatment plant...It would be interesting to see what less than an eighth of a mile of pipe would do to it....

 

[balto charlie]

The city water report is an average of different sampling points... The water coming out of your tap is not going to be the same as the water a block away. We are talking about water, aka the 'universal solvent', it's good at what it does... which is solvating ions. Looks like the take home message is the city water report is a good place to start, but if you want to know what is coming out of your tap and going into your beer... you need to send it to a lab.

Good point but I bet tap water taken at different sampling times will also be some what different. I think we need to build a water sampling lab in our kitchens and sample it each time we brew

 

[hokster]

Hey guys,

I'd love it if I could get in on this action.

My water report:

Total Hardness (as CaCo3): 171-206 ppm
ph: 7.2-7.6
Alkalinity: 180-210
Total Dissolved Solids: 101-245 ppm
Chlorine: .9-1.5 ppm
Fluoride: .7-1 ppm
Nitrate: 2-8 ppm
Sulfate: 3-13 ppm
Sodium: 1-7 ppm
Chloride: 1-18 ppm
Magnesium: 13-25 ppm
Iron: <.01 ppm.

 

[WBC]

I think the best any of us can do is to get a city water report and compare with last years report to see if they are somewhat the same and adjust with RO water and Five star 5.2. I say this because it is too hard to do much else and be accurate without having a lab at our disposal to check the water after we try to doctor it. In some cases we might make it worse due to errors in calculations or measurement.

 

[balto charlie]

I think the best any of us can do is to get a city water report and compare with last years report to see if they are somewhat the same and adjust with RO water and Five star 5.2. I say this because it is too hard to do much else and be accurate without having a lab at our disposal to check the water after we try to doctor it. In some cases we might make it worse due to errors in calculations or measurement.

I compared the one I received this year w/ a local brew clubs report from '05 or '02(can't remember). They were close enough for me. So I guess our profiles are relatively accurate.

 

[balto charlie]

Hey guys,

I'd love it if I could get in on this action.

My water report:

Total Hardness (as CaCo3): 171-206 ppm
ph: 7.2-7.6
Alkalinity: 180-210
Total Dissolved Solids: 101-245 ppm
Chlorine: .9-1.5 ppm
Fluoride: .7-1 ppm
Nitrate: 2-8 ppm
Sulfate: 3-13 ppm
Sodium: 1-7 ppm
Chloride: 1-18 ppm
Magnesium: 13-25 ppm
Iron: <.01 ppm.

You look good for dark beers. Read some of conpewters post as his water is similar to yours. He talks about ways to lower your CaCO3; dilution, RO and precipitating out.

 

[conpewter]

I currently use the two attached spreadsheets. The Water Profiles.xls is one I created and has some of the information and conversions gleaned from websites.

The Mash Water Chemistry Calculator - v1.1.xls is from Bearcat Brewmeister. I find that for my water it will solve such that it replaces almost all of my water with distilled (since my water is so high in bicarbonates) So I tend to set the distilled water to whatever I plan on using, then putting an x below, clicking somewhere else to reset the results and then solve using that. That way I can still use some of my water, just compromising on the HCo3 levels.

View attachment Water Calculations.zip

 

[ShortSnoutBrewing]

So I'm filling in my water profile on the Mash Water Chemistry Calculator (I think that was bearcat's). My Residual Alkalinity is coming up 30 points less then on my water report. What would be the cause of this?

 

[remilard]

So I'm filling in my water profile on the Mash Water Chemistry Calculator (I think that was bearcat's). My Residual Alkalinity is coming up 30 points less then on my water report. What would be the cause of this?

The Kohlbach equation that Palmer, Fix, Daniels and others have given is the residual alkalinity of water in a pale malt mash. I doubt your water utility is giving this on your delivered water report. I don't have residual alkalinity on mine at all but I would guess it is on there for some purpose other than predicting mash pH. The residual alkalinity is different based on what you are adding to the water.

 

[conpewter]

I'm not sure why it would do that, I know bearcat updated his formulas since there was an error with water hardness, but it should be fixed now.

On another note, I looked again into the ideal water profiles on my sheet (recommended from earlier in this thread)
Homebrewing and water quality

I just don't believe the Co3 (Carbonates, double for Hco3 - bicarbonates). I really think a stout or porter should have much more than ~150ppm Hco3 (My water is around 300 ppm) and Dublin is at 319. The other ions seem correct for what they are trying to do.

Edit: I did the calculations on my water profile and I was within 1 point of the residual alkalinity reported by the spreadsheet (mine is around 220)

 

[Rumblebelly]

The city water report is an average of different sampling points... The water coming out of your tap is not going to be the same as the water a block away. We are talking about water, aka the 'universal solvent', it's good at what it does... which is solvating ions. Looks like the take home message is the city water report is a good place to start, but if you want to know what is coming out of your tap and going into your beer... you need to send it to a lab.

Actually, you'd wanna draw your brew water and pull a lab sample from it right then and there. I doubt any of us would do that. Just brew on!

At my last job, I used to monitor data coming from a municple drinking water pump station where a online measurements were taken once a minute. If I remember right, it wasn't uncommon to see pH fluctuate >0.5 pH units within a day.

Some cities' systems that I looked at are much more stable, it just depends on the proximity of the treatment plant to the sample source, source water conditions (rarely static), treatment quirks of the plant itself, or if the operator was taking a nap during his shift .

 

[IanIanBoBian]

If I order a water report from Ward labs, do I need to know about Flouride or Iron? Seems like that's the only difference with the more expensive report. So are those two things worth the $10?

 

[ChemE]

I wouldn't. The only thing you can do about either if they are present is use a carbon filter or RO to remove them. All you really care about is if they are present or not since they aren't useful brewing ions. The city's water report should be able to comment well enough as to whether they are present or not and I wouldn't bother quantifying how much there is at any moment in time.

 

[artbrau]

My water is hard (well near Morristown, NJ)and we have a softener. Basically, I already know that dilution with RO water is the basic path to lighter beers but I wanted to compare and contrast so I sent 3 samples to Ward: Straight from the well, softened and RO (Thanks to the HBT'ers for the link to the RO filter from bulk reef supply). Here's what I got:

Sample ID              WELL	SOFT	REV-O
pH                    	7.8	8	7
TDS Est            	347	350	< 6
Total Hardness		228	< 1	< 1
HCO3               	122	116	3
CO3                  	< 1	3	< 1
Chloride            	106	104	< 1
Total Alkalinity 	100	100	3
Calcium           	51	< 1	< 1
Magnesium       	24	< 1	< 1
Sodium             	16	113	< 1
Sulfur                	7	7	< 1
Nitrate                2     	2	< 0.1
Potassium        	1	< 1	< 1

I was surprised at the result. I'm in better shape than I thought. I though I was in a stout-only situation. When I used a home test kit (about 10 years old ) I showed 310ppm of total hardness. The Ward result came in at 228, with 122ppm of HCO3, so I'm in a good range for amber-ish beers. A 2x or 3x cut with RO gets me to the pilsener range with enough calcium and magnesium still there.

Hopefully this gives you a more precise sense of what various treatments do. Obviously the softener doesn't help cut the HCO3 which is what you want to reduce in hard water. It does strip the calcium and magnesium which your yeasties need. The RO does what is supposed to but, still, it was comforting to test to know that it actually works.

 

[ChemE]

...and RO (Thanks to the HBT'ers for the link to the RO filter from bulk reef supply).

You're welcome; glad to help out.

 

[conpewter]

My water is hard (well near Morristown, NJ)and we have a softener. Basically, I already know that dilution with RO water is the basic path to lighter beers but I wanted to compare and contrast so I sent 3 samples to Ward...

Great results! Very good to know that the RO does what it needs, and also that the softner just strips out calcium (For some reason I was under the impression it removed bicarbonates). Anyway once again shows that softened water is really bad for brewing.

 

[Mike123]

What do you use for water when making ales? What do you use when making lagers? I'm buying "Spring Water" and using that. Any information you could pass on would be greatly appreciated.

I've been thinking about buying a charcoal filter and tinkering with balancing the chemical composition for the type of beer I am trying to make.

I'd like to benefit from your experience with LV water.