Got My Water Tested... Now What?

[JGivan]

So I finally broke down and got my water tested but now where do I go from here? I initially did this to start adjusting my pH levels but after seeing the crazy amount of posts about water chemistry I realize there is much more to this and I am in way over my head. HELP!

pH 7.4
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est, ppm 89
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 0.15
Cations / Anions, me/L 1.5 / 1.3

ppm
Sodium, Na 9
Potassium, K 1
Calcium, Ca 14
Magnesium, Mg 5
Total Hardness, CaCO3 56
Nitrate, NO3-N 0.7 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 2
Chloride, Cl 5
Carbonate, CO3 < 1.0
Bicarbonate, HCO3 61
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 50
Total Phosphorus, P 0.05
Total Iron, Fe 0.33

 

[Lefou]

Now that you have the basic water info, you decide what beer you might like that supports the water profile.
You have soft water with a low temporary hardness and mild alkalinity. This water is adjustable with brewing salts for most types of beers but favors lighter-colored styles like American light lagers, blonde ales, or Pils.

There's no real need to adjust your pH level. It's the alkalinity you'll worry about
At 7.4, it's just fine as is unless you want to brew amber or darker beer.

 

[JGivan]

Isn't a pH of 7.4 on the high side?

 

[day_trippr]

The pH of raw water doesn't really matter a heck of a lot on its own. What really matters is how loaded up the water is with minerals/salts, especially the ones that affect pH in the mash.
In this case the raw water is quite well suited for brewing, having very little of the stuff that can make "tuning" water a pita.
The OP could take that water straight to Bru'n Water and tweak it to match pretty near any style beer.

[edit] fwiw, that iron reading is borderline, the US standard for drinking water tops out at .3ppm.

Cheers!

 

[Lefou]

Isn't a pH of 7.4 on the high side?

Not really.
Pure distilled or reverse osmosis water with no minerals at pH 7.0 is considered "neutral".
It's the alkalinity levels you'll be concerned with - carbonates, bicarbonates,calcium, and magnesium levels will affect that.
pH 7.4 would be considered somewhat alkaline and you can brew with that.

You can raise the alkalinity of water by adding a base (sodium bicarbonate) or lower it by adding acid. Suggest you read the water primer threads pinned to the top of the board.

 

[balrog]

I too have soft water, @JGivan , and it's nice not to have to dilute with RO or boil to reduce before brewing lighter styles. For other styles, use something like Bru'nWater sheet and get yourself some CaCl, gypsum and Epsom and a gram scale and you can build whatever you want. I highly recommend reading the primer here.

 

[JGivan]

Thank you guys so much! I'm glad to hear that I have it pretty easy and feel bad for a lot of others now.

 

[ajdelange]

I'm afraid you don't really have it easy because the iron is definitely a problem. You are over the SMCL for iron which is 0.3 mg/L. Above that level water is not considered unhealthy, which is why 0.3 is a secondary MCL, but is considered to be unsuitable for drinking for 'aesthetic' reasons meaning it tastes or smells bad. While the SMCL for drinking water is 0.3 mg/L brewers consider water with more than 0.1 mg/L not fit for making beer.

There are several things you can do about this. It's quite possible that you are dealing with other problems with this water such as stains on porcelain fixtures, laundry etc and bad taste. In that case a whole house solution (call a water treatment company) such as a greensand filter may be called for. OTOH perhaps most of the iron is Fe(II) which does not stain and perhaps you drink bottled water or have gotten used to the taste and enjoy the security that freedom from fear of anemia grants. In this case all you need do is clear a small water volume for brewing. You could, of course, dilute with RO water to an extent greater than 1:2 but an installed RO system is likely to gum up with Fe(OH3) unless it is fed water cleared of iron in which case you would not need the RO unit. Another thing you can do, though a PITA, is thoroughly aerate the brewing water as by pumping it through a shower head several times. This will oxidize any Fe(II) to Fe(III) which forms Fe(OH)3 which is largely insoluble (here your 7.4 pH is a benefit but you might want to add a wee bit of lime to get it up to say 8.4). Now fill a bucket into whose bottom you have drilled many tiny holes and which is filled with clean play sand. An ugly red/brown/orange layer of Fe(OH)3 will appear on the top of the sand but the water that comes out the bottom should be largely iron free. After use, wash the sand with tap water to get rid of the deposit and ready it for the next use. You will want to get an iron test kit (https://www.coleparmer.com/i/hach-iron-strips-total-dissolved-iron-test-strips-25/0554632 or https://www.thomassci.com/Miscellan...T-KIT-IR18B-IRON-010-MGL?q=Hach Iron Test Kit) in order to be sure your treatment has succeeded. This is important as you will want to know whether treatment without adding lime is adequate as adding lime will increase the alkalinity of the water and the main virtue of it is that it has but 1 mEq/L alkalinity (50 ppm) which is right on the boundary below which we say guys are 'lucky'. You will need the more expensive kit to see small differences. The strips have precision of 0.15 ppm. You should probably be using the kit rather than the strips in any case. Further to this a quick calculation shows that adding enough lime to increase the pH of the water to 8.4 would only increase its alkalinity by 0.12 mEq (6 ppm) that is from 50 to 56. Not really that big a deal and easily compensated for by adding a little extra acid.

 

[ajdelange]

Isn't a pH of 7.4 on the high side?

For mash, yes. For source water, no. As has been pointed out the pH of the water itself has little effect on mash pH as long as it is within a certain range. The reason for this is buried in the math and in the nature of carbonic acid. Then end effect is shown in this graph which represents the amount of acid, expressed as a percentage of the alkalinity, required to combat it sufficiently to reach a mash pH of 5.45. Thus if your water presents at pH 7.4 you will need to supply .901 mEq of acid to each liter of it for each mEq/L alkalinity. As you have 50/50 = 1 mEq/L you would need 0.901 mEq/L. But if the water's pH were 8.4 (as if you added the lime mentioned in my last post in order to aid iron removal) the graph shows you needing acid to the extent of 91.00% of the alkalinity or 0.919 mEq/L a change of less than 1%. Were the water's pH 7 the change relative to 7.4 the acid requirement would only change by about 1.5%. Thus we can say (and often do) that if the water pH be between 6.9 and 9.4 the acid requirement is 90% ± 2% of the alkalinity . That's pretty easy to remember and no spreadsheets or calculators are necessary. But you also have to recognize that the fundamental unit of alkalinity is the mEq/L, not the ppm as CaCO3. Fortunately to get mEq/L from ppm all you have to do is double the ppm number and shift the decimal place 2 to the left (e.g. 50 ppm = 1 mEq/L).

 

[ajdelange]

Rather than the test kit described in No. 8 you should be considering the one at https://www.hach.com/iron-color-dis...1/product-downloads?id=7640216697&callback=qs which is in the sensitivity range of interest and, naturally, more expensive.

 

[JGivan]

Dang, you've just rained on my parade. Doing some research on my area and it does look like Iron is an issue and possibly something I need to address on a larger scale for my house.

 

[Lefou]

A few years ago, it seems Martin Brungard had an opinion on this as well ... I won't speak for him, but will link to this HBA forum ...

https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=15781.0

...And then, there's this nugget of gold ...
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/too-much-iron-in-water.462258/

 

[mabrungard]

For some industrial clients, I employ sodium hypochlorite solution (industrial bleach) to oxidize the soluble iron into it's insoluble form, followed by filtration through a pressure sand filter. If the water is destined for discharge to a river or lake, that water then has to receive a dose of metabisulfite to dechlorinate the flow.

 

[ajdelange]

For some industrial clients, I employ sodium hypochlorite solution (industrial bleach) to oxidize the soluble iron into it's insoluble form, followed by filtration through a pressure sand filter.

In home systems potassium permanganate is a popular oxidizing agent and in some installations nothing more than air is used (as it is in the playsand scheme I mentioned). See what the local water treatment people are offering.

 

[ajdelange]

But chlorine is also used in residential systems.

 

[JGivan]

Okay, so I have decided that temporarily I am going to dilute my water with 2 parts bottled and 1 part house (thought is this will knock down the Fe to just above .1) while I figure out how crazy I am going to get with a solution. What is the best kind of store bought water to use and how hard is it going to be to calculate out what the mixed water has so that I can make adjustments?

 

[ajdelange]

To make calculation easy and accurate use DI (distilled or otherwise demineralized) water. The ion concentrations in a 2:1 blend will all be 1/3 what they were in the tap water.

 

[JGivan]

That is what I was hoping for, thank you for confirming.

 

[Lefou]

To make calculation easy and accurate use DI (distilled or otherwise demineralized) water. The ion concentrations in a 2:1 blend will all be 1/3 what they were in the tap water.

Now THAT'S my kind of math.