Iron Levels

Hi All,

I'm relatively new to the forum (first post!). But prior to joining, I did use it extensively for a reference. I've been doing extract brews now and enjoying the results, but have been tempted to move up to all grain for some time. Before making the investment (well, before buying a cooler to convert to a MLT), I was taking a look at my water profile to see if I could do it. After reading John Palmer's chapter on water, and scanning this forum I still had a question or two that maybe someone could help me with:

1) I have a high iron content in my well water (0.9ppm). Is this too high to bother with for brewing? Will this cause problems with my mash, or would it likely just result in a mucky, iron flavour in the beer. My pre-softener hardness is ~300mg/L (report doesn't specify as Ca or Mg)

2) I have a water softener as well. I use my softened water to brew extract beer, and have not noticed any problems with that (no salty taste, etc). That being the case, could I give that a try for brewing? Or would the mash profile be too far off to be useful. I don't have a water report for my post-softener water, but the Na before the softener is 32ppm, so I would be higher than that.

I know there is quite a lot of expertise here, so hopefully someone may be able to point me in the right direction of a)using my pre-softened water, b)using softened water or c)using ro water (don't want to if I don't have to)

They say that is too high, but only you should be the judge of that. Mine is 0.4ppm and 0.2 when softened.

I wouldn't listen to people that say not to use your softener. It does add some sodium, but not as much as they would have you believe. I had 2 samples tested at Ward labs, 1 softened and 1 not.

I would advise to look into RO under the sink setup for like $150 you are gonna have awesome drinking water let alone brew water (iron-free)

Thanks grathan!

I guess my main question is this: If I brew extract with my softened water and don't find a salty taste or any problems with sodium, am I good to go for all grain as well? Or will it affect my mash. From my reading, it seems like using softened water may affect my efficiency, but the only way to find that out would be to just go for it.

My softener is set to soften at a rate of 23 gpg. I do have a good understanding of chemistry, but I have no idea how much sodium that translates to.

What I'll probably do is just go for it. Worst that can happen is the beer won't be good!

grathan said:

They say that is too high, but only you should be the judge of that. Mine is 0.4ppm and 0.2 when softened.

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The SMCL for iron (the level at which, in the opinion of EPA the water tastes bad because of iron) is 0.3 mg/L. For brewing, the accepted limit is 0.1 mg/L. Clearly 0.9 is way above both of these and beers made with this water, untreated, are likely to suffer from iron.

Iron can be removed in small batches by oxidizing (aerating) the water thoroughly and filtering through clean sand in a bucket with holes drilled in the bottom. The sand can be backwashed and used many times.

If you wish to remove iron from the whole house supply (to avoid staining of laundry, dishes, plumbing...) there are iron removal filters of several types you can install. All work basically the same way as the bucket of sand method though some use chemicals (in particular potassium permanganate) as the oxidizing agent. Consult a water treatment company near by. They should know what works with the iron levels found in your area.

grathan said:

I wouldn't listen to people that say not to use your softener. It does add some sodium, but not as much as they would have you believe.

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Now this is really bad advice. If OP has hardness of 300 mg/L, which is a lot, in fact 300/50 = 6 mEq/L then that hardness will be replaced with 6 mEq/L sodium = 6*23 = 138 mg/L. This is in addition to any sodium which may already be in the water. This, of course, assumes that the softener is working. If it removes only half the hardness (3 mEq/L) then only half as much sodium is added to the water.

grathan said:

I had 2 samples tested at Ward labs, 1 softened and 1 not.

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And this showed replacement of hardness with sodium at some ratio less than 1 mEq/mEq? If so, the softener isn't functioning properly.

grathan said:

I would advise to look into RO under the sink setup for like $150 you are gonna have awesome drinking water let alone brew water (iron-free)

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RO is definitely a better way to go than softening. It should take care of the iron as well as everything else. But it isn't an 'instead of' proposition. It's and 'in addition to' because that level of hardness will crud up the membranes in an RO system in the same way they crud up your shower head. With hardness of 300 ppm as CaCO3 you probably have a softener installed already.

The rate of softening control on a water softener is only there for units that measure the water flow. If you tell the machine that your water has 23 gpg (393 ppm as CaCO3) it will treat (grains_replaceable_by_resin_bed_charge/gpg) gallons of water and then schedule a recharge of the resin bed at the next opportunity (usually 2 AM the next morning).

I have clients whose water has a little too much iron, but it otherwise reasonably soft. They use a regular softener to remove the iron and the resulting water only has a very low sodium content. This is because the raw water doesn't have much in it to exchange with the sodium-saturated resin in the softener. They can get away with it. In the case of Liamw's water, I don't hold much hope. That water is too hard to treat with a softener and have a resulting low sodium water.

AJ's advice is sound. Use the softened water to feed a RO unit and obtain your brewing water from it.

liamw said:

Thanks grathan!

I guess my main question is this: If I brew extract with my softened water and don't find a salty taste or any problems with sodium, am I good to go for all grain as well? Or will it affect my mash. From my reading, it seems like using softened water may affect my efficiency, but the only way to find that out would be to just go for it.

My softener is set to soften at a rate of 23 gpg. I do have a good understanding of chemistry, but I have no idea how much sodium that translates to.

What I'll probably do is just go for it. Worst that can happen is the beer won't be good!

Click to expand...

When you go for all-grain brewing your gonna want some lactic acid on hand. Otherwise you'll be dealing with harsh tannins extraction from the grains. ( I am assuming your water is hard in bicarbonates, chances are that it is).

The big difference between water treatment for extract and for all grain is that the extract manufacturer worried the water chemistry issues necessary to realized proper mash pH. The quanity and quality of the extract are set by him. In all grain you take on the responsibility for this.

When you soften water you do 1 bad thing (remove the calcium) and one possibly bad thing (add sodium). Whether the sodium you inject is at a problem level or not is entirely determined by your (and you "customer's" taste. Calcium, OTOH, has a pH reducing effect and is beneficial to beer in other ways (enzyme protection, bright runoff, better flocculation...). If you soften water by ion exchange you must replace at least some of the calcium you removed. This is expecially so because a softener does not touch the alkalinity of the water. With hardness of 300 it is a safe bet that a good part of it is temporary i.e. that the alkalinity is pretty high unless you have a ton of sulfate. This really pushes you towards an RO solution though if most of the hardness is temporary (little sulfate, chloride) you can soften and remove alkalinity at the same time by lime treatment.

It would be a good idea to get a complete analysis of your water (pre softener only unless you think there is a problem with your softener and this can be checked on with an inexpensive hardness test kit).

Most beers will require some acid (even with RO) to overcome the alkalinity of the base malts. See the Primer.

Wow, thanks for all the great information. The water test (pre-softener) that I had done before moving into the house was a "full mineral" test. It was actually ordered by the real estate agent and its purpose had nothing to do with brewing, so I am kind of piecing it together. It seems like its more a trace mineral test than anything else.

The only things that seem relevant (after reading what's been discussed on the forum) that I have are:

hardness - 302.7mg/L (ppm)
pH - 6.9
Na - 32,200mcg/L (32.2 ppm)
Iron - 900mcg/L (0.9ppm)
Manganese - 481mcg/L (0.48ppm)

I have no idea if manganese has anything to do with brewing.

Could I possibly just use the softened water and replace the calcium? I do understand that the sodium would be a little high, but I'll probably just brew a batch, and if it seems salty/too bitter, I'll do something about that.

Again, thanks for all the info. I appreciate all the opinions from the experienced brewers out there!

Your sodium will be high at the sum of the 32 mg/L already in the water plus the 138 from replacing Ca++ and Mg++ but if you can tolerate that then its not a problem for you. I'd be worried about
1) The alkalinity - your report doesn't say anything about that and doesn't give us sulfate or chloride so we can take a stab at it but it's probably pretty hefty and something will have to be done about that.
2) Iron - how effective is the softener at removing that
3) Manganese - that's pretty high too

I meant to mention manganese in the previous post but forgot to. The SMCL for it is 0.05 mg/L. You are 10 times that.

I suppose you could brew with the water and see what happens but a more organized approach would be to see what the post softened water looks like WRT iron and manganese.

When you replace the missing calcium you have to use a salt and the choice will depend on how much sulfate and/or chloride is already in the water. This again suggests a Ward Labs (not expensive) test would be a good idea.

ajdelange said:

And this showed replacement of hardness with sodium at some ratio less than 1 mEq/mEq? If so, the softener isn't functioning properly.

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I don't understand mEq and mg/l here is the numbers I got for Ward reported in ppm.

unsoftened:
Total Hardness, CaCO3 179
Sodium, Na 14

softened:
Total Hardness, CaCO3 8
Sodium, Na 89


I've since switched out the softener so I am not interested if it was working properly, though curious if these numbers would match your expectations.

grathan said:

unsoftened:
Total Hardness, CaCO3 179
Sodium, Na 14

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179/50 = 3.58 mEq/L

grathan said:

softened:
Total Hardness, CaCO3 8

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8/50 = .16 mEq/L
So total hardness removed and replaced by Na+ is 3.58 - .16 = 3.42
That's equivalent to 3.42*23 = 78.7 mg/L Na+
Plus the sodium which is already there:
78.7 + 14 = 92.6

grathan said:

Sodium, Na 89

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With round off and measurement error, yes, it meets my expectation.

What I was questioning was

grathan said:

It does add some sodium, but not as much as they would have you believe. I had 2 samples tested at Ward labs, 1 softened and 1 not.

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I would have you believe that you would, based on the pre softener data, that you would be adding about 79 mg/L sodium. The post softener report confirms that you did.

As to whether the softener is working: yes it is working but not as well as it could. In a properly functioning softener which has been recently recharged hardness should be at most a couple of ppm as CaCO3.

Thanks. To me I couldn't tell the difference between brewing with either water. I've since switched to RO and I can tell a difference there, but mainly because the bicarbonates were over 200ppm. I'd like to test brewing with the water again in the future with acid to see if it is usable when RO water is unavailable (example double brewday).