Got ward test back imbalance? And any good for hoppy beers

[marjen]

So I am new to trying to deal with water issues. I have typically been using RO water and just adding a little gypsum and calcium chloride. My beers have been a bit flat and as I looked to lower ph I also decided to test my well water. Here is the report

pH 6.6
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est, ppm 402
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm .67
Cations / Anions, me/L 5.9/5.6

Sodium, Na 42 PPM
Potassium, K 7 PPM
Calcium, Ca 56 PPM
Magnesium, Mg 14 PPM
Total Hardness, CaCO3 198 PPM
Nitrate, NO3-N 1.1 (SAFE) PPM
Sulfate, SO4-S 4 PPM
Chloride, Cl 149 PPM
Carbonate, CO3 < 1.0 PPM
Bicarbonate, HCO3 63 PPM
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 52 PPM
Total Phosphorus, P .01 PPM
Total Iron, Fe < .01 PPM

A couple things. I can't get it to work in bro n water as it is not balanced? Not sure what it means other than the cations / anions don't match. Ez water and brewers friend seem to show it fits the style for hoppy beers adding a teaspoon or two of gypsum. To people who know much more about this than me, does this water look good for brewing? I used it in the batch I brewed this weekend but still adding some acid malt and 2 ml of lactic acid to get ph where I wanted 5.25.

 

[ajdelange]

What it means is that the lab made measurement errors which may include failing to measure an ion or ions that are in the water. It's not likely that there is anything there to amount to 0.3 mEq/L so the imbalance is more likely simply error in one or more of the listed ions. There really isn't anything you can do about this so just ignore it.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

This water should be very good for brewing. Most would be glad to have such nice water. Due to the alkalinity (bicarbonate), for many styles some quantity of acidity will be required. I would be shooting for pH 5.4 in the mash (measured at room temperature).

Your (analytical results reported) cation/anion balance isn't bad at all.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

BTW, with regard to sulfate ion ppm, since your report is given as SO4-S = 4 ppm, your actual SO4 concentration is 12 ppm. Your report is telling you that you have 4 ppm of sulfur, which you must convert into sulfate. I'm not sure why Ward Lab does this (and reports it as sulfate), but your cation/anion balance will come out a bit closer if you enter the correct value of 12 ppm instead of 4 ppm.

 

[ajdelange]

They do it that way because they primarily serve farmers who want to know how many pounds of sulfur get applied per acre, how many of nitrogen, how many of phosphorous.

 

[marjen]

Thanks for the info on the sulfur. I will note it is actually 12. The only thing the imbalance is doing is keeping me from using bru n water. I seem to be able to use ez water and brewers friend though.

I used this water for the first time for the beer I brewed over the weekend, a NE IPA, interested to see how it comes out compared to using RO with a little chloride and gypsum.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I don't understand why the minor cation/anion imbalance would be a show stopper with any mash pH predicting software. Such imbalances are the norm for simple and economic lab calculated water analysis reports. If red flags are being thrown up by the software, simply ignore them.

 

[ajdelange]

I've seen reports with imbalances of up to 0.7 mEq/L. That amounts to 35 ppm alkalinity which isn't really that great but if your alkalinity were reported as 50 ppm and you had an imbalance of 35 you wouldn't have much confidence in the reported alkalinity. Of course the large imbalances usually come with alkalinities much larger than 50 ppm. Even so I advise people with large imbalances to request another test which Ward Labs will sometimes grant.

As for 'red flags' from the software given the way OP is worded I take it to mean that the software will not run if the imbalance is too large. This is probably not a bad idea as you cannot compute a physically realizeable ion profile starting with water that is not physically possible. To over ride this 'feature' simply add or deduct some ion or ions until the flag goes away. Which ion(s) to adjust - you are on your own there. You are trying to force things to work that can't work. If you have an 0.3 mEq/L imbalance on the cation side you can 'fix' that by removing 0.3 mEq/L Ca or by adding 0.3 mEq/L bicarbonate even though the error that caused the imbalance was due to over reporting of sodium or under reporting of sulfate or chloride. That should make it clear that this is a guessing game.

The imbalance is not a measure of the water but of the quality of the lab's analysis. 0.3 may not be the greatest but for 30 bucks (or whatever they charge) it ain't bad. And it is typical of what Ward Labs usually produces.

 

[cire]

The amount of phosphorus is very small. Is there farming in the vicinity? If not then Ward's could be correct, but if there should be I would expect a much greater quantity of phosphorus and thereby phosphate to have a better balance with potassium.

You might wish to try entering zero for potassium or 12 ppm for phosphate to get a start while examining alternative possibilities.

 

[Yooper]

I think the chloride is way too high, especially if you want to add sulfate for hoppy beers, and I'd dilute at least 50% with RO or distilled water for hoppy beers and then add calcium sulfate (gypsum) to increase the calcium and sulfate. Otherwise the water looks fine!

 

[mabrungard]

That imbalance flag in Bru'n Water is just that, a flag. It doesn't prevent operation. However, you should recognize that the Garbage In: Garbage Out mantra should be looming in your thoughts...is this result worth a crap???

 

[ajdelange]

The amount of phosphorus is very small.

Not really. Over the years I've seen lots of Ward Labs reports posted here and I can't remember ever seeing phosphorous levels much greater than 1 ppm. Now that is two orders of magnitude greater than the 0.01 reported here but it is still around 1 ppm. Where natural water is at all hard you aren't going to find much phosphate in it.

Is there farming in the vicinity? If not then Ward's could be correct, but if there should be I would expect a much greater quantity of phosphorus and thereby phosphate to have a better balance with potassium.

As I said I have never seen a phosphate report come in at more than a little over one. In the UK utilities put it into water supplies to chelate lead and in the US utilities put it into water to prevent corrosion. In both cases if it does it's job it is precipitated and so the level expected at the tap is going to be low. Of course most of the posters here do not live in a rural setting. Perhaps with a well in a rural setting you might see higher levels of phosphate and in such a setting you might also see a correlation between phosphorous and potassium (application of 5-10-5 implies 1 part potassium hits the ground for each 2 parts phosphorous that does) but in the overall setting I don't see any reason for correlation nor do I see any correlation. The plot below if for 19 Ward Labs reports posted here.

These data are hardly sufficient to be the basis for global conclusions but note that one can expect his phosphorous level to be below 1 mg/l. Also rather than being correlated these data suggest anticorrellation but it is so weak (Pearsons r = -0.56) that we can't be very confident that the anticorrelation is real).

You might wish to try entering zero for potassium or 12 ppm for phosphate to get a start while examining alternative possibilities.

That would balance things better but is no more justifiable than increasing the alkalinity by 0.3 mEq/L and in fact much less justifiable as one would never see a phosphate level as high as 12 (I guess I shouldn't say never but it is rare enough that I've never seen anything approaching it). The most likely source of the error would be in the alkalinity measurement as the pH is quite low for this sample. That means it would have started to lose CO2 as soon as the sample container was opened. Beyond that, Ward Labs doesn't quite understand the bicarbonate chemistry and so miscalculates bicarbonate and carbonate quantities slightly. Note that the errors in their calculations do not amount to anything close to 0.3 mEq/L.

As I noted in an earlier post 0.3 mEq/L is pretty typical for the quality of a Ward Labs report. Thousand's of their customers have accepted and valued their reports which, at this price point and quality level represent a bargin IMO.[/QUOTE]

 

[ajdelange]

That imbalance flag in Bru'n Water is just that, a flag. It doesn't prevent operation.

Given that I wonder what he means by

I can't get it to work in bro n water as it is not balanced?

However, you should recognize that the Garbage In: Garbage Out mantra should be looming in your thoughts...is this result worth a crap???

It's hardly that bad. This is typical quality for a Ward Labs report and what thousands of guys using the various spreadsheets live with every day. If he wants 0.1 mEq/L balance where does he turn?

 

[couchsending]

Given that I wonder what he means by


It's hardly that bad. This is typical quality for a Ward Labs report and what thousands of guys using the various spreadsheets live with every day. If he wants 0.1 mEq/L balance where does he turn?

In you experience is there a better more accurate lab I could send samples too that wouldn’t be drastically more expensive?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

What might you expect to gain from a water analysis with precision greater than that of Ward Labs?

 

[cire]

........................ is there a better more accurate lab I could send samples too that wouldn’t be drastically more expensive?

About $35 in UK at current rate of exchange plus the difficulty of finding a carrier willing to transport liquids and if you did, their charges.

My initial response was asking in a roundabout way if there was a stock of fertiliser or other soil enriching compounds stored in your well's water capture area.

 

[ajdelange]

About $35 in UK at current rate of exchange plus the difficulty of finding a carrier willing to transport liquids and if you did, their charges.

This implies that the lab you mention is better than Ward Labs and so the obvious question is then as to how much better. Taking 0.3 as a sort of nominal number for Ward Labs what would be the number for the lab you suggest.

My initial response was asking in a roundabout way if there was a stock of fertiliser or other soil enriching compounds stored in your well's water capture area.

As demonstrated in #12 that wouldn't be a problem for him. Even if his supply did contain appreciable phosphorous why would we assume that Ward Labs would err to the extent of 0.3 mEq WRT to phosphorous as opposed to alkalinity or sulphate? And, if there were fertilizer at play we'd expect elevated nitrogen too. Now it's possible that OP stored a bag of 5/10/5 on top of his well cover and it leaked into the well bu the area where he lives doesn't look very rural to me.

I'm with SIlver on this. Given the accuracy with which home brewers measure and the fact that things in nature tend to respond to change geometrically (logarithmically) 0.3 is plenty good enough. Sure there are labs that will do a finer job but, IMO, you'd be wasting your money.

 

[cire]

This implies that the lab you mention is better than Ward Labs and so the obvious question is then as to how much better. Taking 0.3 as a sort of nominal number for Ward Labs what would be the number for the lab you suggest.

As demonstrated in #12 that wouldn't be a problem for him. Even if his supply did contain appreciable phosphorous why would we assume that Ward Labs would err to the extent of 0.3 mEq WRT to phosphorous as opposed to alkalinity or sulphate? And, if there were fertilizer at play we'd expect elevated nitrogen too. Now it's possible that OP stored a bag of 5/10/5 on top of his well cover and it leaked into the well bu the area where he lives doesn't look very rural to me.

I'm with SIlver on this. Given the accuracy with which home brewers measure and the fact that things in nature tend to respond to change geometrically (logarithmically) 0.3 is plenty good enough. Sure there are labs that will do a finer job but, IMO, you'd be wasting your money.

I'm rather pushed for time at present, BUT I think we may be talking at very slightly crossed purposes which I would like to clear, if only for my own sake.

Firstly I agree that this imbalance is of no real significance, just that it is greater than I would accept. The difference I came to was 0.47 meq/l. I also got a lower TDS than Wards and wonder if they might use a different definition of solids.

You requested a comparison from the lab I use and one to hand with similar TDS had an imbalance of -0.18.

Let me recheck my numbers as they were done in my head and could be wrong, but I would be grateful if meanwhile you might compare your calculations for TDS and ion balance.

 

[ajdelange]

Firstly I agree that this imbalance is of no real significance, just that it is greater than I would accept. The difference I came to was 0.47 meq/l.

I get 0.408. I can break that down further if you want. A couple of things to keep in mind:
Water itself contributes a couple of ppm to alkalinity. These needs to be deducted when figuring the charge on carbo for a balance computation. The charge on H+ and OH- ions has to be included in calculations.
Ward Labs titrates to pH 4.4 in its alkalinity measurements.
Sulfate contributes to alkalinity and its contribution must be deducted as well. Sulfates contribution in this case is minescule.

I also got a lower TDS than Wards and wonder if they might use a different definition of solids.

When most labs publish a TDS number is is the amount of a standard salt or mix of salts that would give the same conductivity as observed. Often this is NaCl but there are special mixes of salts that are supposed to be more representative of typical waters than NaCl. Without being told what Ward Labs standard salt is we can't really draw much from the TDS number. Adding up the masses of all the ions in this sample I get 346.75 which is substantially different from Ward Labs 402.

You requested a comparison from the lab I use and one to hand with similar TDS had an imbalance of -0.18.

Ward Labs turn out 0.2's, 0.1's and even 0's sometimes. A quick look at a dozen of their reports showed an rms imbalance (difference divided by the sum of the cations and anions) of 4.6 % but that's because of a couple of 11 and 8 percenters. Those I would have sent back. In general the rms imbalance seems to be about 1%. Thus to compare two labs we must have data from more than one or two reports. We'd need to ask "What's your acceptable imbalance?" and what's your rms imbalance?