How does this water look?

[BadassDexter]

Hello everyone.
I have been working on a water profile for light beer. Unfortunately my water is very high in HCO3 (540), but, I do have some kind of sentimentality of using "my water".
I have built a water profile using 80 litres of RO water and 5 litres of my local water with a small addition of chalk and Epsom salts.
It is as follows
PH: 7
Ca: 24.13
Mg: 2.5
Na: 13
SO4: 11.39
Cl: .39
HCO3: 69.15

I would love a little feedback on if this is a good water to use.
Thanks all!

 

[ajdelange]

Diluting way down with RO and then adding chalk back in is defeating the purpose. If you want more bicarbonate just dilute less.

 

[BadassDexter]

I am adding the chalk for the calcium.....I will find my original water profile and post it....very low in calcium. so it becomes non existent when I dilute down to an acceptable bicarb level

 

[ajdelange]

Chalk is not a good way to augment calcium. A unit of carbonate increases alkalinity by 1 unit whereas the associated unit of calcium decreases alkalinity by 1/3.5 unit. Net is an increase of alkalinity by 2.5/3.5 units. To augment calcium use the chloride or the sulfate. Each unit of calcium from these results in 1/3.5 units of alkalinity reduction.

 

[BadassDexter]

Ok...but these are the numbers after I put it all into Beersmith software.....I was wondering more if the Bicarb over 50 will still work for a light beer....also if the 25 ish Ca will be enough for happy yeast. In otherwords, would you use this water in your beer?

 

[atreid]

Again: Don't use chalk... at all! Anyone with high HCO3 should never use chalk. Chalk is a ***** to use anyway. If you can get around it, why would you use it....?

 

[Kaiser]

Ok...but these are the numbers after I put it all into Beersmith software.....I was wondering more if the Bicarb over 50 will still work for a light beer....also if the 25 ish Ca will be enough for happy yeast. In otherwords, would you use this water in your beer?

50 ppm bicarb works for lighter beers. You'll need to add acid anyway.

If you want to build your water I would try to get the bicarbonate from blending or baking soda.

Kai

 

[ajdelange]

Ok...but these are the numbers after I put it all into Beersmith software.....I was wondering more if the Bicarb over 50 will still work for a light beer....also if the 25 ish Ca will be enough for happy yeast. In otherwords, would you use this water in your beer?

Depending on the beer in question you might get away with as much as 50 ppm bicarb but will need acid in any case as even with 0 alkalinity in a pale beer you will need some. Given that any remaining alkalinity must be disposed of by acid addition and that the acid required to do this leaves behind its cation one generally shoots for as little alkalinity as possible unless he wants the anion of that acid. For example if you have alkalinity of 50 ppm (1 mval) and you want 1 mval chloride you can add about 1 mval HCl and wind up with the alkalinity gone and 1 mval of chloride. Using a good spreadsheet you can effectively control your sulfate and chloride to desired levels by diluting down to the proper alkalinity level and then disposing of that with hydrochloric and sulfuric acids. But this assumes you have HCl and H2SO4 available in food grade and that you know how to use the spreadsheet i.e. how to set up an 'error' (weighted sum of the differences between the ion content you have and the ion content you want) and use the Solver to minimize it's magnitude by varying amounts of acid and dilution water). I do not know if any of the popular spreadsheets allow this.

In case this is all too confusing consider water with calcium hardness and bicarbonate and add some HCl

Ca++ + 2 HCO3- + 2 HCl ---> 2CO2 + 2 H2O + 2 Cl- + Ca++

The bicarbonate (alkalinity) is replaced by chloride. Given that you are using high dilutions (5 L in 80) it would seem to me to be much easier to use straight RO and add CaCl, NaCl, CaSO4 to it. That's the idea behind the Primer.