Just got Ward Labs water results. I think I might have to use RO or mix water?

[rkhanso]

I know how to drink water and make beer, but don't know much about the water itself and what these results mean from the Ward Labs brewers water test. I "think" it means I have really hard water and I'll need to just use RO/Distilled or a mixture of that and my tap water. But I'm not sure.

Here are the results:

pH: 7.1
TDS (est.): 565
Electrical Conductivity: .94
Cations / Anions: 11.1 / 10.4

All these numbers are in PPM:
Sodium, NA: 20
Potassium, K: 4
Calcium, CA: 114
Magnesium, Mg: 54
Total Hardness, CaCO3: 510
Nitrate, NO3-N: <0.1 (safe)
Sulfate, SO4-S: 11
Chloride, Cl: 66
Carbonate, CO3: <1.0
Bicarbonate, HCO3: 476
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3: 391
Total Phosphorous, P: 0.56
Total Iron, Fe: <.01
"<" - Not Detected / Below Detection Limit

I tried plugging those numbers in EZ Water Calculator and Bru'n Water but am not sure I'm doing it correctly. I get a message "water report is unbalanced. check your inputs" in Bru'n Water and really don't know how to use either spreadsheet correctly yet. I'll have to study them more.

I tried the water profile on Brewersfriend.com but am not sure how that comes into play for making adjustments or a recipe in their website.

Any suggestions?

 

[jrodmfish]

Just a thought. Make sure you entered the right info into the water profile page on bru'n water. Ward labs reports some of the numbers in a manner that'll require you to convert it. For example in your report, Sulfate is reported as SO4-S: 11. You have to multiply that by 3 to get plain ol' SO4.

 

[trav77]

Bicarbonate, HCO3: 476

Yeah you do have pretty hard water but this is the part that's going to make it hard to brew with. That bicarbonate will provide a lot of buffering capacity and work against your mash getting down to a desirable pH unless you use a lot of roast malt or add a lot of acid (probably so much that you'd be well over the taste threshold of e.g. lactic).

You'll have to play around with BrunWater a bit and see, depending on your grain bill, but my guess is that even cutting it with 50% RO will still leave you with a high mash pH for many grists.

 

[ajdelange]

The report is unbalanced. It says so right at the top of the page (11.1/10.4). In a balanced report those numbers are the same. You have 391/50 = 7.82 mEq/L alkalinity. That may be the highest I have ever seen. To offset that you have 5.70 mEq calcium which means you would only be able to decarbonate to the extent of 7.82 - 4.7 = 3.82 mEq/ unless you added more calcium in the form of chloride (pretty much out as that's pretty high) or sulfate in which you have some headroom. RO seems a better way to proceed than decarbonation which would leave all the chloride and about half the magnesium. To get the magnesium down to half you'd have to use the 'split treatment' method. RO seems a better bet.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

You've got me beat for alkalinity, as my well waters alkalinity is only 6.3 mEq/L.

Even if you use 3 parts RO and 1 part well water, your alkalinity would still need to be addressed via acidification, and at that juncture you will be adding calcium chloride to bring the calcium back up, so I agree with AJ that straight RO with added minerals is your best bet.

 

[rkhanso]

Thanks for all the input. So much for the LHBS statement of "if your water tastes good, it'll make good beer"
I'm switching from Extract to BIAB and thought I should check this before the first batch so I don't get discouraged. There'll already be enough stress from using a new brew system and brew method - that I don't need bad water chemistry to also come into play.

For my first all-grain brew, I'll start out with some of those big RO bottles from the grocery store and read up on how to add the proper minerals for the beer style.

The first beer I plan on making is the "Cream of Three Crops" cream ale.

Maybe I'll submit another water sample to Ward Labs in the summer to see if the water chemistry is consistent from the cold winter water to the cool summer water here in MN.

 

[cire]

That looks a good and very hard natural water except it does not balance. I cannot think what might be missing that when added would make a balance. I also don't know how Ward's collate their findings, but if magnesium was present at 45 rather than 54 mg/l it would be perfectly balanced.

If that were the case, sadly, from my reading here and supplemented by many postings, it won't be suitable for making any American beer styles. However such water would be revered by many brewers in UK as treated with sulphuric acid to reduce alkalinity to a suitable level it would be ideal for many pale ales and using hydrochloric acid for the same purpose could make a goodly range of darker ales without any further treatment.

 

[ajdelange]

All water reports are unbalanced except in the case where 1) every ion present is measured and 2) all the measurements are perfectly accurate. Ward Labs, to their great credit, reports their calculated anion and cation sums. There is no better QC check for a water report. Usually, for waters of modest ion content, the imbalance is around 0.3 mEq/L. For 'stronger' water like this it is often somewhat higher. When it gets this high I often encourage people to go back to Ward's as 0.7 mEq/L isn't terribly confidence inspiring. It's about 10% of the alkalinity but it's over 70% of the sodium. As most of the recipients of a report like this have no idea what I'm talking about they don't always have much luck with Wards but if they do and can make a reasonable case with them, they will retest.

When you get an unbalanced report there isn't much you can do. You can assume, that when you have some large entries, as you do here, that most of the absolute error comes from a reasonable percentage error is measurement of those larger quantities. Ten percent of the alkalinity is 0.78 mEq/L. Ten percent of the calcium hardness is 0.57. This would doubtless be Ward's argument for dodging a retest perhaps something like "We never claimed to be more than 10% accurate."

If they do refuse, or even confronted with a redone test with 0.3 mEq/L imbalance you can speculate all you like as to whether the sodium was under reported and the chloride over or that the 5 and 4 were reversed when the tech typed in the magnesium number or that there is lots of strontium that didn't get counted or whatever you like but there is no way to get an accurate picture.

In order to use the report about the best you can do is assume that the largest number in the report is the alkalinity and as he is 0.7 mEq shy on anions that that is probably where they erred most (in absolute if not percentage terms), hold your nose and add 0.7 mEq more alkalinity to the reported value

 

[cire]

If they do refuse, or even confronted with a redone test with 0.3 mEq/L imbalance you can speculate all you like as to whether the sodium was under reported and the chloride over or that the 5 and 4 were reversed when the tech typed in the magnesium number or that there is lots of strontium that didn't get counted or whatever you like but there is no way to get an accurate picture.

I wondered about strontium, but that would worsen the imbalance, as would an under-reported sodium and over reported chloride. It must be worth a query for those reports, with this exception, I've seen have impressed me. They make a lot more practical reading than many done by Murphy and Son in UK.

In order to use the report about the best you can do is assume that the largest number in the report is the alkalinity and as he is 0.7 mEq shy on anions that that is probably where they erred most (in absolute if not percentage terms), hold your nose and add 0.7 mEq more alkalinity to the reported value

Rather than pinching one's nose and jump into the unknown, would it not be be wiser to obtain a Salifert kit and measure alkalinity? If it found alkalinity to be 430 mg/l as CaCO3 then there was indeed an error and this would appear to be it, but alkalinity at that level is not commonplace.

 

[moclamd]

This isn't much harder than my water, you might look into doing a slaked lime treatment, this will precipitate the CaCO3, basically turning it into chalk that drops to the bottom of the container you treat it in. Then you just decant the water leaving behind the chalk. I use the brewers friend calculator to figure out what amounts of everything to add for a specific Target profile. I don't match the target exactly, but I do get pretty close. Here is what I use for hoppy Pales and IPA's https://www.brewersfriend.com/mash-chemistry-and-brewing-water-calculator/?id=1PXKG0X My water profile is under Source Water, the additions I have are for 9 gallons, I split it between two 5-gallon buckets with spigots installed high enough to leave the last quarter to half gallon of water behind. I fill them each to about 4.5 gallons add the additions, and let them set for a few days. Then I drain the water into another container, leaving the chalk behind. I end up with about 8 gallons of water. Until I started using this method, I could not produce a good pale ale. Since I started doing this, I have been able to make some really great pale ales. It is a bit of a pain to treat the water ahead of time, but it is much cheaper than buying water.

 

[ajdelange]

I wondered about strontium, but that would worsen the imbalance, as would an under-reported sodium and over reported chloride.

In this particular case, yes. Under reported nitrate might be responsible here (I hope not) but other than it and nitrite (I really hope there is any of that to speak of) there really aren't any other candidates. Silica is probably present but it isn't ionized to any extent (it is picked up in the alkalinity to the extent it is) and other halogens aren't probable either (we hope). So it's probably under reported alkalinity.

those reports, with this exception, I've seen have impressed me. They make a lot more practical reading than many done by Murphy and Son in UK.

Don't get me wrong. I think Ward Labs a real boon to the home brewer. They don't manage the carbonic acid system quite right. I was able to get them to correct one error about 10 years back but the other they still haven't so their bicarbonate and carbonate numbers are slightly in error but it's so small that it doesn't make any practical difference. Besides which a robust program looks at alkalinity and pH, not bicarbonate.

Rather than pinching one's nose and jump into the unknown, would it not be be wiser to obtain a Salifert kit and measure alkalinity?

Absolutely! Or better still put together a titration setup with a traditional buret or get a Hach digital titrator and run some standards against whichever you choose before measuring your water. This raises the question as to how accurate one really needs to be. Five percent is probably sufficient for the typical home brewing application. Even at this level of alkalinity measuring it 5% low would cause one to calculate that he needed 5% less acid. In a typical pale beer mash targeted for 5.40 pH using 5% less acid than required would produce a pH of around 5.43. A 10% error would land you closer to 5.46. Given that alkalinities are typically well less than 7.8 mEq/L perhaps 10% error isn't that bad.

[Edit]Considerations such as these lend good support to the argument I have been making recently that the best way to treat mash water with respect to its alkalinity is to simply acidify it in the mash tun to the desired mash pH. Its alkalinity is, at that point, 0 as far as you are concerned and does not depend on any laboratory's (or test kit's) errors or on secular variation in the source alkalinity.[/Edit]

 

[ajdelange]

This isn't much harder than my water, you might look into doing a slaked lime treatment, this will precipitate the CaCO3, basically turning it into chalk that drops to the bottom of the container you treat it in.

This was mentioned in # 4 where it was pointed out that one's success at decarbonation in this case is going to be limited by the the calcium hardness which would have to be augmented in order to get to the rule of thumb 1 mEq/L alkalinity after treatment. This is, if one can live with the extra sulfate, doable and would, at least, be instructive and maybe even fun.

 

[rkhanso]

moclamd and ajdelange - you are talking way above my head. No clue...

I did mess around more with Bru'n Water, I could get it to not complain too much. But the amount of minerals added appears to be way out of whack?

Would this be acceptable for the Cream of Three Crops ale? I doubt it would.....but I suppose I'm putting this info here in part to see if I might understand how to use the spreadsheet properly. 11 gal batch recipe. I "guessed" on 13 gallons of water to start (BIAB with boil condenser, so minimal boil-off).

I think I might have to start reading up on using RO water and how to use additions to that to get it to be good brewing water....

 

[ajdelange]

It is possible that you can make a beer to your liking by suitable treatment of this water but as an apparent beginner it isn't likely that you will be able to do so. Any beer you make with this water will be driven by the water (which is, of course, how most of today's various beer styles evolved). As a home brewer you want it to be the other way around: you want to be able to produce water suitable to any style of beer you wish to brew. Starting with water like yours the only treatment that makes sense, especially as a beginner, is to put it through a softener (to protect RO membranes) and then an RO system. Adding stuff to water that contains essentially nothing to attain a desired ion profile is a lot easier than taking stuff out to get to that same profile and while it is always possible to hit what you want with the former approach it isn't always with the latter.

 

[moclamd]

If you are going to purchase RO water at a supermarket filling station, you may want to pick up a cheap TDS (total dissolved solids) meter to make sure you are getting good RO water. I tried buying water at my local supermarket, that used the same source water as me, but ran it through an RO system, and didn't get very good results. I assume the equipment was not well maintained, and with the hard source water the RO membrane wasn't working very well. Since it was the only place in my small town to buy water, I ended up researching the slaked lime treatment. I still daydream about getting my own ro system eventually, but the lime treatment works well for now.

 

[ajdelange]

Keep in mind that low mineral RO water tastes pretty flat. Many purveyors dose the RO water with salts to make it more palatable. This can be the source of high TDS in 'RO' water.

 

[Buckeye_Hydro]

Keep in mind that low mineral RO water tastes pretty flat.

Hmm. I'll disagree with you here. RO water straight from the RO membrane, often with a TDS of less than 10 ppm, tastes wonderful to me. Most drinking water that comes from an RO system actually comes from a pressurized storage tank where the TDS is higher than it would be straight out of the membrane.

Ultrapure water, or other water with a TDS near 0 ppm, on the other hand, tastes flat and odd - not an ideal taste at all for drinking.

To each his own.

Russ

 

[ajdelange]

Hmm. I'll disagree with you here. RO water straight from the RO membrane, often with a TDS of less than 10 ppm, tastes wonderful to me.

De gustibus... as you say later in your post. It tastes pretty flat to me and I guess to most people which is why many of the machines that supply it to the public add the minerals.

Most drinking water that comes from an RO system actually comes from a pressurized storage tank where the TDS is higher than it would be straight out of the membrane.

I assume that you mean that the operators are adding them. Else where would they come from?

Ultrapure water, or other water with a TDS near 0 ppm, on the other hand, tastes flat and odd - not an ideal taste at all for drinking.

24 mΩ water and 10 ppm TDS RO water taste pretty much the same to me. You must have a very refined palate - perhaps not surprising given your occupation.

 

[Buckeye_Hydro]

TDS is higher coming out of a full pressure tank (as compared to straight out of the membrane) because of the back pressure exerted by the tank. On a residential scale system, the back pressure typically reaches a max of 66% of the feedwater pressure before the system shuts itself down. The back pressure reduces the net driving pressure, and the rejection rate is decreased accordingly.

So to test the rejection rate / TDS of the RO water for purposes of evaluating the membrane in a system with a pressure tank, close the valve on the top of the pressure tank and collect the water dribbling out of the faucet after letting it run ~120 seconds.

 

[ajdelange]

I was, as we tend to do, thinking it terms of the system I have here in which the output of the RO sled goes to an atmospheric tank and is then pumped to the pressure tank. I couldn't fathom where extra minerals might be coming from. So to be clear - it isn't the fact that the water is stored under pressure that increases the TDS but the fact that if the membranes feed the pressure tank directly the trans membrane pressure is lower as is the rejection.

 

[day_trippr]

TDS is higher coming out of a full pressure tank (as compared to straight out of the membrane) because of the back pressure exerted by the tank.[...]The back pressure reduces the net driving pressure, and the rejection rate is decreased accordingly.[...]

Ah hah! That explains what I've been seeing since I installed the BH upgrades to my ROES-50 system.

I've been noticing when I fill my kettles directly from the output of the membrane I get a consistent 6ppm @2.25 gpm while the water out of the pressure tank can be as much as 5 or 6 points higher (from a 300tds well). Didn't make sense to me (I work with 1s and 0s ) but now I get it...

Cheers!

 

[Buckeye_Hydro]

So to be clear - it isn't the fact that the water is stored under pressure that increases the TDS but the fact that if the membranes feed the pressure tank directly the trans membrane pressure is lower as is the rejection.

Roger that!

 

[rkhanso]

Original poster here....
Would it be worth it to send in a sample of my softened water and see if that's worth using for brewing beer?
The water sample I did get tested goes through a Morton Whole House water filter (carbon based), but not the softener. All my household water goes through the Morton water filter. The kitchen cold and outside faucets don't go through the softener. Everything else goes through the softener.
Otherwise, I'll just use RO water purchased at the local grocery store and add whatever is needed for brewing.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

The high alkalinity of your water will not be altered by the water softener. You will also find that it contains a lot of sodium. This will be worse for brewing than the unsoftened water. And lastly you will find that for the softened water the 'TDS' has also not changed.

 

[singybrue]

@rkhanso Where in Minneapolis are you? Are you on city water?

 

[ajdelange]

Original poster here....
Would it be worth it to send in a sample of my softened water and see if that's worth using for brewing beer?

No need.
Take your calcium number and divide it by 20: 114/20 = 5.7
Take your magnesium number and divide it by 12.15: 54/12.15 = 4.44
Add those 2 numbers: 5.7 + 4.44 =10.14
Multiply the sum by 23: 23*10.14 =233.22
Add this to the sodium number : 233.22 + 20 = 255.22. This is the sodium content of the softened water. The calcium and magnesium contents will be 0 or 1 mg/l each. The other numbers won't change - in particular the alkalinity which, at 391, pretty much disqualifies this water for brewing. All you have done by removing the alkali earths is render this water slightly less suitable for brewing that it was pre softening.

 

[rhys333]

I'm a firm believer in mashing and sparging with treated RO, then topping up the BK with tap water. I've come to believe that my beers have a fuller, more complex flavor with at least 20% tap water contribution. That said, YMMV.

My process at the moment for the average 5.5 gal batch is to mash and sparge with 2.5 - 3.0 gallons each. I lose 0.5 gallons to the grain, leaving me with 4.5 - 5.5 gallons in the BK. To this I top up with 2 - 3 gallons tap water to reach 7.5 gal pre-boil. It's working out really well and I don't have to worry about overcoming alkalinity and mineral fluctuations.

 

[gunhaus]

WOW! I brew cream ale, blonde ale, APA, IPA, and a really neat Red Ale with 50/50 Distilled and Tap water. All my darker beers including my favorite of them all my Export Stout I brew straight tap. They ALL taste great, and not just to me. I AIN'T EVER MOVING, and I AIN'T EVER DRILLING ANOTHER WELL! And i ain't ever getting a water report - cause now I am scared to death to know. I ain't been this cross eyed from numbers since my first day in my first ballistic design course!!!! Even the first day of calculating threads went into my thick skull faster that this!!! Good on ya boys! Keep tossing out the help - it WILL sink in some eventually!.

 

[SEndorf]

I soak up all AJ's posts. All this analysis is educational and appreciated, but the bottom line is this water is unsuitable for brewing. If you're anywhere near my suburb of Minneapolis, I can commiserate. My alkalinity is typically between 340 - 380 ppm.
Pure RO water is in your brewing future. Hopefully from a grocery store that maintains their system. Fortunately for me, measured TDS is 8 -15.
Unless you go full out and install a home system.
Splitting RO and tap seems cumbersome and complicated. Starting with clean RO and adding salts would seem to be the best alternative.

 

[rhys333]

Splitting RO and tap water is really simple. Just treat the amount needed for wort production and top up the rest.

Also, I think gunhaus gave us all a collective wedgie.