so confused by water report

[runningweird]

fantastic. I can brew now right?

now it's time to get a ph meter and become a real boy.

 

[runningweird]

I'm going to brew with this water tomorrow, 10 gallons of something - maybe something with citra.

I brewed not too long ago with my water as it comes from the tap, so I will be able to compare what brewing with my stock water vs treated water does.

 

[runningweird]

time to revive an old thread.

I've been using slaked lime to treat my beers and have had a few batches that went wrong. no hop aroma despite lots of late addition hops, and a strange malt tang thing going on.

well, i realized that I had just been adding slaked lime without adding additional calcium to complete the reaction and so I think I am ending up with left over lime in the water - making my beer taste weird.

I made sure I didn't have any infections - blasted fermenters/plate chiler/ball valves/pickup tubes with everything from lye to idophore to oxyclean to pbw.

here is my water report:
Results For :
Sample ID :
Location :
IAN WEIR
pH 7.2
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est, ppm 429
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 0.71
Cations / Anions, me/L 7.5 / 8.3


ppm
Sodium, Na 11
Potassium, K 1
Calcium, Ca 104
Magnesium, Mg 22
Total Hardness, CaCO3 352
Nitrate, NO3-N 3.6 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 11
Chloride, Cl 23
Carbonate, CO3 < 1
Bicarbonate, HCO3 409
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 335


how much additional calcium - or other stuff - would I need to add to complete the reaction?
I have calcium carbonate powder, and some gypsum sitting around somewhere.

 

[mabrungard]

What is it you are trying to do with the lime addition? From the looks of your water, I assume you are trying to soften it via lime softening. You certainly don't need to add any additional calcium to complete the reaction. Just add lime until you reach a pH of at least 10.5 and then let all the sediment settle. Decant the clear water off and either let it sit exposed to air for a few days or bubble air through it to bring the water pH down a bit. You will still have to add an acid or acid malt to the mash in most cases since the alkalinity of the treated water will not be low enough and that remaining alkalinity will require acid.

With the amount of alkalinity in that tap water, you wouldn't need to be adding lime to the mash to alter its pH. So hopefully that is not the case.

 

[runningweird]

With the amount of alkalinity in that tap water, you wouldn't need to be adding lime to the mash to alter its pH. So hopefully that is not the case.

so I don't need to add lime to it at all? I was concerned with excess bitterness from the high temporary hardness.

I just can't wrap my head around water chemistry

 

[mabrungard]

so I don't need to add lime to it at all? I was concerned with excess bitterness from the high temporary hardness.

I just can't wrap my head around water chemistry

Uh oh! We might have led you astray. Lime treatment for water is a pre-treatment. With your water, you don't want any more alkalinity in the mash. Its already too high for most brewing. Acid is what you need to be adding to most mashes when brewing with that water. Are you using Bru'n Water?

 

[runningweird]

Uh oh! We might have led you astray. Lime treatment for water is a pre-treatment. With your water, you don't want any more alkalinity in the mash. Its already too high for most brewing. Acid is what you need to be adding to most mashes when brewing with that water. Are you using Bru'n Water?

well now.

not using bru'n water, i guess I will. what kind of acid should I be adding? i've been using 5.2 stabilizer(not sure if it's bunk) for the last two batches and they have been better than the aforementioned crap weird batch.

 

[mabrungard]

Employing acid is far better than using the 5.2 stuff. 5.2 can add flavor that you may not want in your beer.

Wow, that is a lot of alkalinity. You might get by with phosphoric acid, but another option for you to consider...since you have the lime, you could pretreat your tap water and drop out some of the calcium and alkalinity. Then the water could serve as a better starting point for brewing. You really need a pH meter if you are doing this though.

 

[runningweird]

Employing acid is far better than using the 5.2 stuff. 5.2 can add flavor that you may not want in your beer.

Wow, that is a lot of alkalinity. You might get by with phosphoric acid, but another option for you to consider...since you have the lime, you could pretreat your tap water and drop out some of the calcium and alkalinity. Then the water could serve as a better starting point for brewing. You really need a pH meter if you are doing this though.

so - 335x .74 = 247.9

so I would need 247.9 mg lime/liter of water treated

if I wanted to treat 20 gallons of water that would be 75.7 liters
so 18766/1000 = 18.76 grams of slaked lime
paler says to adjust up 20-30% so

18.76 x 1.25 =23.5 grams slaked lime to treat 20 gallons of water


this is what I've been doing. treating in advance, a day or so with slaked lime in a large rubbermaid trash can.

perhaps we have our signals crossed.

 

[runningweird]

the problem, as I saw it, was that there wasn't enough straight calcium in the water to start with to complete the reaction, so I was ending up with some left over lime in the water.

 

[runningweird]

anybody?

 

[ajdelange]

the problem, as I saw it, was that there wasn't enough straight calcium in the water to start with to complete the reaction, so I was ending up with some left over lime in the water.

Calcium, Ca 104 = 5.2 mEq/L
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 335 = 6.7 mEq/L
so you are 1.5 mEq/L shy on the calcium. Make that up and you ought to be able to drop both alkalinity and calcium hardness to about 1 mEq/L each.

Lime softening is a bit tricky as you never know exactly what you are going to get. You really need a pH meter to monitor what is going on (though I guess strips would be good enough here). You calculate how much lime you need From Ca++ + 2HCO3- + Ca(OH)2 --> 2CaCO3 + 2H2O its pretty clear that you need 1/2 mmol of lime for each 2 mEq of bicarbonate removed. Add this amount to half the volume of water to be treated and stir. The pH will initially be high but as the chalk precipitates (add a bit before you start to serve as nucleation sites) the pH will fall back some. When it stabilizes add more of the water and monitor pH until you reach about 8. Stop there. Let things settle and decant. It is really a good idea to do alkalinity and hardness checks on the decanted water to see how well you did.

 

[runningweird]

Thanks! should I just add straight calcium? or gypsum

 

[ajdelange]

In the first place, you would probably have difficulty obtaining calcium. In the second place, if you add it to water you get

Ca + 2H2O --> Ca++ + H2 + 2(OH)-

which is, after the hydrogen has left, the same as adding Ca(OH)2. So use gypsum or calcium chloride to increase calcium ion content.

 

[And1129]

In the first place, you would probably have difficulty obtaining calcium.

Ha, I actually have an old container of pure calcium metal in my garage that has long since oxidized to now almost entierly CaO. I'd never thought of it, but maybe now i'll use if for beer...