tds meter

[Arbe0]

does a tds meter tell anything useful about brewing water whether it is from the water before brewing, mash, or after the boil?
We look at PH and all that water has to offer to brew with but I never hear of people using a tds meter to check for total dissolved solids.

 

[triethylborane]

The main issue with a TDS meter is it just tells you the total dissolved ionic solids, it does not give a breakdown of the concentration of particular solids. So it is not useful for determining brewing water adjustments.

It is useful for hydroponic fertilizing.

 

[Turkeyshot]

does a tds meter tell anything useful about brewing water whether it is from the water before brewing, mash, or after the boil?
We look at PH and all that water has to offer to brew with but I never hear of people using a tds meter to check for total dissolved solids.

I use my TDS meter when I buy RO water at the store from a machine. That way I can tell if the machine has been serviced properly as the reading should be extremely low.

 

[day_trippr]

The only use I've found for a TDS meter is checking the in and out of my RO system.
It's definitely no substitute for a solid water report...

Cheers!

 

[FourSwitch]

This may not be an educated opinion... But I like to use my tds meter as a kind of 'mile marker' I know my water comes in at 240 tds pre mash, if the recipe I did last was at 1270 at 15m 1200 at 30 m and 1150 at mash out I can use that as a kind of guideline to ensure I'm on track. Maybe it's a garden path but it's a comforting measurement for me to see I'm keeping on track with a previous recipe's process.

Hopefully that helps

 

[Arbe0]

So what should my TDS meter show for RO or Distilled water? I have used the water dispenser at Walmart and the first time I used it everything was good but the next time it didn't seem to be RO water at all. The Distilled 1 gallons water from Kind Soopers super market seem to be constant
FourSwitch...so are those readings constant for every kind of brew? would it be different from a Blond ale to a IPA or Porter?

 

[triethylborane]

King Soopers, must be in CO.

RO water TDS is dependent on the TDS of the input water. This source says RO TDS should be approx 1/10th the amount of the input.

https://www.purewaterproducts.com/docs/using-tds-tester

Distilled water in theory should show TDS of zero. Depending on the resolution of your TDS/EC meter, it should be 0 or very close to that.

 

[FourSwitch]

My readings generally depend on three things, grain bill, amount of water, and type of mash(am I recirculating, or recirculating with a motorized agitator, or just steeping).

So as per recipe(if your recipe is dialled in where you want it, and you are not making changes) the readings should be fairly constant. But a change to any of those three and there will definitely be a change in your readings too.

As I say I mostly use mine to keep very detailed notes to a). Recreate a good recipe that I like exactly like the first time. And b). Keep tabs on what is happening when I'm making something new!

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

If TDS is high, its a relatively safe bet to assume that alkalinity is also. You can make a wild guess assumption that alkalinity is about 50% of TDS, but I wouldn't even be willing to assign "ballpark" accuracy to this guessing method.

In general it seems that the lower the TDS reading one sees, the better this wild guess methods accuracy in determining alkalinity seems to become.

And if you are looking for bicarbonate rather than alkalinity, just divide alkalinity by 0.82 and the answer is your bicarbonate level.

 

[Murphys_Law]

They are cheap so I bought one just as a reality check to make sure my RO water is ok.

And I get my water from...King Soopers!