Treating Brewing Water

[schmartz]

I've got well water that's horrible for beer. Extremely hard, high sulfate, magnesium, and iron. So far I've been using straight RO water and building it up but I don't like using that much RO. I'm wondering whether anybody can help me figure out other options like aeration and slaked lime to get my water usable for brewing. Here's the report from Ward Labs.

pH 7.8
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est, ppm 666
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 1.11
Cations / Anions, me/L 13.5 / 12.4
ppm
Sodium, Na 81
Potassium, K 2
Calcium, Ca 94
Magnesium, Mg 63
Total Hardness, CaCO3 498
Nitrate, NO3-N 0.1 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 156
Chloride, Cl 6
Carbonate, CO3 < 1
Bicarbonate, HCO3 150
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 123
Total Phosphorus, P 0.51
Total Iron, Fe 0.54

 

[ajdelange]

There is plenty of calcium to drop the alkalinity down to less than 50 ppm and you could probably get rid of 1/3 - 1/2 the Mg but that would still leave you with very high sulfate levels. What's the problem with using straight RO?

 

[schmartz]

I can get about 5 gallons of water out of the RO tank (I installed a 19 gallon bladder tank) then have to wait overnight (or several hours) for it to refill. A couple times I've run the tank dry and made my wife unhappy. If there were a solution that would let me just fill a tank/carboy and batch treat it would be less of a problem. I just don't see any feasible way other than RO with all that's in the water.

No relatively easy way to get rid of sulfate?

 

[ajdelange]

OK - no real problem with RO but a real problem with an adequate supply of it.

 

[mabrungard]

I think you need to punt. That water has too many things in it to serve as a decent brewing water. RO is a good choice.

 

[ajdelange]

No relatively easy way to get rid of sulfate?

Yes, there's a very easy way to get rid of it but not one you would want to consider. When we test for it we add barium chloride to a sample of the water and insoluble barium sulfate precipitates out. The turbidity of the water is then an indirect measure of the amount of sulfate in it. The catch is, of course, that barium chloride is quite poisonous or rather the Ba++ ion is poisonous and thus so is any soluble barium salt. Thus, conceptually, sulfate could be removed by precipitation as carbonate is but you'd be a fool to brew with or drink water treated this way.

The only practical way to remove sulfate that I know of is RO or RODI or DI. Distillation and microfiltration would work too but for the home brewer RO seems to be the only option. I installed my RO system to target sulfate as even the modest 27 mg/L found in my well is too much for the kinds of beer I brew.

 

[schmartz]

Basically. I've had good results with building water from RO. Unless I install a separate RO system for brewing I'll continue with the lack of supply issues. That's why I was hoping there might be a way to treat the raw water to a level where it's more amenable to blending. As it is now I can only use about 1/3 or less raw water or the sulfate and hardness are too high for most beer styles. Even then it's too high for many. I guess I'll start looking at a second RO system dedicated to brewing. I appreciate your help!

 

[ajdelange]

Be sure to look at the reef aquarium systems. Many people here use them and someone may chime in with a link. They have greater throughput than the under-the-sink units but are not too terribly priced. You don't need a pressure tank (though it can be very handy) but only someplace to store the water you are collecting to brew.

 

[grathan]

You might try inflating the bladder in your tank some.

 

[schmartz]

I've seen the aquarium units listed on ebay. Those I've seen list throughput at 80 - 100 gallons per day. Plenty for brewing! It would be easy enough to set it up with a poly drum and a float switch or level control valve.