Ward Labs Question

[Mirilis]

SWMBO has agreed that I can submit a sample to ward labs, but here is my question.

Can I just fill a water bottle and send it to them? I want the $21 household water test.

Do I have to buy the Brewers test kit and wait for the bottles and labels to come in the mail?

Im just trying to figure out how it works.. i could technically email them but its 12:30am here and they wouldnt respond now anyway.

 

[buzzerj]

You can always get very accurate information on water composition from your city water department with one conveniently placed 6 pack of homebrew. Costs less than $21. Consider.

 

[Spyderbyte07]

I tried to order a brewer's test kit through their site and received the following email:

"Good Morning-

Thank you for your order of 1 water bottle. The order is too small to ship according to our policies. One suggestion is to fill a clean plastic bottle and send it with USPS or UPS.

Scott Hinrichs, MBA
Director, Human Resources"

 

[jsprinceiii]

I tried to order a brewer's test kit through their site and received the following email:

"Good Morning-

Thank you for your order of 1 water bottle. The order is too small to ship according to our policies. One suggestion is to fill a clean plastic bottle and send it with USPS or UPS.

Scott Hinrichs, MBA
Director, Human Resources"

You can empty and clean a 12oz commercial water plastic bottle and send that in.

What URL did you use when ordering?
https://producers.wardlab.com/BrewersKitOrder.php ??

 

[Gavin C]

I ordered mine the other day. Brewers test. Bottle packaging instructions and return label arrived today.

No problems whatsoever.

Collect sample as per instructions and send it to them. They email you the results.

Also city reports should be available. You just need to contact the right person or dept. that can be tricky. It's public domain info so it should be no problem getting it. I got my latest one this week. The guy emailed me and said he hopes it helps with my distillation. Couldn't have been more helpful. I guess he is not familiar with home brewing.

 

[ajdelange]

City water reports are problematic in that they give results at the water plant's clearwell, not your faucet, often omit alkalinity and usually give annual or monthly averages and sometimes range (it would be much better if they gave average and standard deviation) not what comes out of your tap on a given day. OTOH those cities that give the monthly data give you a very good picture of the how the qualities of the water vary with the seasons.

A Ward Labs report is tailored for the brewer but gives you only a snapshot i.e. what came out of your tap on the day you took the sample. IMO it is best, even if you have fairly complete city data to get a snapshot from Ward. Putting the two together you may be able to come up with a plan. This would be easy to do if your city reports small seasonal variation and the Ward Labs snapshot is close to what the city reports. If the city reports wide fluctuations (the worst case is where it draws from different sources at different times of years and/or the snapshot is quite different from the reported values) is more challenging. Testing by the brewer before each brew may be required in some cases. In others you may find that simply by checking the TDS (with an inexpensive tester) you can guess which source the water is coming from. The variation can always be removed by removing the minerals with an RO system.