Water chemistry has broken me, please help!

[MaCheFai]

Hi All,

I'm new to brewing and I've read through pages and pages, looked through numerous calculators, all of which seem as though some smart people went through great lengths to try and simplify water profiles for less smart people, like me. And even still, I'm not able make any sense of it all given the info I currently have. Frustration has finally set in, and I figured I'd try and ask for some help. Mainly because, I'm not sure if I have the correct info from my report to enter into calculators to determine my additions.

I would truly appreciate someones help in understanding:
1) Can I just plug the "Alkalinity, Bicarbonate" in as is? Or do I need to convert it?
2) For calcium, do I use the "Hardness, Calcium" or just "Calcium"?

Just having a tough time determining how many additions I would need in order to achieve the following profile based on my current water(see profile pics below). I'm also using 3.68 gallons of total water for a small batch.

Hoping to brew with this profile:
Ca = 100
Mg = 5
Na = 13
Sulfate = 147
Chloride = 80
Bicarbonate = 16
Mash pH = 5.37-5.42


Current water profile report:

 

[ajdelange]

... seem as though some smart people went through great lengths to try and simplify water profiles for less smart people, like me.

Yes, that's exactly what happened. Back in Oct 08 I gave a water chemistry class for BURP (DC area club) and said to myself "I'll just pit all this math into a simple Excel spreadsheet for the guys and they'll be doing calcuations with ease. That spreadsheet is now 51 x 188 cells on the first sheet and 24 x 127 on the second. But it does nearly everything.

Then one day Yooper came along as asked could I do a simple Sticky for guys like you and I hmm'd and hawed and realized that when I brew I don't fiddle with the spread sheet but just add 2.5 grams of CaCl2 to 5 gallons of RO water and brew with that. I don't like sulfate but many do so were I among them I'd just add 2.5 grams of gypsum as well. That's really all you need to do for a generic beer. Tweak that for particular style by taste test and Bob's your uncle.

1) Can I just plug the "Alkalinity, Bicarbonate" in as is? Or do I need to convert it?

The calculators use (or should use) the total alkalinity number for calculations but for some reason I can't fathom many of them require you to enter bicarbonate. Some have a calculator you can stick the alkalinity number into and it computes the bicarbonate which you then enter into the main spreadsheet. For others use bicarb = 61*total_alkalinity/50

2) For calcium, do I use the "Hardness, Calcium" or just "Calcium"?

Just Calcium

Just having a tough time determining how many additions I would need in order to achieve the following profile based on my current water(see profile pics below).

Forget profiles for now. Just add gypsum and calcium chloride to RO water per the Sticky. Time to worry about all the complicated stuff after you get your feet wet so to speak.

 

[mabrungard]

Some water reports are very cryptic, but they can be solved sometimes. Your approximate values are below and they happen to balance reasonably well.

Ca 34
Mg 8
Na 22
HCO3 73
SO4 55
Cl 32

That happens to be a fairly good water source for brewing. It would be nice if the sulfate were a little lower, but its not way out of line. While I concur that starting with RO or distilled water and using the recommendations of the Water Primer on this forum is a very simple way to make water simple, using that recommendation would be an unnecessary step in your case.

 

[MaCheFai]

Thank you gentlemen! It does in fact look like I can get pretty close with just a bit of gypsum and calcium chloride!

@mabrungard can you help me understand how you arrived at HCO3: 73? My water report shows Alkalinity, Bicarbonate: 60? Are those different? Just trying to learn. :/

Lastly, my PH level on my report shows 7.8, is that safe to plug in as is?

 

[Morrey]

You have two of the best (AJ and Martin) in the business answering you before me, so be grateful for that. Learning brewing chemistry is a daunting task even if you have a general chemistry understanding. If all we had to do was adjust neutral or RO water, how simple life would be. Unfortunately our source water is typically less than "neutral, hence the difficulty.

However, once you do get your source water figured out, it is typically only small changes to brew a lawn mower beer opposed to a stout considering your source water is stable. A little more of this...or a little less of that.

I didn't see this mentioned, but have you been using Martin's Brungard's program named Bru'n Water? BTW that is Martin himself answering you. I learned the program by repetition, trial and error plugging values in plus watching youtube videos from users of his program.

It takes time to learn, but afterwards, you'll be rewarded with good water to brew with.

 

[ajdelange]

61*60/50 = 73.2

Alkalinity is a measure of the acid required to reduce the pH of the sample from whatever it comes to you as to 4.3 to 4.5 (depending on whose definition of alkalinity you use. Thus it is a measure of the bases in the water. These include carbonate, bicarbonate, hydroxyl and phosphate ions. Thus total alkalinity consists of bicarbonate alkalinity, hydroxyl alkalinity, carbonate alkakinity and phosphate alkalinity, For most waters (and yours qualifies) the only one that is significant is bicarbonate alkalinituy but of you have a 'total' or 'M' alkalinity number use that rather than bicarbonate alkalinity.

 

[MaCheFai]

Based on my current water, your insights and my targets(see OP above), I've determined the following additions are necessary. Can anyone help confirm these and offer any suggestions to help get my mash ph to the 5.3 range? Maybe lactic acid or ph balancer?

Starting Water (ppm):
Ca: 34
Mg: 8
Na: 22
Cl: 32
SO4: 55
HCO3: 73

Mash / Sparge Vol (gal): 3.67
Total Grain (lb): 8.6

Adjustments (grams) Mash
CaSO4: 2.5
CaCl2: 1.5
MgSO4: 0
NaHCO3: 0
CaCO3: 0
Lactic Acid (ml): 0
Sauermalz (oz): 0

Mash Water / Total water (ppm):
Ca: 104 / 104
Mg: 8 / 8
Na: 22 / 22
Cl: 84 / 84
SO4: 155 / 155
Cl to SO4 Ratio: 0.54 / 0.54

Alkalinity (CaCO3): 60
RA: -19
Estimated pH: 5.60
(room temp)