Water Help Please! New house, high calcium

[Uhthoff]

Long time lurker, first time poster!
I have recently moved to a new house with well water. I have not been able to find a lab that can give me a detailed water report at an affordable price here in Ontario, however, a local water business did do a basic water reading for me. What they told me is that my calcium is about 250 and almost no magnesium. My water pH is 7. I am a fairly novice AG brewer and I am wondering if anyone can give me some suggestions based on these readings? Can I use this water? Should I mix with distilled? Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[ThatVideoKid]

I would just switch to distilled or RO water if that's affordable in ON. At the very least you can cut it 2 parts RO/distilled to 1 part tap water. That will at least get you under 100 ppm

 

[TheHopfather]

I bet you'd have some crystal clear beers with that water! Is that all they gave you for info? Calcium, magnesium and pH? If you had chloride, sulfate and bicarbonate as well you could decide if you should use it for brewing or not. High calcium can be diluted down, the big question is alkalinity.

Edit: I buy RO water from Safeway, $2.99 for 19L. I'm okay with $0.16L to avoid water head aches with my brewing.

 

[rhys333]

The ideal calcium range for brewing is often quoted as 50-150, so given this 250 would seem way high (unless you have high bicarbonate to balance it out). Magnesium will be provided by the malt, so you're okay there. Without knowing the other minerals levels, and how high you are in carbonates, its hard to make a determination beyond this. My advice on well water (limited to my experience with it in my area) is to stay away from it. YMMV of course. I prefer to start with bottled RO/distilled and add CaCl2 and gypsum to obtain desired mineral levels.

This gives a good overview on calcium/bicarbonate interaction and how this influences the ability of malts to overcome alkalinity and get mash pH to a desirable range:
http://howtobrew.com/book/section-3/understanding-the-mash-ph/balancing-the-malts-and-minerals

EDIT: By the way, Crappy Tire sells 5 gallon of RO water for $1 - 2, depending on location. Cheap like borscht!

 

[Uhthoff]

Thanks so much for the replies.
Unfortunately, they did not give me any other info. I have dropped off a sample to another water store near me and should hear back tomorrow. I am hoping their test will give me some more details. I have done some reading but I don't really feel all that knowledgeable about using straight RO and building from scratch. I've looked at some of the online freeware and articles but I feel a little out of my league unless I had a water recipe written out in front of me that I could follow.
Would a reasonable plan be to try my next batch 2 to 1 RO with well water if I don't receive any new information?
Any input is appreciated. Thanks again!

 

[ThatVideoKid]

Bru'n water makes it pretty easy...but that might just be me

 

[Uhthoff]

Now I'm more confused. I was told that my hardness reading was 15 grains/gallon. (Essentially all Calcium). When I googled and converted it, it came out at 257ppm. According to Bru'n Water they convert 15 grains/ gallon to 102.9ppm. I was told by the person who tested that I have very hard water according to his chart. Am I doing something wrong?

 

[ajdelange]

One gpg is 17.12 mg/L so 15 gpg is 258 mg/L Ca++ which is 12.9 mEq/L or 645 ppm as CaCO3. That is, indeed, very hard water. The problem with water that hard is not so much the hardness itself as that it is likely accompanied by a commensurate level of alkalinity which renders it pretty useless for brewing unless it is decarbonated first. What happens to this water if you heat it? Does it turn milky?

 

[mabrungard]

Bru'n Water is useless unless you have good information on what's in your water. Obtaining a reliable lab analysis is step one. I'm hoping one of your Canadian brewers knows of a reliable Canadian water testing lab, but possibly an option would be to send your water to Ward Labs in the US? Since you are on well water, that source may be fairly consistent if the well is deep. Then the testing report results might be perennially useful.

 

[Uhthoff]

I just boiled a pot of the water to see (since I usually use a softener) and after I boiled for a couple of minutes there was a little cloudiness to the water. Does this reveal any information?

Does anyone know if wardlabs will service Canadian customers?

 

[ajdelange]

I'm afraid I misled you in #8 above based on your statement " What they told me is that my calcium is about 250 ". The relevant statement is " I was told that my hardness reading was 15 grains/gallon. " with the key word being hardness. Hardness is expressed 'as CaCO3'. This is very confusing (it confused me here) but it is traditional to do it this way. A gpg of hardness is still 17.12 mg/L but it is 17.12 mg/L 'as CaCO3' (not as Calcium which is the way I interpreted it) thus it is your hardness which is equal to 15*17.12 = 258 mg/L as CaCO3 which is 5.16 mEq/L or 103.2 mg/L as Calcium (which is why Brun water gave you that answer). This is still hard but not that hard and again the fear is that there will be as much as 5.16 mEq/L (258 ppm) alkalinity. The fact that the water turns milky after boiling, but not before, suggests that the alkalinity is less than this but that you have instead appreciable sulfate. The best thing to do, obviously, is get a Ward Labs, or similar test. I am sure Ward Labs would be happy to take your money and do the analysis with the only question being as to whether you would have any problems shipping the sample to them. Carriers are getting strange about fluids these days so you would probably have to use DHL, Fedex, UPS... I can't see Customs getting upset about a water sample but we are living in strange times.

An alternative is to obtain water test kits intended for use by aquarium hobbyists. They are readily available on line and at pet stores and will tell you the two most important parameters: alkalinity and hardness.

There is a kit made by LaMotte especially for brewers which will give you good numbers on alkalinity, hardness and chloride and rough numbers on sulfate and sodium.

 

[Uhthoff]

So where I'm at currently is that I have a friend coming to brew in a few days. What should I do for water? Can I mix tap water with distilled or RO and expect reasonable results? I'm not looking to win any competitions, just want to drink a decent beer.

 

[ajdelange]

The safest thing to do is brew with all distilled/RO to which you add 1/2 tsp calcium chloride per 5 gallons.

 

[Uhthoff]

Really? That sounds easy. Will that just give me water with a safe, general profile?

 

[ajdelange]

Yes. See https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=198460 (but note that I am recommending about half the addition suggested there).

 

[Uhthoff]

Thanks, I've never seen that thread. Thanks for taking the time to put it together and sharing. Can I ask you why you are recommending only half the baseline amount?

 

[ajdelange]

Several years ago Yooper asked if I could put together a Primer on water - something which would nominally give an acceptable, if not exceptional, result in as many cases as possible. In brewing 90% of the battle is dealing with the water's alkalinity and the rest is tweaking sulfate and chloride to taste. At the time I wrote the Primer people were crazy about sulfate and 50 mg/L calcium was considered the minimum acceptable level for that ion. Because many people do not like the effects of sulfate I came up with a basic recommendation of 1 gram/gal (1 tsp/5 gal) calcium chloride as quite in contrast to sulfate most people seem to agree that the more of it there is the richer the beer (up, of course, to a point). The brewer is then to experiment with chloride and sulfate levels until he finds a balance he likes.

Since that original posting people have started to pull back from the highly mineral laden beers which is, IMO, good thing as I always thought low mineral water gave the best beers (again, to a point). So I'm currently rethinking the whole thing and have promised to re-write the Primer. I'm not sure I'll settle in at half what it recommends but probably pretty close to it.

 

[Uhthoff]

Ok, well I will be trying it in a few days. I will be picking up RO water and then add calcium chloride as you suggest. Reading through your past posts, is it fair to say that it doesn't really matter when I add the calcium chloride to the water?

 

[Uhthoff]

ajdelange, I've been reading through your primer thread. I'm only part way through as it is quite lengthy and I'm trying to take in as much as possible. You provided your baseline along with ratios for different styles of beers. Are you planning on changing those numbers as well?
Thanks again for taking the time to reply to me and for sharing all of this information. I'm looking forward to my next brew day!

 

[ajdelange]

No, it doesn't matter when you add the CaCl2 but it is easiest to add it to to the water before strike and that insures that it will be more uniformly and rapidly mixed into mash than if you add it to the mash tun after strike (which some people do).

Yes, I expect all the numbers to go down as more and more people seem to be getting on the 'less is more' bandwagon.

 

[Uhthoff]

This is great stuff. Thanks again!

 

[Dcpcooks]

Several years ago Yooper asked if I could put together a Primer on water - something which would nominally give an acceptable, if not exceptional, result in as many cases as possible. In brewing 90% of the battle is dealing with the water's alkalinity and the rest is tweaking sulfate and chloride to taste. At the time I wrote the Primer people were crazy about sulfate and 50 mg/L calcium was considered the minimum acceptable level for that ion. Because many people do not like the effects of sulfate I came up with a basic recommendation of 1 gram/gal (1 tsp/5 gal) calcium chloride as quite in contrast to sulfate most people seem to agree that the more of it there is the richer the beer (up, of course, to a point). The brewer is then to experiment with chloride and sulfate levels until he finds a balance he likes.

Since that original posting people have started to pull back from the highly mineral laden beers which is, IMO, good thing as I always thought low mineral water gave the best beers (again, to a point). So I'm currently rethinking the whole thing and have promised to re-write the Primer. I'm not sure I'll settle in at half what it recommends but probably pretty close to it.

Are you considering making changes to the acidulated malt and or gypsum additions? Am I ok with reducing the CaCL by 30-50% of the original primer recommendations?

 

[ajdelange]

Gypsum, yes. Acidulated malt, no. In fact you will need a wee bit more acidualtged malt because the pH drop from the huge amounts of calcium in the original additions would be noticeable. 50% reduction in the calcium salts is reasonable with, perhaps, a 10% increase in the acidulated malt.

 

[Uhthoff]

To clarify, the drop in gypsum should also be 50%?

 

[ajdelange]

Yes

 

[Uhthoff]

Great, thanks again!