Water profile seems off

[NatchezBrew]

I got a new water profile from my city and everything just seems very low much lower than I see most folks using. Well my sodium is high.

All readings in Mgl

Iron- less than .1
Mg- .209
Ca- .9
Na- 149.
Cl- 11.3
SO4- 1.2
CaCO3 3.1

I have never used my house water because of the old pipes but we are moving so I would like to start using it.

 

[ajdelange]

There is something very wrong with this report. You don't list units for anything and that doesn't help. Assuming everything is in mg/L and CaCO3 means 'mg/L as CaCO3' then you are showing 6.5 mEq/L cations and only 0.4 mEq/L anions to balance them. You'll need to furnish more complete information.

Edit: I see you did specify units so ignore that remark. This only makes it clear that the report is somehow really screwed up.

 

[The_Bishop]

Does your house have a water softener?

 

[NatchezBrew]

I actually got the numbers from the water department. I called and the dude was really cool. I asked for each Ion and he was looking them up on the latest test he had.

 

[NatchezBrew]

So are the numbers just off? Or is this something that can be worked with

 

[ajdelange]

No, nothing can be done with these numbers. They are, as they stand, absurd. Further clarification as to what they mean is required because they cannot mean what they ostensibly do. Your best bet might be to send a sample off to Ward Labs.

 

[NatchezBrew]

That's what I'll do. Thanks

 

[NatchezBrew]

Got my ward results. All readings in PPM

PH - 8.5
Na - 138
Ca - 2
Mg - <1
CaCO3 - 5
SO4 - <1
Cl - 12
CO3 - 3.9
HCO3 - 362
CaCO3 - 305

Any thoughts? I'm new at water and I'm learning and reading. Can my water be adjusted using salts etc?

 

[GotPushrods]

It appears you sent a sample from after your water softener. You want to bypass that and send straight tap water to see what your baseline is. I can't think of a use for softened water in brewing. You want a little calcium and rarely want much sodium.

It's not totally worthless, and it appears you have quite a bit of hardness and alkalinity. The alkalinity would need to be dealt with in just about anything you can think to brew, even many darker grists.

 

[dmr]

Got my ward results. All readings in PPM

PH - 8.5
Na - 138
Ca - 2
Mg - <1
CaCO3 - 5
SO4 - <1
Cl - 12
CO3 - 3.9
HCO3 - 362
CaCO3 - 305

Any thoughts? I'm new at water and I'm learning and reading. Can my water be adjusted using salts etc?

Your dissolved ions largely come from Sodium Bicarbonate (baking soda), it appears. The CaC03 number represents "alkalinity as CaCO3". Bottom line: high alkalinity water balanced by a boatload of Na. For most beer styles I would buy RO water and treat as needed.

 

[mabrungard]

If the house doesn't have a softener, the water utility is using the same ion-exchange process to soften that water. My city does the same thing. In any case, that water is not suitable for brewing. The good news is that the water is well suited to feed a RO unit. That is your next purchase!

 

[NatchezBrew]

Thanks. The house does not have a softener, the sample came straight from the pipe. I'll ask the city if they use a softener, they brag about how great the water is here and the city has been awarded the best water in the state. It comes from underground aquifers.

 

[ajdelange]

If the house doesn't have a softener, the water utility is using the same ion-exchange process to soften that water.

That wouldn't be very wise of them as this water is undersaturated WRT CaCO3 and thus corrosive. Not terribly so, however. The saturation pH is 8.64 > 8.5. If they were going to soften to this extent I would think they'd want to add some calcium or blend some of the raw water to get saturation pH below water pH. It wouldn't take much. Only 10 mg/L Ca++ would drop pHs to 7.94 < 8.5 and they'd be fat. But what I think doesn't really matter as I am not a water utility. Perhaps slightly aggressive is OK.

My city does the same thing.

To this extent?

In any case, that water is not suitable for brewing. The good news is that the water is well suited to feed a RO unit.

My observations don't modify the wisdom of that remark. You could probably do a couple of things with this water if you supplemented the calcium but that sodium level is up there. Cutting with RO water to get the sodium down would also work (again with calcium supplementation) and, of course, straight RO represents the dilution extreme.

While I'm wandering: this is the first report I've seen with pH > 8.3 since I went round with Ward labs on their calculation of bicarbonate and carbonate. They still don't have it right though they are much closer. For the reported alkalinity and pH the bicarbonate and carbonate would be 363.9 and 4.8 respectively calculating based on ideally dilute chemistry and 361.2 and 6.14 if the calculations included the effects of ionic strength. This compares to 372.1 for the bicarbonate as calculated by the popular 61*alk/50 formula but does represent an improvement over the way Ward Labs used to do things.

 

[mabrungard]

Yes, my city does deliver water with at least this level of sodium for much of the year. However, they do blend the raw and treated waters to deliver a moderately hard water. The sodium is still too high!! Needless to say, I use RO...I also have a water softener in the house to take the rest of the hardness out for the RO feed and the feed for the hot water heater.