Water Report is unbalanced

[mtom1991]

I have entered all my values as mg/l as the Bru n Water spread sheet asks for, but it is still saying it is unbalanced.

The only value i haven't entered is Potassium as its not provided by my water quality report, but the spreadsheet says its not necessary.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

Municipal water reports are often published a couple times a year but testing is more frequent, IE the numbers you get are averages during a extended period of testing. They are not always super exact but most often close enough.

 

[mtom1991]

Municipal water reports are often published a couple times a year but testing is more frequent, IE the numbers you get are averages during a extended period of testing. They are not always super exact but most often close enough.

yeh I get that, the issue isn’t the numbers on the report or how they are collected/reported it’s putting them into the Bru n Water spreadsheet that’s the issue it’s not acknowledging them.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

So it refuses to do any calculations? I use mash made easy so I can't be of any help if that is the problem rather than the values themselves. You could always try to summon the Creator himself.

 

[mtom1991]

So it refuses to do any calculations? I use mash made easy so I can't be of any help if that is the problem rather than the values themselves. You could always try to summon the Creator himself.

figured it out now, it actually wants you to type the unit in each cell along with the figure. Bit **** UI/UX

 

[CascadesBrewer]

figured it out now, it actually wants you to type the unit in each cell along with the figure. Bit **** UI/UX

Huh? You don't have to enter the unit. I suspect adding the units just makes the sheet not recognize the value as a number so they are all treated as 0.

The numbers on the left are Cations (a positive ion) and the numbers on the left are Anions (a negative ion). These join together (like Calcium Carbonate or Sodium Chloride). In reality the positive and negative ions in your water will balance each other out. The values in the "Ion Balance Results" section of that page will show how far they are off (unless that is just part of the paid version of the sheet).

I think the "out of balance" message is just a warning and does not prevent calculations from working.

 

[mabrungard]

That is just a warning. The program still operates with the information you’ve entered. But it’s telling you that there’s probably some “garbage” in your input. Garbage in = Garbage out. Almost every other calculator lets you go into blissful ignorance by not checking to see if the inputs are balanced and valid.

Do make sure that things like alkalinity, sulfate, hardness, and nitrate are in their “true” concentrations. I notice that the nitrate content is a bit high. Is this an agricultural area?

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

If you don't know where you are starting from, how could you expect to end up where you need to be?

 

[VikeMan]

 

[rallenhall]

Sorry to reopen an old discussion, but just entered my data received from Ward Labs this week and also received the "Water Report is Unbalanced" message. I'm hoping that Ward analysis is a bit better than GI-GO. BTW, the B'nW was very predictive of the Ward report which read Cations 9.1/Anions 8.4. I also converted the 87 SO4-S to 261.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

About all you can do is ask Ward Labs to re-test it, explaining that they didn't get a good mEq/L cation/anion check the first time around. I seem to recall that someone on the forum relatively recently (perhaps ~6 months ago) got Ward Labs to review and fix this very issue for them at no charge, if my short term memory isn't deceiving me here.

 

[mabrungard]

I wouldn't really worry about that imbalance since it's pretty mineralized water. There's probably some other ion in that water that the lab didn't test for and that is the likely cause of the 'imbalance'.

While that water is usable for brewing, its getting on up there and you may find that the beers have too much 'flavor' from the water. That's typically a problem in those lighter and malty styles. If you're brewing IPAs, that water is going to be a pretty decent starting point.

 

[rallenhall]

Thanks Martin. I have been brewing my lagers and other light colored beers with Culligan RO for a number of years, but use the tap water for occasional dark beers, IPAs, etc. The water source is a 50 yr. old farm pond that has increasingly loaded with organics ... it was nice and soft for the first decade or two, but has increasingly mineralized since then plus occasionally being boosted with the addition of water from a deep sulfur well during drought years. Actually, this is the "softest" report I've had in awhile. Ward said that they would run the analysis again.