Water Test Strips: Reliable?

[Clint Yeastwood]

My Ward Labs water test came back okay except for iron. I have Brewtan B on the way.

I also got some test strips from Amazon. I figured my water's iron levels might fluctuate because my well coughs up rust every time the electricity goes off and back on. I believe it comes from the well's steel casing. It goes away when I run the water.

I tested my water today with a strip, after letting it run a while, and no color shows up on the iron patch. Zero. I also got a lower pH (~6.0 compared to Ward Labs 7.7) than before. The total alkalinity is about what Ward Labs said. The other stuff the strip lists isn't all that important to brewing, and not much of anything shows up.

So are these strips any good? Does anyone else here use them?

If I can trust the iron result, then I don't need to fool with bottled water or filters. I can just run the water until I get a low iron reading. They would also be helpful when the power has gone off and on during the night. It definitely fills the water with rust, and I don't always know it has happened. I wouldn't necessarily see the rust after using water to shower and so on, because that would remove a lot of it, but there could still be enough to cause problems.

 

[balrog]

Couple things come to mind. Rust is iron oxide and I don't know the chemistry of iron ions this may or may not impart to brewing, while knowing personally I'd rather do without rust. The strips for pH are what usually comes up in the brewing forums, and they are of dubious use, if for no other reason than wort color can mess with reading pH color. I've no idea about iron strips. You might be better getting a fairly inexpensive TDS meter (total dissolved solids) to see when the water is running cleaner than at startup.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

Looks like they are not Chinese, so that's a plus.

 

[huckdavidson]

Most likely it's iron bacteria that's infested your well. They combine iron or manganese in the environment (water, well casings, etc...) with oxygen to form the rust or slime deposits that you see.

If the strip says there is no iron then your well water might have high manganese or the iron bacteria are ridding the water of both metals and in the process turning your water brown with rust colored bacteria.

BrewTan B might not work as you expect as it's target is metal ions and the "rust" you see are bacteria cells, though using BrewTan B won't hurt and can only help.

The iron bacteria isn't harmful and most likely precipitates during boiling and fermenting - getting caught up in the protein and yeast clumping actions as well it's own coagulation - to that end whirlfloc may help.

Removing these bacteria from wells is often a fruitless endeavor but cleaning the well casings and other equipment along with shocking the well with bleach can help at least for a while.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

The water is only brown right after a power outage. Something in the system gets knocked loose. I don't get any significant slime, so maybe I don't have a big-time bacteria issue.

I know something in the system rusts, because little blackish chunks of obvious rust used to clog my faucets until I put a filter on the house. It's not a fine filter, but it will keep tiny mineral bits out. The pipes from the well and inside the house are all PVC or copper.

I'm assuming the ground itself doesn't produce the rust chunks. I don't really know. The rocks here are all white chert. Sometimes there are little veins that look a little rusty, but nothing you would expect to shed chunks.

There is some kind of bacteria in the toilets that makes red stains. Not reddish. RED. I wonder if Google knows what it is.

Okay; the web says it's serratia marcescens, a germ once thought to be harmless yet which is now known to cause "urinary and respiratory infections, endocarditis, osteomyelitis, septicemia, wound infections, eye infections, and meningitis."

Well that's a fine how-do-you-do. Guess I'll have to stop drinking out of the toilet.

Apparently it comes in on the air, so there is no way to get rid of it. And it's only in the one toilet I have that doesn't have a chlorine thing on it. Also carried in poo. Hope it can't find its way to the well.

The Navy once bombed San Francisco with it in a biological warfare experiment. Thought it was harmless. The government is just wonderful.

 

[huckdavidson]

Right after a power outage makes sense as that's when the water in the aquifer and well system have pooled and given the bacteria a chance to grow.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

Well, okay, but we have 2-minute outages, and it still happens.

 

[huckdavidson]

A two minute outage would allow the water in the well pipe to run back into the aquifer disturbing the rust bacteria if you have a bad check valve. If your pressure tank loses pressure during an outage then most likely it's a bad check valve. If you have a deep well then you might have more than one check valve.

What is the link to these test strips?

Try using test strips specifically for iron and specifically for manganese. Heavy metal test strips might also be appropriate.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

I'm sure something like that is happening, although the check valve was replaced last year. The strips are multi-chemical strips. There are a zillion brands on Amazon. All look about the same.

 

[huckdavidson]

What is the link to the ones you are using?

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

Here you go: Amazon.com

I have a tremendous work ethic, and I am putting in all sorts of time, trying to figure this out. I am drinking one 16-ounce sample after another, because when the going gets tough, the tough get going.

I just don't think there is anything seriously wrong with my beer. My best guess is that the sample I sent to be tested was an outlier. If I really had 0.68 ppm of iron every day, surely my beer would taste funny. I think the iron fluctuates because the power occasionally goes off, and the answer is to test the water every time I fill the Braumeister. If I don't see any iron in the tests, I'll fill it. If I see iron, I'll run the water until it goes away.

I'll toss some Brewtan in the kettle except when I'm deliberately making cloudy beer. Can't hurt.