Well Water Analysis - Ward Labs

[Silver_Is_Money]

After procrastinating for 3 years I finally had my abysmal well water analyzed. Here it is for your amusement. SO4 is actually 186 ppm. Believe it or not, I actually think a number of my recipes can use this water at a blend ratio of 25% well and 75% RO. I can't go higher than 25% and keep iron at the generally accepted maximum limit of 0.1 ppm. Not that I would want to go higher...

It's nearly as bad as I had originally surmised via using a GH/KH test kit on it, but not quite. I was hoping it would have had a smidge of zinc in it, given everything else it has in abundance.

 

[bierhaus15]

That's pretty bad for most of the US, but not nearly as bad much of the Southwest.... 1000 ppm Mg!?

I am curious what treating this water with acid would result in, something like phosphoric. Not ideal, but the Fe and alkalinity is not out of the realm for some breweries in Wallonia-Belgium and the sulfate/chloride isn't too bad either. Low Na helps. Loss of calcium wouldn't be too terrible...

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

As it turns out, the API GH/KH test kit I used had overstated both the GH and KH valuations by about 15% each. Based upon this I now have the means to reasonably fine-tune my remaining GH and KH titrants.

GH via kit x 0.85 ~= actual GH

KH via kit x 0.85 ~= actual KH

I have no idea as to whether this is true only for my kits titrant strengths, or if it is generally representative of this brands GH/KH test kits in general. Not bad for a kit that costs only about $8 though.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

A whopping 35% of my waters total hardness is derived from magnesium. I would have presumed (and in fact did presume) more on the order of 20-25%.

 

[mabrungard]

Larry, as you've found, the Ca and Mg content is never a certain percentage. The relative content of each is entirely due to the geologic formations that water has contacted during its trip to you.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Larry, as you've found, the Ca and Mg content is never a certain percentage. The relative content of each is entirely due to the geologic formations that water has contacted during its trip to you.

I understand, but my wish (and clearly that is all it ever was) was that my waters ca/mg total hardness ratio was higher on the Ca++ side and lower on the Mg++ side. But when it comes to luck, I never seem to fall on the favorable side of it. I also wish the iron wasn't so high. I'm not very concerned about the alkalinity. I'll be nabbing some 85% Phosphoric Acid to handle that.

Do you (or does anyone) have a good handle on how much Ca++ gets taken off the table when Phosphoric Acid is utilized? I really don't want to loose more of it than I will to dilution?

 

[mabrungard]

If I recall correctly, AJ inserted a chart on calcium phosphate solubility in the Water book.

But more importantly, calcium loss via phosphate complexing is a Red Herring. Water has to have fairly high calcium content in order for the calcium phosphate precipitation to occur and since that calcium content is already high, losing some of that content is not a big deal. Don't worry about calcium loss when your water already has high concentration.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I found this highly detailed peer reviewed 1939 study on the subject of calcium phosphate quite interesting. The major shocker to me (and to those doing this study as well) was that the presence of magnesium greatly hinders the precipitation of Ca3(PO4)2, and thereby noticeably (and quite measurably) reduces the downward impact upon pH induced by calcium. I quote:

Apparently in the presence of magnesium the precipitation of Ca3(PO4)2 is hindered."

This may throw a bit of a monkey-wrench into the outputs of mash pH software.

The other observation was that Ca3(PO4)2 precipitation doesn't occur to any measurable/observable degree until Ca++ concentration hits 71.8 ppm (as inferred by me from the studies conclusion that no observable Ca3(PO4)2 precipitation [or measured pH drop as a consequence of such precipitation] occurred within a prepared solution of potassium sulfate at a pH of 5.9 until 122 mg of CaSO4 were added to a 500 mL sample of this solution).

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/j.2050-0416.1939.tb05961.x

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

A peer reviewed document in support of my above post. The interesting "new" revelation here is in regard to sodium:

magnesium tends to delay the precipitation of tertiary calcium phosphate until the wort is boiled, so diminishing the fall in pH in the mash tun and increasing it in the copper. Sodium has a somewhat similar action.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/j.2050-0416.1967.tb03050.x

Obviously we are dealing with a complex system for which all of the complexities of combined minerals interactions with grist and wort are not fully understood or accounted for by any of the current mash pH assistant software, and to believe that all aspects are understood and accounted for is naive.

If you want your calcium to act more ideally with regard to its downward effect upon mash pH, the moral of the story is to eliminate magnesium and sodium additions. But both of these minerals are also naturally present within malted and unmalted grains, so that tosses the ideal a major curve-ball.

 

[cire]

Might you contemplate a further analysis after reducing alkalinity with phosphoric acid to a nominal level of, say, 50 ppm and having allowed adequate time for calcium phosphate to deposit?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Might you contemplate a further analysis after reducing alkalinity with phosphoric acid to a nominal level of, say, 50 ppm and having allowed adequate time for calcium phosphate to deposit?

That analysis would be interesting. I wonder how many mg/L (ppm) of calcium would remain for that reduced alkalinity scenario? Would it still be 165.7 ppm?

It looks like ~ 8.4 mL of 85% Phosphoric Acid added to 5 gallons of my well water should reduce its alkalinity to right close to 50 ppm.

 

[catalanotte]

That analysis would be interesting. I wonder how many mg/L (ppm) of calcium would remain for that reduced alkalinity scenario? Would it still be 165.7 ppm?

It looks like ~ 8.4 mL of 85% Phosphoric Acid added to 5 gallons of my well water should reduce its alkalinity to right close to 50 ppm.

Does anyone have experience with the level of phosphoric acid addition that becomes detectable in the taste in the finished beer? I work with similarly high alkalinity water, and have hesitated to take this approach only because I’m not aware of the answer to this question.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Does anyone have experience with the level of phosphoric acid addition that becomes detectable in the taste in the finished beer? I work with similarly high alkalinity water, and have hesitated to take this approach only because I’m not aware of the answer to this question.

I would not undertake dropping the alkalinity by acid as other than an experiment to measure the extent to which Phosphoric Acid reduces the ppm of Ca++. Due mainly to my high iron I still intend to cut it with 3 parts RO Water to 1 part Well Water for brewing. That plus adjusting for alkalinity as called for by the recipe, and also adding some CaCl2 to boost both calcium and chloride ions (which will take a hit due to the dilution). Since I'm transitioning to mashing at 5.6-5.65 pH the remaining alkalinity after dilution won't be nearly as big a concern for me as for when I was shooting for 5.4 pH in the mash.

Lastly, I would not think (initially at least) that Phosphoric Acid will depart a noticeable negative flavor, even at such high levels.

 

[mabrungard]

If you want your calcium to act more ideally with regard to its downward effect upon mash pH, the moral of the story is to eliminate magnesium and sodium additions. But both of these minerals are also naturally present within malted and unmalted grains, so that tosses the ideal a major curve-ball.

Sorry, NO. You're confusing the presence of bound Mg and Na in the malt compounds with the soluble forms of those ions that are present in either the starting water or after mineral additions. They are different.

Be aware that an analysis like inductively-coupled plasma (ICP) actually tears all those various molecules apart and the total sum of the various ions is reported.

While metabolism of those malt compounds does occur in yeast and that releases some of that bound content to the yeast, its just not the same as the dissolved content.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Sorry, NO. You're confusing the presence of bound Mg and Na in the malt compounds with the soluble forms of those ions that are present in either the starting water or after mineral additions. They are different.

Martin, thanks for the clarification and explanation of bound minerals within malted and unmalted grist components. If this is so, and one begins with RO or distilled and makes no additions of magnesium or sodium, then the calcium that one adds should act ideally with regard to its mash pH reduction expectations. However, if well or tap or spring sources make up a portion of ones water, and they contain magnesium and sodium, these minerals will still somewhat suppress the action of calcium upon pH and shift some measure of its downward pH shift away from the mash and into the boil phase. Or at least that's what my reference sources seem to be saying. I presume the degree of suppression is likely proportional in some way to the quantities of magnesium and sodium inherently present (or added) to the water.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

After spending some time researching world fresh drinking water data I've revised my calcium and magnesium averages such that on average ~70% of the worlds fresh waters total hardness (TH as CaCO3) comes from Calcium, and ~30% of the worlds fresh waters total hardness comes from magnesium. I believe that this was also the conclusion reached by Kai Troester (Braukaiser) roughly 15-20 years ago. Therefore, the two formulas seen below should better comply with the worlds averages. This does not imply that any one individual water source will (or must) comply with such averages. But if all you know is the total hardness of your water, this educated ballpark guess is perhaps better than nothing.

Ca++ ~= (0.70*TH)/2.4973

Mg++ ~= (0.30*TH)/4.118

 

[mongoose33]

And I thought my water was bad....

What do you drink that with? A fork?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

And I thought my water was bad....

What do you drink that with? A fork?

Before we drink it, it passes through an oxygenator, a softener, and an under the sink RO unit. The RO water from it measures 45 TDS on my meter.