Help needed inputting Murphy's water report into Bru'n Water

[WishboneBrewery]

Having just got my Murphys water report this week I was trying to add my numbers to Bru'n Water for the first time but it keeps showing an ion balance issue and I'm wondering whats going on.
Using the latest version of OpenOffice with Macros enabled.
I got my Sodium numbers from the online Yorkshire Water report which helped things out, then the Nitrate figure is not multiplied by 4.43 and the bicarbonate figure if not added gives a GREEN highlighted cell and a reading of 0.02.

Pics added:
brunw by pdtnc, on Flickr
Murph by pdtnc, on Flickr
YorksWater by pdtnc, on Flickr

Also this keeps popping up and requires 3 cancel clicks to get rid of it for a few seconds:
passwordbull by pdtnc, on Flickr

Am I doing things right and does OpenOffice actually work with this?

[Aleman]

I believe there is an issue with openoffice but LibreOffice is good . . . Oddly enough :sick: so is excel

[Eric]

Having just got my Murphys water report this week I was trying to add my numbers to Bru'n Water for the first time but it keeps showing an ion balance issue and I'm wondering whats going on.

Neither can I make those numbers balance. Even using a more likely figure for sodium it won't comfortably balance. I wonder what Murphy's might tell you apart from being very busy?

[WishboneBrewery]

I hope to trust the report

[Dave S]

I tend to calculate calcium from my alkalinity measurement, which has up until now correlated with my local authority report. Then for the rest I use the average readings from the report and tweak until I get the ion balance. I realise it's rather a guesstimate, but all the levels end up within the LA's tolerance bands.

[Eric]

I tend to calculate calcium from my alkalinity measurement,......

There's the rub, for that level of alkalinity would have 8.4mg/l calcium, leaving too little of it and magnesium remaining to balance the sulphate.
Ade, have you done your own alkalinity test?

[Dave S]

I tend to calculate calcium from my alkalinity measurement,......

There's the rub, for that level of alkalinity would have 8.4mg/l calcium, leaving too little of it and magnesium remaining to balance the sulphate.
Ade, have you done your own alkalinity test?

Hmm, I never have that problem as all the salt levels in my tap water are substantially high, which is sometimes a curse and sometimes a blessing.

[Eric]

I tend to calculate calcium from my alkalinity measurement,......

There's the rub, for that level of alkalinity would have 8.4mg/l calcium, leaving too little of it and magnesium remaining to balance the sulphate.
Ade, have you done your own alkalinity test?

Hmm, I never have that problem as all the salt levels in my tap water are substantially high, which is sometimes a curse and sometimes a blessing.

And maybe that's exactly it. Could it be that only because there is so little in that water does the calculator reject the input, considering the imbalance to be too large as a proportion while if your or my water reports were out by the same quantity, it would be considered to have balanced?
That doesn't say the water report is right as it would need what I would think was a disproportional amount of sodium to make it balance.

[Dave S]

There's the rub, for that level of alkalinity would have 8.4mg/l calcium, leaving too little of it and magnesium remaining to balance the sulphate.
Ade, have you done your own alkalinity test?

Hmm, I never have that problem as all the salt levels in my tap water are substantially high, which is sometimes a curse and sometimes a blessing.

And maybe that's exactly it. Could it be that only because there is so little in that water does the calculator reject the input, considering the imbalance to be too large as a proportion while if your or my water reports were out by the same quantity, it would be considered to have balanced?
That doesn't say the water report is right as it would need what I would think was a disproportional amount of sodium to make it balance.

Maybe Martin could come along at this point and comment. I might have a play around with some of Ade's values to see if I can get my head around it all.

[killer]

I think it is slightly annoying when the reported/ analysed data don't match up. However the calculator just balances the ion input that we give so without actual further testing we are just generating random numbers to make it all balance out. The difference between cations/ anions (0.4 meq. ) in the software is an absolute difference and doesn't depend on whether you have weakly or strongly mineral water. The simple reality is that in this report, there are too many anions relative to cations...

Martin suggests very good agreement is a difference of less than 0.1 and that over 0.5 is starting to become a bit too much. You are at 0.4. As a percentage of your total mineral content then that is quite a bit but - In reality, as Eric suggests - your water is relatively free of minerals and it's not really a big deal. Depending on the type of profile you want I really wouldn't overly worry - i.e if you are going Burton then the minerals present in your water have a relatively small contribution to the total. Obviously for something like a lager profile it's a bit more of a concern, but I don't think the uncertainty would ever really prove to be a problem.

[mabrungard]

You are trying to 'fill in the gaps' with another source and its possible that some of the error comes from that. If you are confident in the values from Murphy's, you can just adjust the remaining major cation (Na) to make the ions balance. However, the bottom line that I see is that your water is pretty darn good and the minor error that the balance points out is almost inconsequential. That balance is just a quality check on the data that helps alert you that 'something' is amiss.

It appears that you don't have to worry too much about this water. The main thing to concern yourself with is the resulting mash pH. The calcium content and alkalinity are the main information to make that calculation reliable. Hopefully, they are correct.

[WishboneBrewery]

Thanks guys So taken at face Value (as I am intending to) things are fine, if Bru'n Water & These forum thread were never here it would never be a problem...
I think simply switching to LibreOffice helped a lot with how the spreadsheet works.

[simple one]

Try Brewers friend advanced water calc. I have used both. They seem to produce the same/similar values, and to my eyes is slightly friendlier. Although Brew'n water allows you to save and print more effectively.

[WishboneBrewery]

I think I looked at that one Matt, it looked a bit confusing to me... though it doesn't take much!

[simple one]

I guess it's what your used to. As soon as I look at excel type programs I come out in cold sweats. I wouldn't mind learning how to use them properly as I wouldn't mind having a go at making my own spreadsheet, tailored to my dodgy equipment!