first time water treatment - hand-holding please!

(That's water to the rest of us!) Beer is about 95% water, so if you want to discuss water treatment, filtering etc this is the place to do it!
dshar
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first time water treatment - hand-holding please!

Post by dshar » Fri Mar 23, 2018 7:54 pm

hi all,

im going to attempt to some basic water additions in my next brew for the first time.

ive just used the Salifert kit for the first time and determined the CaCO3 at 189ppm (this compares to 250 quoted in the water report, i also checked against the buffer solution in the kit which gave close to the correct reading, so im confident that my calculated level is ok)

For all the other anion/cation levels, i entered what i found in the water report.

Only thing is that Calcium was not explicity stated, only as part of total hardness. I read somewhere that Ca = 0.4 * ppm total hardness. so in my case, 0.4 * 189 = 75 ppm.

>> are people familiar with this 0.4 rule? is it a good measure?
>> I assume its based on molecular weights etc? (sorry lost my periodic table so cannot check!)

i found lots of calculator online, the one i found simplest to use is below.
ive checked the figures, but wanted to confirm with people with experience in case i ruin a batch!
do the amounts look sensible for a bitter?

cheers!
D
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Re: first time water treatment - hand-holding please!

Post by orlando » Sat Mar 24, 2018 8:58 am

Where did you get the calculator? Be interesting to see what it calculates as the output.
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Re: first time water treatment - hand-holding please!

Post by MTW » Sat Mar 24, 2018 2:14 pm

orlando wrote:
Sat Mar 24, 2018 8:58 am
Where did you get the calculator? Be interesting to see what it calculates as the output.
That's the THBF calculator.
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Re: first time water treatment - hand-holding please!

Post by Meatymc » Sat Mar 24, 2018 9:30 pm

You should really be on the Brewing Liqour section - posted a couple of 1st time treatment queries myself in the last couple of months on there and got all the help I needed. Currently boiling (at this very minute) my 3rd treated wort.

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Re: first time water treatment - hand-holding please!

Post by dshar » Sat Mar 24, 2018 9:33 pm

the calculator didnt show the end concentrations of minerals, so i tried Jim's one (seemed a bit more complicated at first, but I think it get it now!)
gave me exactly the same quantities, which is very reassuring!

few grams of salts which was what i expected (couple of tablespoons). look sensible?

only other thing is how to split between mash,sparge and boiler. from what i gather: acid added to total water. gypsum split proportionally to mash water then rest in boiler. all other salts only to boiler?

thanks folks
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Re: first time water treatment - hand-holding please!

Post by Meatymc » Sat Mar 24, 2018 9:45 pm

I refer the honourable gentleman to my previous reply :wink:

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Re: first time water treatment - hand-holding please!

Post by dshar » Sat Mar 24, 2018 10:59 pm

Oh i see, thanks for the tip, our posts crossed each other... i’ll try to move to water section.

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Re: first time water treatment - hand-holding please!

Post by Carnot » Mon Mar 26, 2018 11:22 am

I will do my best to keep this simple. I assume that you used the Salifert Total Hardness test. This basically measures both calcium and magnesium( and some other trace cations). From your water analysis you should have an idea of the calcium : magnesium as the individual ion. The magnesium is usually much less than the calcium. In my case the Ca is about 90 and the Mg about 4 - all as mg/L (ppm). So in my case the calcium makes up >90 % of the total hardness. The 0.4 multiplier for the Ca ion value from the total hardness determination is an approximation, which is valid only where the calcium makes up most of the total harness ( i.e in a water similar to my own, and like your own). This is based on the molecular weight of calcium of 40 and the molecular weight of calcium carbonate of 100. If the total harness is therefore 200 mg/L then the calcium would be 200 x 0.4 = 80 mg/L.

In your case you, dependent on you brew you might wish to add some calcium. I suspect that you will also need to reduce the alkalinity, as I would very much doubt that this would be in the desired range. Was the 100 ppm alkalinity figure in the calculator a measured value or an estimate? It looks okay- based on the chloride and sulphate. My water company does not report alkalinity so it has to be determined. I did a quick rough mass balance and reckon:

20 mg/L Ca is calcium sulphate
10 mg/L Ca is calcium chloride
40 mg/L Ca is as calcium carbonate (actually bicarbonate) that makes the alkalinity 100 ppm CaCO3 spot on .

I have ignored the Mg as it is low.

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Re: first time water treatment - hand-holding please!

Post by Eric » Mon Mar 26, 2018 6:13 pm

Firstly, what you are thinking to do will probably work and work well. However, things are a little muddy and seem to be getting further into the mire.

Is your Salifert Kit a KH/carbonate hardness testing kit? I suspect it is and as such measures alkalinity, not hardness.

Both measurement are given in terms of the amount of calcium carbonate needed to provide the equivalent level of hardness or alkalinity.
Hardness and alkalinity are not the same.
For brewing puposes hardness can be assumed to be a measure of the calcium and magnesium in a water. As you are into the maths, hardness in terms of mg/L calcium carbonate can be reasonably accurately considered to be 2.5 times calcium in mg/L plus 4.1 times magnesium in mg/L and we'll come back to this.
Alkalinity in terms of mg/L calcium carbonate is its weight in mg able to neutralise a quantity of acid that would adjust one litre of the particular liquor to pH 4.5. It's arguable what the precise pH is, but is a point at which it is assumed no significant alkalinity remains.

So let's look at your water, hardness said to be 250mg/L as CaCO3.
Alkalinity 189 CaCO3.
Sodium 30mg/L
Sulphate 49mg/L
Chloride 44mg/L
Let's use Grahams Water Calculator too, working up that list.

The chloride is probably there from natural salt deposits and using a periodic table their amounts balance well enough. Similarly in Graham's calculator enter 30 for sodium and 44 for chloride and the balance check of cations and anions is reasonable.

Next the sulphate which is mostly in water from natural gypsum or sometimes Epsom salts, so enter 49 for the sulphate, then, trust me, put 15 in for calcium and 3 for magnesium and the balance is again quite good.

Now enter your 189mg/L alkalinity finding in the alkalinity box at the top left instead of the one for hardness at the other side. The calculator calculates and inserts a value for carbonate and you should add your calculated value for calcium to that box, making a total of 90mg/L and there is once more a balance between cations and anions.

So, hardness from those amounts will be 2.5 x 90 + 4.1 x 3 = 237.2mg/L as CaCO3.

Sorry if this might appear a bit patronising, it wasn't my intention, but you were so near at one stage and it wasn't getting better as it should.
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Re: first time water treatment - hand-holding please!

Post by HTH1975 » Mon Mar 26, 2018 6:40 pm

Acids in your brewing liquor (assuming you’re softening your liquor) and salts in your mash. Never seen it done any other way.

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Re: first time water treatment - hand-holding please!

Post by MTW » Mon Mar 26, 2018 6:56 pm

HTH1975 wrote:
Mon Mar 26, 2018 6:40 pm
Acids in your brewing liquor (assuming you’re softening your liquor) and salts in your mash. Never seen it done any other way.
All goes in my HLT together. Campden, then acid to get to the alkalinity I want, then the rest of the salts are added to make the profile I want based on the actual ml of acid I needed to use. Calcium is good for the enzymes in the mash from what I understand, so from my starting point of 50-70ppm, I make sure I'm over 100 Ca in the total liquor, pre-mash.
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Re: first time water treatment - hand-holding please!

Post by Eric » Mon Mar 26, 2018 8:26 pm

HTH1975 wrote:
Mon Mar 26, 2018 6:40 pm
Acids in your brewing liquor (assuming you’re softening your liquor) and salts in your mash. Never seen it done any other way.
Acids normally don't soften liquor unless they were to deposit calcium and or magnesium, leaving them behind in the HLT.

Hardness is a measure of calcium and magnesium and softening is most usually done by replacing calcium by sodium.
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Re: first time water treatment - hand-holding please!

Post by HTH1975 » Tue Mar 27, 2018 8:24 am

Eric wrote:
Mon Mar 26, 2018 8:26 pm
HTH1975 wrote:
Mon Mar 26, 2018 6:40 pm
Acids in your brewing liquor (assuming you’re softening your liquor) and salts in your mash. Never seen it done any other way.
Acids normally don't soften liquor unless they were to deposit calcium and or magnesium, leaving them behind in the HLT.

Hardness is a measure of calcium and magnesium and softening is most usually done by replacing calcium by sodium.
I meant to say to adjust pH for acids.

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Re: first time water treatment - hand-holding please!

Post by dshar » Wed Mar 28, 2018 8:31 pm

thanks all for your comments and detailed explanations. i took time to read several times and around the subject before coming back. mostly makes sense, although i have some more questions!

i used the kh salifert kit for Alkalinity (not total hardness)!

Eric - i couldnt quite understand the bold/underlined parts in the below. ive read it many time and still cant get my head around it...
Eric wrote:
Mon Mar 26, 2018 6:13 pm
Next the sulphate which is mostly in water from natural gypsum or sometimes Epsom salts, so enter 49 for the sulphate, then, trust me, put 15 in for calcium and 3 for magnesium and the balance is again quite good.

Now enter your 189mg/L alkalinity finding in the alkalinity box at the top left instead of the one for hardness at the other side. The calculator calculates and inserts a value for carbonate and you should add your calculated value for calcium to that box, making a total of 90mg/L and there is once more a balance between cations and anions.

So, hardness from those amounts will be 2.5 x 90 + 4.1 x 3 = 237.2mg/L as CaCO3.
- where do you get the initial calcium and magnesium values (15 & 3 ppm)
- the calculator calculates 113 carbonate. what value of calcium do i add to it? total of 90 is less than 113 calculator gives me?!
- finally, if i know alkalinity (189) and total hardness (from my water report, or by estimating it, ~250), i assume i put both into the calculator. And it uses to estimate e.g the calcium if youve left it blank?!

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Re: first time water treatment - hand-holding please!

Post by Eric » Wed Mar 28, 2018 11:29 pm

As you used the terms anions/cations and mentioned the periodic table and calculated the amount of calcium in calcium carbonate I thought you might grasp it by the time you reached the end. That was why I asked you to "trust me" in order to avoid making a relatively simple matter complicated. So, I'll go over the initial ground assuming I misjudged that, while I wrongly chose to use "that" instead of "its".

None of the major ions in water treatment can be added in isolation or exist in isolation in water (disassociation is not a subject at this stage). If we wished to add calcium we usually use calcium sulphate or calcium chloride flake, and the sulphate and chloride in those would added at the same time in fixed proportions to the calcium. Similarly it is not possible to add sulphate without adding it as part of a salt such as calcium sulphate (gypsum) or magnesium sulphate (Epsom Salts) and we would also be adding calcium or magnesium. The same goes for the natural minerals collected by water sinking into the ground or runing over river beds. Put simply, you can't just add a cation or an anion and there is a mathematical relationship of the weights of any pairs that can be added. From this we can, within reason, check if given mineral contents in water is possible, as the totals of cations and anions should be equal and if they are not, it cannot exist.

You appear to have accepted that the quantities of sodium and chloride near enough balanced such that they could be accepted and entered as supplied, almost certain that those were from a single compound, common salt.

Sulphate is mostly found in natural deposits of gypsum, CaSO4.2H2O, calcium sulphate dihydrate, Burton became a famous brewing town due to the amount in its water supply. The probability is that most, virtually all the sulphate in your water will be from gypsum, but I don't know that and know that there would certainly be some magnesium in your water and thought I'd kill two birds with one stone and move on. We knew the amount of sulphate so it was only necessary to calculate the weights of cations that would make a balance. I could have chosen 20mg/L Ca which balanced with 49mg/L (48 to be exact) but thought to get rid of the magnesium problem and asked for some trust.

Your water will have a level of magnesium somewhere between 2mg/L and 4mg/L but anyone who thinks there might be a difference in a beer because of that difference wouldn't ever be a brewer.

So that left us with the your alkalinity measurement and the supply company's hardness. (I hate using that term and wish Jim would ban it.) CaCO3 has a molecular weight of 100 and atomic weight of calcium 40, the carbonate (anion) is 60% and calcium (cation) 40% as you had observed. From your 189 for alkalinity 76 was calcium and 113 carbonate. The confusion here was my advice that you added the calculated value for calcium to that box, meant the box for calcium. As said, I should have used "its" box, but when reviewing it thought it might be understandable.

The fact was that the alkalinity you measured fitted well with all the given figures except for hardness (there it goes again), but when doing a back check with the figures we had for calcium and magnesiun, the difference wasn't significant.

It was necessary to assume a figure for magnesium with the information available and I chose to dispose of it before we got to the end to reduce the number of loose ends. Even if my figure was +/- 100%, in practical terms there would be no significant difference in any beer made with that liquor.

This should get you away, but your best route would be to PM WallyBrew and get your water tested properly.
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