Water treatment

[bandit]

I have just looked up Buxton and Evian, both have high bicarbonate levels so I will be in Tesco's at 10.00 and will be titrating by 10.15. I will let you know the results. Good night !!

[Vossy1]

Good work Bandit and Wb

I'll be interested in the result.

[WallyBrew]

Have edited my previous post (brain defunct due to too much fizzy liquid) left out the factor of four. So using 250ml multiply mls acid used by 29.3 to get bicarbonate.

Looked at the bottle of evian in the works refrigerator this morning and i claims 357mg/l of bicarbonate. As it's not mine I don't know whether it's evian or tap water so I'm not going to check it.

Be prepared for a titration greater than 10ml

[bandit]

I now have a bottle of Evian and Brecon Carreg. Both with details of pH at source and bicarbonate levels. Heres the glitch. The current Mrs Bandit has had a new flash and lens delivered for her photography business so I have to go and be a model for her practice on. I did spend all day yesterday building the new brewery and spinning honey so I suppose she deserves some attention, plus its a good excuse to have a shave.

I will be titrating after lunch and will post all the results and pictures

[Aleman]

Hurry up Bandit, I'm holding my breath here

[bandit]

Right here we go

I took some RO water with a pH of 6.0 and a TDS reading of 13

I measured 200ml of RO water into a beaker and added 2ml of Hydrochloric acid. I sat it on the stir plate for 2 minutes and the pH went down to 1.10 I used this solution to titrate the two bottles of shop bought mineral water as detailed below.

Brecon Carreg

250ml Ph at source 7.8 Bicarbonates 206

Ph at start of the experiment was 7.6 at 17 Deg C

Ph at 1ml 7.1
Ph at 2ml 6.83
PH at 3ml 6.61
Ph at 5ml 6.17
Ph at 8ml 5.22
Ph at 8.57ml 4.501 therefore 8.57ml

A second run gave a figure of 8.56ml to get a pH of 4.500

So 8.56 x 29.3 = 251 (206 quoted)

Evian

250ml Ph at source 7.2 Bicarbonates 357

Ph at start of the experiment was 7.34 at 16.7 Deg C

Ph at 5ml 6.47
Ph at 7ml 6.24
PH at 8ml 6.12
Ph at 9ml 5.99
Ph at 10ml 5.85
Ph at 11ml 5.68
Ph at 12ml 5.44
Ph at 13ml 5.02
Ph at 13.15ml 4.53
Ph at 13.19ml 4.500 therefore 13.19ml

A second run gave a figure of 13.17ml to get a pH of 4.500

So 13.19 x 29.3 = 386 (357 quoted)

My Water

I then took 250ml of home produced tap water with a starting pH of 7.0

Ph at 1ml 6.44
Ph at 2ml 5.94
PH at 3ml 4.73
Ph at 3.05ml 4.568
Ph at 3.06ml 4.542
Ph at 3.07ml 4.501 therefore 3.07ml

A second run gave a figure of 3.07ml to get a pH of 4.500



So 3.07 x 29.3 = 90 (my water report says anywhere between 51 and 132)

So after all that there is a definite correlation between bicarbontes and the quantity of acid need to reduce them.

I am going to monitor it for a few days and see if there is any variation

[WallyBrew]

Good work Bandit

Looks like your HCl could be the lesser of the two concentrated versions available. The second has s.g. of 1.14 I think and about 32 -34 g HCl per 100g. This is about 10 molar so diluting it 1/100 gives 0.1 molar. In this case the Welsh stuff = 209 (8.57 x 24.4) and the Evian = 322.

So to treat your water just knock off 1.2 from the titration (1.87) and add that quantity of conc to 25 litres of your water (voila water with the equivalent 25mg/l of calcium carbonate) Try it and repeat titration on the treated water.

Where's the modelling pictures?

[bandit]

The modeling trial went well this morning but the battery ran out, we have just had dinner and a glass of wine so back to the modeling this afternoon. Its strange as I thought the strength may have been too great so I was going to calculate backwrds and try and hit the quoted bicarbonate levels

[bandit]

If I go back to my original text and use 24.4 instead of 29.3 then my level of bicarbonate would be 78. So if I want to reduce that to 25 then I need to remove 68% of bicarbonates. So how much acid is that?

Hold on....3.07ml reduces 100% so 2.08ml will reduce the level to 25mg/l

Which is the same as 0.8ml of undiluted HCL in 10 litres of water. Now I did that on the last all pale malt brew and the pH of the mash was about 5.4 Therefore I need to add gypsum to lower the pH of the mash to 5.2

My water report shows a 90% calcium and 10% magnesium level for hardness so if the hardness level is 78 then I must have 70mg/l calcium and 8mg/l of magnesium

By george I think i've got it

[WallyBrew]

By george I think i've got it

Almost - what you have determined is the alkalinity which is the bit you want to lower. IGNORE THE CALCIUM MAGNESIUM and anything to do with hardness.

Its's been done as bicarbonate because thats what water boards and mineral water suppliers quote in.

In terms of alkalinity 200mg/l of calcium carbonate is equivalent to 244mg/l of bicarbonate (hopefully this shows where the factors come from).

For your water:-

Using 24.4 as a factor gives 74.9 mg/l as bicarbonate

Since one wants to work in terms of calcium carbonate (whether the alkalinity is present as that or not) you use the factor 20. So your waters alkalinity expressed as Calcium carbonate is 20 x 3.07 = 61.4

On this basis 1.25ml is = to 25mg/l (1.25 x 20)

Subtract 1.25 from 3.07 = 1.82. This is the amount of undiluted acid to add to 25 litres. So for 10 litres 1.82 / 25 x 10 = 0.73ml

It's traditional to work in terms of calcium carbonate even if its not present as that.

Perhaps Mrs. Aleman would like to write it up as a class practical - gotta be better than my ramblings

[bandit]

This shit works !!!!

I have just made a 100g all pale malt mini mash with 250ml of tap water into which I poured 1.87ml of diluted 1:100 HCL. The strike heat was 77 Deg C. The pH of the water at 77 Deg C was 6.000

After 15 minutes the pH was

5.28 (fanfare of heraldic trumpets)

I have tried others with 0.1g of gypsum and 0.2g of gypsum and it alters a gnats cock. Just what I thought at the outset. Acidification gets you there and salts alter the flavour profile.

Time to try one with 10% crystal now

EDIT I have run out of crystal