Another water hardness question..

[bigdave]

I know I live in a very hard water area and would like to try treating my liquor with CRS so I've downloaded my water report but can't anything regarding the Calcium Carbonate content or total alkalinity. I've been raking through the Yorkshire Water website and found this so wondered if either of the figures I've circled in red are the numbers I'm looking for?

Hope someone's able to help...

[bigdave]

Hang on!.. I just clicked on the "convert your water hardness" link and it gave me this:

[Eric]

Hi Dave, I don't know, but even if any was the figure you wanted, it is risky to use CRS with any historic figure, especially with water as hard as yours.
From that range of figures to make a pale ale, enough CRS (acid) is needed to leave less than 10% of its alkalinity, converting most bicarbonate into soluble salts. However, if on the day you brew, alkalinity was 10% greater, you would brew with more than twice the desired alkalinity. Worse, if the alkalinity was 10% less, you might use excessive CRS and convert the nickel plating on your elements into an undesirable brewing salt.
The only practical way, in my opinion, is to measure it every time you brew. A Salifert kit seems to be most prefered.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SALIFERT-KH-P ... 415baaccf0

I would guess you'll need to add about 1ml of CRS per litre of liquor, but that is a substantial amount of an acid solution that comes with risk. Get it right and it will make a huge difference to your beer.

[stokie_spaceman]

Hi Big Dave.
The parameters you have circled are calcium hardness expressed as calcium, and a conversion for converting calcium expressed as Ca to calcium expressed as calcium carbonate. You don't have the alkalinity figure there. Any ion can be expressed as calcium carbonate (CaCO3)but it will be a different number than when expressed as the ion.
It doesn't mean it's the same thing. It's a bit like comparing a Kg of bacon and a lb of cheese. You can convert them both to common units say grams...but they will still be different substances. That's how it is with converting things to CaCO3. Hardness (Calcium and magnesium) is expressed as CaCO3 because you can't add them together as their respective ions...they are different substances. Alkalinity is expressed usually as either HCO3 (bicarbonate), CO3 (carbonate) or CaCO3. Ca can be expressed as Ca or CaCO3 and Mg as Mg or CaCO3.

Unfortunatly, most municipal suppliers don't provide alkalinity and you can't derive it unless you have a full anlaysis and then it would likely be inaccurate for what you have on the day. Simple test kit would be the way to go if you want an accurate measurement.

Hope this helps.

Joe

[bigdave]

Cheers guys.

I emailed a brewer friend about this the other day. he's got 2 breweries at different sites (one of which is 200yds down the road from my house) and his response was as follows:

On the nano kit and at Bugthorpe I use approx 1ml for 1L of liquor. At home I use 280L (so 280ml of AMS) of liquor for 164L of final beer. At Bugthorpe it's about 1200L (so 1200ml of AMS) for around 670L of final beer. Works for me. Worth experimenting - you might be able to teach us both something!

And for what it's worth - our mash efficiency is around 75%. (Treboom are at about 82% - aiming for 90%!).


Any idea what AMS is?

[bigdave]

Just did a search and found my answer.

[Aleman]

The figure you want is Total ALKALINITY, if you see the words hardness or total hardness put your fingers in your ears and start saying lalalalalalalalala very loudly until you've forgotten it. Don't get all excited just because you've found a figure with CaCO3 after it , a hardness figure no matter what terms it is expressed in is of no use in this instance.

This comes up time after time, after time, after time, after . . . you get the picture.

Get a Salifert Alkalinity Test Kit and measure it yourself . . . stop trying to use the reports from the water companies!!!!. (Salifert also do a Calcium kit as well) . . . Get a few analyses done by Murphys for the rest, and then BrunWater will make sense, and actually give you proper decent results!!!!!

Throwing stuff into water without knowing what is in there is NOT water treatment . . . . it is more akin to witchcraft!!!!

[Brotherton Lad]

We may have similar water, Bigdave,

My Salifert results tend to give an alkalinity figure around 140mg/litre. It does vary, though, between about 120 and 155. (I vaguely recall that Yorkshire Water has a grid across the county and can switch supply from reservoirs in the Pennines to acquifers in the Vale, so values can change from month to month).

I treat the water with a pinch of sodium met, CRS (about 0.5ml per litre of liquor) and a tsp of gypsum in the mash and in the boil.

I'm not experienced in this aspect of brewing, though, and I'm probably slightly under-treating it.

[bigdave]

I might be using the very same water as you quite soon as I'm working in Haxby now so a move looks likely.

[AnthonyUK]

BigDave,
With water this hard have you considered diluting it with bottled water or RO and then adjusting?