New water treatment calculator

(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!
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coatesg

Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by coatesg » Mon Nov 24, 2008 12:23 am

Graham wrote: The programme probably thinks that all your sodium is bound to carbonate as sodium carbonate. As you reduce the carbonate, the programme finds that some of the sodium has nothing to bind to and so drops it because it cannot exist as such. The carbonate and sodium remaining does match the sodium carbonate ratio. What is worrying is that your ion balance is correct, so it should have found something to bind to. The trouble is that the ions can combine in a dozen ways, but I have to chose a particular fixed pecking order for pairing up the results that best suits brewing. Doing the sums in a different order can produce slightly different results. I wouldn't mind your water figures so that I can go through manually and see what is happening.
Thanks for the response Graham - here are the figures that I was using (not necessarily exactly the same as my water, but I won't know what that actually is until I get to test it sometime this week!) - figures from Thames Water (Carterton/Witney 2007) except alkalinity (estimated...) and those automatically calculated on the page as marked:

Alkalinity 200mg/l CaCO3
CRS reduction, 20mg/l CaCO3 residual
Hardness 258mg/l CaCO3

Ca (automatic) - 103.31mg/l
Mg - 6mg/l
Na - 18.5mg/l
CO3 (automatic) - 119.91mg/l
SO4 - 75mg/l
Cl - 33mg/l

Initial ion balance check: Cations: 6.45; Anions: 6.47

Target, examples include: Dry Pale Ale, Sweet Pale Ale, Bitter, etc


The calculator appears to work very well for me in almost all circumstances - just when the target sodium is lower than current does it throw this slight oddity - though to be honest, this is the column I'm probably gonna care least about! :wink:

Shoit

Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by Shoit » Wed Nov 26, 2008 8:17 pm

I recently requested details from my water company and got the following response:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for your recent email regarding total alkalinity expressed as calcium carbonate (Ca CO3).

I have contacted our Quality Assurance Team regarding this. We are not regulated for this measure so it does not appear on the water quality report but from a few samples taken in last 12 months we have recorded the following:-

Minimum <10.7 mg/l (microgrammes per litre)

Maximum <18.1 mg/l

Average 14 mg/l

I hope that this information is of use.

Yours sincerely

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Does this sound correct?

Kevin

Graham

Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by Graham » Thu Nov 27, 2008 2:32 pm

Shoit wrote:I recently requested details from my water company and got the following response:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for your recent email regarding total alkalinity expressed as calcium carbonate (Ca CO3).

I have contacted our Quality Assurance Team regarding this. We are not regulated for this measure so it does not appear on the water quality report but from a few samples taken in last 12 months we have recorded the following:-

Minimum <10.7 mg/l (microgrammes per litre)

Maximum <18.1 mg/l

Average 14 mg/l

I hope that this information is of use.

Yours sincerely

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Does this sound correct?

Kevin
Actually mg/l is milligrams per litre, micrograms would be µg/l. Nevertheless, you have almost no alkalinity, so you can conveniently ignore it.

mentaldental

Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by mentaldental » Thu Nov 27, 2008 11:27 pm

Good news!

I made my first batch of beer over the weekend using liquor treatment as per Graham's calculator. I am happy to say that the pH of the liquor and the mash were spot on. (5.55 & 5.25). I built the liquor from RO water to the Dry Pale Ale specification.

Good work Graham. Thanks.

HantsGaz

Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by HantsGaz » Mon Dec 01, 2008 3:53 pm

This might just be me, but have tried to use the calculator again and can't get any results back for the Carbonate levels when I try to set a Target Liquor. Whatever style/region I choose the Carbonate level always comes back at zero. All the other values are being returned OK, just not the Carbonate level. Anyone else got this problem?

Thanks, Gaz.

mentaldental

Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by mentaldental » Mon Dec 01, 2008 4:06 pm

HantsGaz wrote:This might just be me, but have tried to use the calculator again and can't get any results back for the Carbonate levels when I try to set a Target Liquor. Whatever style/region I choose the Carbonate level always comes back at zero. All the other values are being returned OK, just not the Carbonate level. Anyone else got this problem?
Oh yes, me too. I didn't notice that before.

Is this a Vista thing? That's what I am using.

HantsGaz

Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by HantsGaz » Mon Dec 01, 2008 4:09 pm

I'm using Vista & IE7, but sure it has worked before for me on this PC.

EDIT: Just tried it using XP & IE6 and the issue is still there.

Graham

Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by Graham » Mon Dec 01, 2008 4:39 pm

That was intentional in the original version, because when using CRS a bit of alkalinity is left by design, and when boiling the water to remove carbonate an indeterminate amount of alkalinity is left as well because boiling does not remove it all, so I thought that it was safe to ignore carbonate for the subsequent calculations. This is fine for hard water areas, but it turns out to be a problem for people in soft water areas because their mash pH is unstable and too low without a bit of residual alkalinity.

I have spent the last few days updating the calculator to address this, but it turned out to be a major job to include carbonate figures in the calculations and has made the calculator rather more complicated. However, it is more or less finished now and I will sending the revised version over to Andy for uploading sometime soon.

HantsGaz

Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by HantsGaz » Mon Dec 01, 2008 4:46 pm

OK. Many thanks, Graham.

SiHoltye

Praise

Post by SiHoltye » Mon Dec 01, 2008 4:51 pm

'Tis simply not good enough Graham, a free water treatment calculator and it isn't perfect for everyone in every situation. Should be ashamed of yourself :lol:

Seriously it's a cracking program, not least in so much as I can use it, and moreover because of your continuing endeavours and contributions to discussions around it. Thanks prolly on behalf of many for all your 'free time' you've ploughed into this thing that helps us less able/bothered water tinkerers. It's a real boon to effectively take target liquor out of the home brewing variables mix via your calc. Goodness knows there's plenty else to fret about. :roll:

mentaldental

Re: Praise

Post by mentaldental » Tue Dec 02, 2008 1:08 pm

SiHoltye wrote:'Tis simply not good enough Graham, a free water treatment calculator and it isn't perfect for everyone in every situation. Should be ashamed of yourself
Yes, I think Graham should be summarily executed for foisting such shoddy free software on an unsuspecting brewing public :lol:

Or maybe just a BIG thank you from all of us he find this software damn useful. And the Beer Engine too. Blimey, does the man never sleep? :shock:

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Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by Andy » Wed Dec 03, 2008 9:47 pm

The new version (1.04) of Graham's calculator has just been uploaded to http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/water/water.html (the same URL as mentioned at the start of this thread).

Cheers Graham!
Dan!

HantsGaz

Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by HantsGaz » Wed Dec 03, 2008 11:39 pm

Thanks Graham, just reading through the notes to how this one works now. One quick question though, when using bottled water I'm interpreting the 'mineral' listed as bicarbonate, on the label, as HCO3. Is that correct for putting into the alkalinity field? Also sometimes it’s listed as bicarbonates – would that make any difference? Many thanks, Gaz.

Graham

Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by Graham » Thu Dec 04, 2008 12:06 am

HantsGaz wrote:Thanks Graham, just reading through the notes to how this one works now. One quick question though, when using bottled water I'm interpreting the 'mineral' listed as bicarbonate, on the label, as HCO3. Is that correct for putting into the alkalinity field?
Yes, that's right. As far as we are concerned, bicarbonate (HCO3) is the water-soluble form of carbonate. Sometimes it is called "hydrogen carbonate" to confuse things even further.
HantsGaz wrote: Also sometimes it’s listed as bicarbonates – would that make any difference? Many thanks, Gaz.
No it doesn't make any difference to us, we are interested in the total bicarbonate(s), and most, if not all, of it will be bound to calcium anyway, and it is all alkalinity, no matter what it is bound to.

HantsGaz

Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by HantsGaz » Thu Dec 04, 2008 3:49 pm

Thanks Graham.

Q for everyone! Where can I get Sodium Sulphate (Glauber's salt), Calcium Carbonate (as chalk powder) and Magnesium Carbonate (anhydrous)from? I'm hoping that local chemists like Boots or health food shops like Holland and Barratt may do them...? Thanks.

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