HantsGaz wrote:OK, Soduim Sulphate keeps coming up as an addition required for me for a Burton Pale Ale using Tesco's Scottish Mountain bottled water:
Ca = 26
Mg = 6
Na = 7
Carbonate (Co3) 39.34 (Bi Carbonate HCO3 is listed as 80)
SO4 = 7.7
CL = 6
The mineral additions listed (using CRS) for a Burton Pale Ale are:
Gypsum
Magnesium Sulphate
Sodium Chloride
Sodium Sulphate
Perhaps I should find another bottled water for this (but Sainsbury's Caledonian comes out the same too)!
I've done a few checks and it seems that the calculator is working okay. The demand for sodium sulphate is a consequence of using CRS. It adds sulphate and chloride to the water, and some water profiles simply can not be matched exactly using CRS in conjunction with the common water treatment salts.
However, there are two ways of overcoming this. The easiest is to just ignore the Glauber's salt. You will not notice any difference. The amount of Glauber's requested is insignificant compared to the gypsum, and Glauber's salt is something like 60% water anyway, making the active ingredients even less.
The other way is to jiggle the sulphate / chloride ratio. For example:
Enter the water parameters as you've given above.
Select Burton Pale Ale to enter the Burton profile figures in the target boxes.
Set the sulphate / chloride ratio to 6:1.
Then set the target drop-down box to automatic.
You will notice that the sulphate and chloride figures change by an insignificant amount, and the demand for Glauber's salt disappears.
I am looking at ways to make the sulphate / chloride thing easier to use and more intuitive. Ideally a slider bar would be a better idea, but HTML does not have a native slider component and an implementation of one would be complicated, might not be cross-browser and might not work on a Mac, for example. I'm looking into it though.