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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Graham

Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by Graham » Thu Dec 04, 2008 4:47 pm

HantsGaz wrote: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.
You should not need Sodium Sulphate or Magnesium Carbonate, jiggling your water parameters should eliminate the need for those. They are only their for completeness really. You should be able to supply any element you need from the earlier stuff in the list.

Calcium carbonate is available from home brewing shops, usually called precipitated chalk.

HantsGaz

Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by HantsGaz » Thu Dec 04, 2008 5:30 pm

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)!

Graham

Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by Graham » Fri Dec 05, 2008 7:12 pm

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.

HantsGaz

Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by HantsGaz » Mon Dec 08, 2008 11:42 pm

Thanks for the pointers Graham. I must admit the Sulphate / Chloride ratio is one part of your calculator I haven’t got to grips with yet....

mentaldental

Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by mentaldental » Wed Dec 17, 2008 12:14 pm

I have obtained a average water analysis for my supply from Wessex Water. This gives levels for sodium, sulphate, and choride. By pestering them I also obtained a value for magnesium. A separate document gives average hardness. They do not measure alkalinity since this is not a regulatory requirement.

Armed with this I can fill in most of my water profile but leave calcium and carbonate blank. The calculator will guess Calcium and carbonate from the hardness. Can I assume that the calcium & carbonate figure is close enough for government work?

Or would I be better getting an alkalinity test kit?

Sulphate 18
Chloride 17
Sodium 9
Magnesium 1.8

Hardness as Calcium 101
Hardness as Carbonate 253

mentaldental

Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by mentaldental » Wed Dec 17, 2008 1:34 pm

Chris-x1 wrote:You do not need The only thing you need is total alkalinity which you don't have.
Oh, thanks for cheering me up! :roll:

I have looked around the internet for alkality testers etc. I am not sure how accurate the simple ones are and the more accurate electronic devices are expensive.

Several companies will test your water supply but the cheapest I have come accoss charge as more than a test kit, mainly because they test a whole lot else too.

I have emailed a local swimming pool company who do water analysis. I will let you know the cost they come back with.

Its all a bit of a pain, really. Water companies, hey :evil:

WallyBrew
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Posts: 473
Joined: Sat Jan 05, 2008 11:30 pm
Location: Surrey

Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by WallyBrew » Wed Dec 17, 2008 2:03 pm

From the figures you have got your calcium is 98mg/l

Depending on the nitrate and potassium content of the water your alkalinity as calcium carbonate is probably between 210 and 230mg/l

What any of it is today will be anyones guess

mentaldental

Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by mentaldental » Thu Dec 18, 2008 4:26 pm

Thanks for the help guys.

My local swimming pool company just emailed me to say they will carry out an alkalinity test of a sample supplied to them in 10 minutes at a cost of £5, which seems pretty reasonable.

So if anyone else is unable to get a alkalinity reading from their supplier try calling your local pool guy! :wink:

adm

Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by adm » Thu Dec 18, 2008 5:23 pm

Worst case, go into a tropical fish shop and buy a Salifert Total Alkalinity Test kit. £7.99 or so and you can test you alkalinity in uder 5 minutes (which is probably what the pool shop will do). The kit will do 100 tests....

SiHoltye

Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by SiHoltye » Thu Feb 26, 2009 11:07 pm

Have I been overtreating my beer with minerals?

I add the recommended CRS to all liquor before doing anything. This is fine. Then I calculate minerals needed based on total liquor required eg. 30L. I split the total minerals and add one third to the 10L of mash water (mixed in the dry grist). The other two thirds I have added at the start of the boil. Should I have been deducting the liquor retained in the grains in the mash tun from calculation for the addition into the boiler? Eg 3kg grain = minus 3L worth of mineral additions? I think I should have been.

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Aleman
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Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by Aleman » Thu Feb 26, 2009 11:12 pm

SiHoltye wrote:Have I been overtreating my beer with minerals?
It isn't rocket science, and its not going to make that much difference . . .Try it using the Wheeler calculator, select 13L of water, add 5g of a salt to it, then reduce the volume to 10L and see how much it goes up by. . . . As Chris said in another post the minimum level of calcium is around 50ppm and the maximum is over 350 . . . the amount you are worrying about is tiny in comparison.

SiHoltye

Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by SiHoltye » Fri Feb 27, 2009 12:17 am

Yeah, I'm a fiddler alright.

RabMaxwell

Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by RabMaxwell » Fri Feb 27, 2009 2:01 pm

Hello all i would like to move over to using Mr Wheelers water treatment calculator instead of Promash.I like the ability to use the style settings Burton pale/ Dry pale/Bitter /Mild/ Porter ECT but there isn't a setting for Scottish ales.If i use the Custom setting what figures should i plug in for a brew on the malty side any suggestions welcome. :D

WallyBrew
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Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by WallyBrew » Fri Feb 27, 2009 3:12 pm

No idea if this is of any use, it's an analysis of Edinburgh water from the Old Red Sandstone and is taken from LLoyd Hind's Brewing Science and Practice. Apparently Edinburgh is/was well known for its pale ales

Sodium 92
Magnesium 36
Calcium 140
Nitrate 31
Chloride 60
Sulphate 231
Carbonate 210

RabMaxwell

Re: New water treatment calculator

Post by RabMaxwell » Fri Feb 27, 2009 4:10 pm

I have done a similar one as you give for Edinburgh water & wasn't keen on it that's a lot of sodium & i would never add that much carbonate to any brew .Cheers

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