Is this a useful waster report?
- Thread starter TBaGZ
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
Holy Moly, what is the "feed" supply? Those are some big numbers before they blend with Reverse Osmosis water!
I'm sure the water geeks can help you more than me- I was just hoping for a report on "wasters" to see if my name was on it.
I'm sure the water geeks can help you more than me- I was just hoping for a report on "wasters" to see if my name was on it.
I assume the numbers in the right hand column are yours?
For starters P-alkalinity is measured by titrating to pH 8.3. As you water has a pH of 8.04 the p-Alkalinity is, by definition, 0. A T-alk (total alkalinity) of 42 is good - under 50 which is about as high as we hope to ever see it. Calcium hardness of 40 is 40/50 = 0.8 mval implying calcium ion content of 0.8*20 = 16 mg/L. For many beers you will want to add calcium. Mg hardness of 20 is 20/50 = 0.4 mval implying Mg ion concentration of 0.4*12.15 = 4.86 mg/L. This is good.
Now the bad news. The chloride at 120 is pretty high and the probability is that that comes with a lot of sodium. There is also the question of sulfate. If your plant does not determine sodium and sulfate you can send a sample off to Ward Labs at reasonable cost and get a report that will tell you most of what you need to know as a brewer.
For starters P-alkalinity is measured by titrating to pH 8.3. As you water has a pH of 8.04 the p-Alkalinity is, by definition, 0. A T-alk (total alkalinity) of 42 is good - under 50 which is about as high as we hope to ever see it. Calcium hardness of 40 is 40/50 = 0.8 mval implying calcium ion content of 0.8*20 = 16 mg/L. For many beers you will want to add calcium. Mg hardness of 20 is 20/50 = 0.4 mval implying Mg ion concentration of 0.4*12.15 = 4.86 mg/L. This is good.
Now the bad news. The chloride at 120 is pretty high and the probability is that that comes with a lot of sodium. There is also the question of sulfate. If your plant does not determine sodium and sulfate you can send a sample off to Ward Labs at reasonable cost and get a report that will tell you most of what you need to know as a brewer.
Bonita Springs and Port Charlotte have been clients of mine. They are not far from Estero. I'm betting that the utility is drawing their water supply from the nearly brackish shallow aquifer and they have to resort to RO treatment. To improve the overall efficiency, they blend the RO with the feed water to create a water quality that is still acceptable to the users.
As AJ mentioned, they knocked down the hardness. But the sodium and chloride are probably both high in the water. This may or may not be an acceptable brewing water. Get it tested.
As AJ mentioned, they knocked down the hardness. But the sodium and chloride are probably both high in the water. This may or may not be an acceptable brewing water. Get it tested.
You've got the chloride level (too high), but not the sulfate level. You want sodium and sulfate if he can get it.
ThatGeekGuy
Well-Known Member
It's still money well spent, especially considering it includes the sample bottle and mailing tube with prepaid postage. I found some pretty glaring discrepancies between my MUD report and Ward, I believe Ward since it's current and specific to my actual tap supply.
I paid $14 a while back, but I see that it's $26.50 for the same test now. More expensive, but not $40! You don't need the "brewer's test", you just need the "household mineral test" or something like that. It used to be called the WB06 test.
ThatGeekGuy
Well-Known Member
It's $28.60 for the W-6 kit that includes the sample container and prepaid mailer, and $39.60 for the Beer Test kit that is everything in the W-6 plus total phosphorous. I believe phosphorous is a yeast nutrient, so I sprung for the total package.
While phosphorus is a yeast nutrient, the malt adds something like 1% phosphorus to the wort. 1% is 10,000 ppm which would likely dwarf the contribution of phosphorus from the tap water. Tap water should typically have far less than 1 ppm phosphorus. The phosphorus test on the water is unnecessary.
ThatGeekGuy
Well-Known Member
OK.. The first report was from a friend that works at the water plant. I finally had a sample sent out to Ward Labs and the results are below. I am going to try and plug them into Bru N Water, and see if I can confuse myself.
pH 8.4
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est, ppm 292
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 0.49
Cations / Anions, me/L 3.7 / 4.5
ppm
Sodium, Na 58
Potassium, K 2
Calcium, Ca 10
Magnesium, Mg 7
Total Hardness, CaCO3 54
Nitrate, NO3-N 0.1 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 13
Chloride, Cl 102
Carbonate, CO3 6
Bicarbonate, HCO3 36
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 40
Total Phosphorus, P 0.28
Total Iron, Fe < 0.01
"<" - Not Detected / Below Detection Limit
pH 8.4
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est, ppm 292
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 0.49
Cations / Anions, me/L 3.7 / 4.5
ppm
Sodium, Na 58
Potassium, K 2
Calcium, Ca 10
Magnesium, Mg 7
Total Hardness, CaCO3 54
Nitrate, NO3-N 0.1 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 13
Chloride, Cl 102
Carbonate, CO3 6
Bicarbonate, HCO3 36
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 40
Total Phosphorus, P 0.28
Total Iron, Fe < 0.01
"<" - Not Detected / Below Detection Limit
There are a couple of problems with this report. First, although they were supposed to have fixed it and you shouldn't have this error unless the report is more than 3 weeks old, your bicarbonate is, based on their alkalinity reading, really closer to 45 mg/L and your carbonate more like 0.6. Even fixing that the report isn't very well balanced - off by 0.8 mEq/L. I would seriously consider writing them and asking about this. What it means is that they made measurement errors totaling 0.8 mEq/L or neglected to measure something whose equivalence is 0.8 mEq/L or a combination. I'm not sure you should accept such a poor report.
Dang, could have spent the extra eleven bucks on grain....
I'm kind of a nut on such things and use the phosphorous number to correct the alkalinity and so am delighted when people post reports with it but for most people it's not worth $11.
If you feed it alkalinity then it should pick up on the carbonate/bicarbonate problem but that is only 0.1 mEq/L. There is still lots of other imbalance in this report.
I split the report with another guy in the neighborhood so we are going to fire off an email an see what they say. I will let you know what they say. I appreciate the help.
Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
