Help with Water Profile (this is bad)

ajdelange said:

The greensand/permanganate filter are the best but you can also oxidize Fe(II) to Fe(III) with, of all things, oxygen in the air. Try spraying the water through a nozzle which breaks it into a fine mist or bubbling compressed air through it (be sure to use an oil filter on your air line) or just splash it about. It may well turn grey or orange or brown. Then filter the water through a bed of clean playsand (from a home improvement store). This may or may not work for you but is certainly worth a try.

Click to expand...

BlackFurnaceBrewing said:

The only way I am aware of to get rid of the iron is filtration.

I feel your pain as my well water is much like yours. So, the day before very brew day, I drive 30 miles to a natural spring. There, I stand in line to fill enough 5 gallon jugs for the next day's batch. I might get out in 30 minutes, it might take two hours....ya never know.

Have you tested your water after your filter and softener? It probably kicks up your Na even higher, but might reduce some of the other stuff.

Click to expand...

hops2it said:

By far, my favored method for iron removal is using industrial strength sodium hypochorite (bleach). When searching literature, you'll see various predicted reaction times but trust me, it works almost instantly with adequate mixing. That will precipitate the iron but filtration would still be needed at that point, along with chlorine removal ideally.

Click to expand...

PintoBean said:

How much Sodium Hypochlorite would you need in 5 gallons of water to precipitate the iron?

Click to expand...

BlackFurnaceBrewing said:

Whatever route you decide to go, Pinto, let us know how it turns out.

Click to expand...

hops2it said:

Check out this calculator for some assistance:

http://www.handymath.com/cgi-bin/chlorined3.cgi

I input 0 mg/l initial chlorine and 1mg/L desired residual...which is false because you theoretically would end up at zero residual as the available chlorine will be used in the reaction to precipitate the iron. But if we do in fact use the 1:1 ratio of hypo to iron, then we can use your current iron concentration in the "desired" box. Although you stated an iron value of 0.81, I used 1.0 instead to account for some slight upward variance in your iron level. This should then leave little chlorine residual leftover. In fact, most DPD chlorine test kits would struggle to accurately measure down to that last 0.2 mg/l of residual on a repeated and accurate basis. ORP might be a better bet. But what you'd ideally need to do is measure the iron after the dosing which requires a spectrophotometer and the associated reagents. If you can get an inside track with your local area water plant, they might do that test for you.

So anyway, I set the output for mL and that value ends up being 0.13144 mL. How much is that? Essentially 2 drops from your run of the mill eyedropper.

Dang, that link isn't going to work so instead go here:

http://www.handymath.com/calculators.html

And then scroll all the way down to the bottom and click on the link titled "calculator for water disinfection using 12.5% sodium hypochlorite solution". Then you'll see what I mean about the input variables I mentioned above.

Click to expand...