Cool, thanks for your review. What would the required tests be for brewing water? Is there a kit and Ph meter you would recommend?
What you want to know in order of importance:
1) Alkalinity
2) Calcium (hardness)
3) Magnesium (hardness)
4) Sulfate
5) Chloride
6) pH
7) Sodium
8) Iron
Note that pH is pretty far down the list but that is with respect to the water chemistry only. A pH meter in the broader context of brewing is as important as a hydrometer and a thermometer (IMO).
As I noted in the earlier post the Hach Pocket Pro+ is looking promising in early reviews. It appears to be stable and accurate but only three people here have tested it. Will the electrode last longer than 6 mos? Will the junction gum up on the 3rd brew? No one knows yet. With advances in technology the answers are probably respectively 'yes' and 'no' but only time will tell.
There isn't much to an alkalinity test. You add acid to a sample until the end point pH is reached with this being signaled either by a pH meter reading or the change in color of an indicator. There are lots of details (including pictures of indicator color at various pH values) at
http://wetnewf.org/pdfs/measuring-alkalinity.html. The key is the metering of the acid. It was traditionally done with a burette but is most often done in the kits by counting drops dispensed from an eye dropper. This obviously limits precision and accuracy but is usually precise enough for the brewing application. The aquarium hobby test kits are used by many home brewers with success. I have always used the Hach kits and you often see them in water plants, breweries... They tend to be more expensive than other offerings but are, ultimately, drop count kits. If you want greater precision and accuracy for some reason you can consider the Hach Digital Titrator (illustrated at the bottom of the page at
http://wetnewf.org/pdfs/measuring-alkalinity.html). This takes cartridges of titrant which is dispensed by turning a knob and the amount of analyte is read directly from a revolution counter connected to the knob. I measure a lot of alkalinities (and acidities) and this is what I use. But as you probably have guessed it is more expensive than a Mr. Friendly Fish Alkalinity Kit. The up side is that cartridges are available for not only alkalinity but for acidity (not even on the list of needed parameters), hardness and chloride.
Hardness tests are done the same way as alkalinity tests except that the indicator responds to calcium and/or magnesium ions and the titrant is EDTA or EGTA (which chelates those). Be sure to get a kit which tests total and calcium hardness (magnesium hardness being total - calcium).
The sulfate test in the Lamotte kit (and I think you can buy it separately) is the only one I am aware of that doesn't require a nephelometer or spectrophotometer. You can buy reagents only for sulfate tests from Hach that are simply barium chloride if you can come up with another way of measuring turbidity.
There is no good news on sodium. About the best you can do is an ion selective electrode. Those are expensive, require a pH meter that has mV mode, need ionic strength adjusters and, at low sodium levels, take a looong time to respond. For sodium you go to Ward Labs with their AAS/ICP gear.
Iron may or may not be at issue for you. If it is Hach, and others, have relatively inexpensive kits that rely on comparison to colored patches or wheels. Be sure to get a kit which tests for both clear water and total iron.
I'll add chlorine/chloramine. Many manufacturers make kits for this. You don't really need one unless you are interested in testing whether you are using enough metabite in a chloramine situation or whether you have allowed enough standing/heating/aeration in a chlorine only one. This is another case where you need a kit that measures total and free separately.
Go to the Hach website and poke around. Do the same for the LaMotte website. Also check Cole-Parmer.
