How To Use Salifert Alkalinity and Calcium Test Kits

This is a pretty straight forward how-to, especially as the instructions are included in the kits, but some people like myself work better with lots of pictures
Ps Apologies for the poor picture quality

First of all the KH/Alkalinity test kit.

Included in the kit:


So the first step is to put some of the water to be tested in a clean glass, and use the large syringe to take a sample of 4ml.


Put the 4ml of water into the little vial.
Take the bottle of KH-Ind, give a quick shake, and add 4 drops of it to the vial with the water in it.


The water should go a green/blue colour like so:


Then using the small syringe, extract 1ml from the KH bottle. The bottom of the black part of the piston in the syringe should be exactly at the 1.0 mark, don't worry if there are air bubbles in it.


Now add this 1 drop at a time into the vial of water. After each drop give the vial a little swirl.


Stop adding the KH as soon as the water changes to this colour:


If it has turned bright pink like this you've added too much:


Now check the level of the syringe, in this case it is reading 0.42:


Now simply look at the table to find out the value in dKH, in this case a reading of 0.42 equals 8.9dKH. To convert this to ppm, multiply the dKH reading by 17.9. In the pictured example I have an alkalinity of 159 ppm.


So now you have the most important value, you are ready to begin simple water treatment (see
here).

This is how to use the Salifert Ca test kit.

Box includes:


Begin by putting some of the water to be tested in a clean glass, and using the big syringe take a sample of 2ml and put it into the little vial.


Now using the little red spoon, take a level spoonful of the Ca-1 blue powder. Add it to the vial but do not mix it in yet.


Then add 8 drops of the Ca-2 liquid into the vial and swirl it gently for 10 seconds to mix.


The water should now be a bright pink colour:


Next, extract 1ml of the Ca-3 liquid using the small syringe. The bottom of the black part of the piston in the syringe should be exactly at the 1.0 mark, don't worry if there are air bubbles in it.


Now add this 1 drop at a time into the vial.


As soon as the water changes to a clear blue colour like this, stop adding:


Now have a look to see what the syringe is reading, in the example below it reads 0.88:


Now compare this to the table to see your calcium concentration in ppm. In this example, 0.88 equals Ca of 60ppm:


Calcium is an important value to know for water treatment, have a look here to see what to do with this value.

Nice work Steve! Deffo deserves a sticky :thumb:

With the Alkalinity kit, I thought you need to keep adding the KH liquid till the blue solution turns pink. There's a similar guide to using this kit on jims and thats what it tells you to do, and is what I've always done?

http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/water_salifert.htm

Here's a tip to get more uses out of the alkalinity kit and make it last longer, especially if you have higher alkalinity water like me as you need to use more of the KH liquid to get a reading.

Normally you should test your water before every brew to adjust your brewing liquor (water) correctly and strip out any necessary alkalinity. But after several tests you'll come to realise that although the alkalinity does change it stays within a reange. For me it's about 185ppm -215ppm. For pale ales the recommeded alkalinty is 50ppm or less and for lagers 30ppm or less. So I need to strip out 135-165 ppm of alkalinty.

I use the chart entitled CRS in millilitres per litre from the brupaks website and CRS to strip out alkalinity http://www.brupaks.com/water%20treatment.htm

Which means I need to times whatever Litre of water by 0.87ml of CRS to strip out 160ppm of alkalinity.

So rather than testing my water to see what the ppm is, I always assume I just need to use 0.87ml of CRS x Xamount of L of water, then test the brewing water after adding the CRS. This means that I only use as small amount of KH Liquid as the colour will start to change in the testing vial after say only using 0.1ml of the liquid rather than using say 0.85ml if I were to initially test my water before adding CRS

MyQul said:

With the Alkalinity kit, I thought you need to keep adding the KH liquid till the blue solution turns pink. There's a similar guide to using this kit on jims and thats what it tells you to do, and is what I've always done?

http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/water_salifert.htm

Click to expand...

:lol:
If I'd known that guide was there I would have just put a link to it
Anyway, to answer your question, if you notice that link says the following regarding when to stop:

This is the end point. The first hints of pink are showing, but it is still mainly grey. Make a note of the reading on the syringe and add another drop to make sure it turns properly pink:

Click to expand...

The next pic shows it as bright pink but the caption says that that is just past the end point, ie. a drop too far.

strange-steve said:

:lol:
If I'd known that guide was there I would have just put a link to it
Anyway, to answer your question, if you notice that link says the following regarding when to stop:

The next pic shows it as bright pink but the caption says that that is just past the end point, ie. a drop too far.

Click to expand...

:lol: But we want our own guide at HBF to go with your magnificent 'simple water treatment' guide

I think I've been going too far with the drops of KH liquid then. Next time I'll ease back a bit

strange-steve said:

This is a pretty straight forward how-to, especially as the instructions are included in the kits, but some people like myself work better with lots of pictures
Ps Apologies for the poor picture quality

Click to expand...

Great "how to" Steve. I messed it up slightly the first I tested my water and this would of certainly helped:thumb:
And I think the pics are good stop being so hard on yourself:lol:

MyQul said:

Here's a tip to get more uses out of the alkalinity kit and make it last longer, especially if you have higher alkalinity water like me as you need to use more of the KH liquid to get a reading.

Normally you should test your water before every brew to adjust your brewing liquor (water) correctly and strip out any necessary alkalinity. But after several tests you'll come to realise that although the alkalinity does change it stays within a reange. For me it's about 185ppm -215ppm. For pale ales the recommeded alkalinty is 50ppm or less and for lagers 30ppm or less. So I need to strip out 135-165 ppm of alkalinty.

I use the chart entitled CRS in millilitres per litre from the brupaks website and CRS to strip out alkalinity http://www.brupaks.com/water%20treatment.htm

Which means I need to times whatever Litre of water by 0.87ml of CRS to strip out 160ppm of alkalinity.

So rather than testing my water to see what the ppm is, I always assume I just need to use 0.87ml of CRS x Xamount of L of water, then test the brewing water after adding the CRS. This means that I only use as small amount of KH Liquid as the colour will start to change in the testing vial after say only using 0.1ml of the liquid rather than using say 0.85ml if I were to initially test my water before adding CRS

Click to expand...

Good idea there :thumb:
Not something I considered because my tap water is only around 35ppm alkalinity so I'm running out of the KH-Ind far quicker than the KH solution.

Brilliant thread Steve, I'm going to invest in a couple of Salifert kits abd follow this from now on. Up until now I've been using the recommendations in the Murphy & Sons report I've got but I've started to suspect it's a bit off (or my water's changed a bit) as my last few pH readings have been v low (suggesting I've been overcompensating by adding too much CRS/CaCl/lactic acid to reduce the alkalinity. I like the idea of adjusting on the day.

chuffer said:

Brilliant thread Steve, I'm going to invest in a couple of Salifert kits abd follow this from now on. Up until now I've been using the recommendations in the Murphy & Sons report I've got but I've started to suspect it's a bit off (or my water's changed a bit) as my last few pH readings have been v low (suggesting I've been overcompensating by adding too much CRS/CaCl/lactic acid to reduce the alkalinity. I like the idea of adjusting on the day.

Click to expand...

Now I haven't personally used Murphy's but I have been told by some knowledgeable people that they aren't terribly useful. There's a guy on JBK called Wallybrew who I've heard can provide a very good water analysis.
The Salifert kits are fine for our purposes though, let us know how you get on.

great thread Steve.. I'm red green colourblind and often go just over the end point. As a student in holidays I used to work at Scottish and Newcastle brewery in Edinburgh and did all the malt nitrogen analyses ....similar colour change and I had to get someone else to do all the titrations because I kept missing the end points....especially important when testing the barley at harvest to decide which ones to buy. I'd defo recommend anyone doing AG brewing in anything other than a soft water areas to get one of these kits...especially if they are using neat tap water and getting poor efficiencies.

chuffer said:

Brilliant thread Steve, I'm going to invest in a couple of Salifert kits abd follow this from now on. Up until now I've been using the recommendations in the Murphy & Sons report I've got but I've started to suspect it's a bit off (or my water's changed a bit) as my last few pH readings have been v low (suggesting I've been overcompensating by adding too much CRS/CaCl/lactic acid to reduce the alkalinity. I like the idea of adjusting on the day.

Click to expand...

I used Murphys at first before getting a salifert kit. They said my alkalinity was 235ppm...and I wasn't getting great efficiencies. Then I got the kit and found it is consistently 270-280ppm (Epsom one of the hardest water areas of the country)....added more CRS and hey presto the efficiencies improved.

Damn it, your pictures are gone Steve!

Hopefully I can work out the kits from their instructions.

Dan

MalvernDan said:

Damn it, your pictures are gone Steve!

Hopefully I can work out the kits from their instructions.

Dan

Click to expand...

Bloody Photobucket. I should have the pics somewhere I'll try to update this at some point.

Water...on my "to do" list this year! A great and informative post! Now...would you test your water every brew day?

Clint said:

Water...on my "to do" list this year! A great and informative post! Now...would you test your water every brew day?

Click to expand...

Yes every brew, although after a while you may find there's very little variability.

Well I just tested my tap water in preparation for the brew day and those two kits told me the following.

Carbonate - KH value =11.8 dkh / 4.22 Alkalinity in meq/L

Calcium - 60mg/L=PPM

I assume that makes sense to those who understand this but what does it mean for the beers I want to brew (I realise they will have different requirements) as just learning this.

Cheers

Pete

To convert the alkalinity to ppm as CaCO3 multiply the dKH value by 17.9 which gives you 211ppm alkalinity. With that and the calcium value you can make the necessary adjustments as per this thread.