Confusing Water Report

StevieDS · Jan 11, 2013

I've been messing around with a few water calculators online trying to get a decent water profile for my next brew. I received a water report from my local council but I'm not sure I'm reading it correctly.
I have the ppm values for the following minerals: sodium, potassium, sulphate, chloride and nitrate. That's fine, but for the more important ones such as calcium, magnesium, carbonate and bicarbonate its not quite as clear, to me anyway. The report doesn't give specific values for these, this is exactly what it says:

"This area has an average hardness of 34mg/l calcium (permanent) which is classed as moderately soft. This equates to 85mg/l CaCO3 (temporary)."

From this can I work out the ppm levels of Ca, Mg, CO and HCO?? :wha:

Swazi · Jan 11, 2013

"This area has an average hardness of 34mg/l calcium (permanent) which is classed as moderately soft. This equates to 85mg/l CaCO3 (temporary)."

From this can I work out the ppm levels of Ca, Mg, CO and HCO??

You can for Ca. What you have there is the most important value of all and that is CaCo3 (Calcium carbonate). Ca is roughly 0.4 of CaCo3. Looks like some nice water to me, I'd be really happy if my water report looked like that.

oldjiver · Jan 11, 2013

Had the same problem with my water report, cant seem to marry it up with the calculator? I tried to post a copy of the report but photobucket wont take that file type?
Heres my post..
viewtopic.php?f=31&t=33591

oldjiver · Jan 11, 2013

Managed to get fotobucket to accept report.
Heres the two relevant pages. If anyone can marry the report (especially the Calcium Carbonate 298.75 figure) to the site calculator It will be much appreciated. :clap:

StevieDS · Jan 11, 2013

I had a look at your post and martins reply but still not any clearer.
I'm using his brunwater spreadsheet but i can't get it to balance. I tried using your report and same problem, you have to fiddle with the HCO3 levels to balance it out, but it says if your water pH is less than 9 you can set this value to 0. For your report I had to change it to 50ppm to balance even tho your pH is 7.6 :wha:
I emailed my water company again asking for specific values, hopefully they can supply them...

mabrungard · Jan 12, 2013

Unfortunately Oldjiver's report is a little dodgy on a few parameters. The single alkalinity result is pathetic and the few calcium results are disappointing. I get high confidence for the Na, Mg, SO4, and Cl results, but the low number of Ca and Alk results provides little confidence. A water is always electrically balanced. But when you are trying to use the results from multiple test events, its likely that the ions won't balance. This report does provide some guidance, but not confidence-inspiring information for the parameters that most effect mash pH (Ca and HCO3).

With regard to the question on the Calcium Carbonate result, that is the hardness reported 'as CaCO3'. The reported Ca concentration (120 ppm) and that hardness value (299 ppm) do agree.

I'm confused by sdsratm's comment 'if your water pH is less than 9 you can set this value to 0'. I assume you are referring to carbonate (CO3) and not HCO3? When the water pH is below 9, most of the alkalinity is in the form of bicarbonate (HCO3). That would be what the alkalinity value would be converted to for use in Bru'n Water's calculations.