Deciphering a Water Report!

[periolus]

Right - Bristol Water actually have their detailed report information on the website. I am trialling some software called Beer Alchemy for the mac, which looks ace, and it has asked for my water profile. No problem I thought. WRONG!

Okay - my water report has no entry for Bicarbonate, Sulphate or Chloride for a start, despite the metal ions all being listed - sodium and magnesium being the key ones.

I do have entries at the end for Field Free Chlorine and Field Total Chlorine. Can I take the difference between the two to be the Chloride ions? Is the Field Free Chlorine the pure chlorine addition?

Also alkalinity has two measurements - one for mg/l MgCO3 and one for mg/l HOC3 both with different, but fairly close, readings. Which one do I use for my profile? Or how do I arrive at an accurate figure.

Please help! Should I just request these values separately? Any other Bristol Water users out there with the info?

 

[graysalchemy]

I use a Salifert Alkalinity/ Carbonate Hardness kit available from aquarium suppliers. I test before each brew as your alkalinity can vary through out the year. However I think you need to use the HOC3 one, not all water reports give the though and hence why many of us test the water. With regards for the other use the water treatment calculator in the calculator menue above and see what it actually specifies.

Cheers

AG

 

[Aleman]

Problem is it may not be the alkalinity that is being reported, from teh fact that they supply two values I woudl guess you are looking at teh Hardness which is reported as if it were all due to Carbonate. Hardness is useless for brewing purposes.

Give us the URL to the page and we might be able to offer better advice. Although unless you are consistantly producing good all grain beers water teatment is a waste of time.

 

[periolus]

http://www.bristol-water.co.uk/environm ... urArea.asp

Here is the link - type in the postcode as BS16 2AD

Below the initial short table of figures is a link to a full PDF report (2 pages)

Hopefully this will explain things a little better!

B x

 

[Aleman]

Well First off it does in the short report show alkalinity both as Calcium Carbonate which is what you enter into the calculator and Bicarbonate which if you divide by 1.22 should equal the Carbonate value.

The 'Long' PDF report is total **** however, and may as well not be shown. Take a look at my Detailed report for FY4 4TN which shows what they should be giving you.

Any to answer your question. Chlorine is not the same as chloride and is a measure of the amount of chlorine they add as a disinfectant to keep the water potable in the pipes. Total Chlorine is the amount of Chlorine and Chloramine in the water . . . Free chlorine is just chlorine. Total-Free gives you the amount of chloramine in your water. . . . If you want to be particular about the amount of campden tables to add to neutralise chlorine then you can use these figures . . .personally I campden tablet in up to 20UK gallons and don't worry about an exact chlorine figure.

 

[periolus]

Hi!

Cheers for that Aleman. I wasn't able to get the document from the link you sent me, but agree that the long version was largely irrelevant not very helpful.

I understand the chloride/chlorine difference but wasn't sure of the Free and Total definitions. You have very helpfully identified the chloramine for me - which will help with Campden tablets (when they bloody arrive from ebay - they are 6 days late now!)

Just to check, the Calcium Carbonate was 155mg/l and the HOC3 (which I am guessing should have been HCO3, or hydrogencarbonate for the acid element of the balance) was 189. I put 189 in for Bicarbonate value, not the difference between the two?

 

[graysalchemy]

A question for aleman, do you use the average result in the detailed report?

Cheers

AG

 

[periolus]

Good point - I forgot to ask that! I have used the mean figure all the way through. That should be right.

 

[Aleman]

I do,

Although I do check the Alkalinity and Calcium values whenever I brew so If it is significantly higher / lower than the mean values then I may or may not use the minimum or Maximum figures.

The other question you should ask . . . is Is how many samples is the figure a mean of? . . . if you have a min of 12, a max of 174 and a mean of 93 and a sample size of 2 (in a year) . . . how relevant is that Mean Figure?