Sadfield
Landlord.
Ignore it, you don't live there.
Water Chemistry adjustment
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peebee
Out of Control
'Cos I'm hopeless at following my own advice about daft "Hardness", here's a bit more to explain the "footnote" above ...
A screenshot to save me from some typing.
Note the Hardness value is less than the reported one (but only 0.4ppm as CaCO3). That's because of those "other" metal ions as only Calcium and Magnesium are being counted. I reckon that 0.4ppm is "insignificant"?
Anyway, perhaps now I'll stop rabbiting on about useless "Hardness"? Especially as these figures are from the old location and not the Yorkshire Dales.
Note "Omni" also assume you can tell they've switched from "ppm (mg/l)" for the ions to "ppm (mg/l) as CaCO3" for "water hardness". It's no wonder the flippin' subject is so confusing and easy to make mistakes with! I only know they are mixing units and not telling because they publish the formula they use: "Hardness = 2.497 x Calcium + 4.118 x Magnesium" ... recognise those "magic numbers"? Although they round them to three decimal places, I've only bothered with one.
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apologies, just catching up, been tied up. Hopefully get back to this at the weekend
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On the testing list, liquor analysis?
Dave...you're not kidnapped are you?
Sadfield
Landlord.
Eventually remembered his safe word was Gypsum.
peebee
Out of Control
Right. Time for a bit more ranting then!
I'm not ranting because I'm a know-it-all ... I'm fairly new to this subject too (but been brewing for decades). I'm ranting 'cos I'm sensitive to having the wool pulled over my eyes, which seems to be what's happening to homebrewers here for quite a while. Not necessarily intentional or malicious, but the result of deceiving ourselves with all this arcane "hardness" clap-trap and units "as CaCO3" (which have little to do with "real" CaCO3).
Sorry @DJDave, I've latched onto your thread to be a soapbox and work through some of the nonsense. But hopefully you are getting your query answered too.
So, "as CaCO3" ...
If you ever see CaCO3 in a water analysis report it will probably mean "as CaCO3". If you are unlucky, CaCO3 won't be mentioned, but they mean it anyway! In the right hands it can simplify calculations and is a useful tool. Otherwise, its deceptive and leads to miscomprehensions and mistakes. It's generally used as a unit for "Hardness", a subject that actually has little value to the brewer apart from providing some verbal conversational overview.
You may notice in my previous posts, some things about "CaCO3" don't add up. Expressing Calcium seems okay, but what about Magnesium? The calculations apply a different multiplier to Mg ions so it appears to be Calcium (and therefore exaggerates the amount of Magnesium). So, the resulting value is hokum from the start and if you want to derive a useful value (like cation amounts) from it you need the "hidden key" used to create the value which at the very minimum (for tap water) is the proportions of Magnesium to Calcium. I hear explanations like magnesium is "harder" than calcium, so the bias compensates ... but what use is "hardness" and its soap suds to brewing anyway?
Having poo-pooed the "Ca" bit, let me start on the "CO3" bit (apart from there being no CO3 in most tap waters): "Permanent Hardness" gets expressed "as CaCO3", yet by its very definition it contains no "CO3": "Permanent hardness" is all the multi-valent metal compounds except "CO3" (and HCO3); Chlorides and Sulphates mainly (in tap water). "Temporary Hardness" is all the multi-valent metal compounds containing "CO3" (and HCO3). "Alkalinity" often has the same value but doesn't have to be (can include other "non-Hardness" compounds). "Total Hardness" is a mish-mash of temporary and permanent and therefore is as useless to brewing as "permanent hardness".
"Temporary Hardness" can be useful to estimate "Alkalinity" if it is not otherwise reported. "Alkalinity" can be reported "as CaCO3" but at least can be easily converted to the more sensible "as HCO3" (bicarbonate). For all but a handful of supplies (such as private supplies and the product of rare desalination plants) UK tap water reporting "as HCO3" will mean "is HCO3"!
The headline can be:
Say "No!" to reporting "as CaCO3".
Say "No!" to water "Hardness".
Okay, maybe we have to put up with them a little longer because useful information can be carefully extracted from them in the absence of anything better.
Rant over (for now). Any corrections/enhancement gratefully accepted. Any nonsense corrections/enhancement can be used to start a bun fight!
One could go blue in the face thinking about permanent hardness...
peebee
Out of Control
If you are very, very, careful ... you can use scissors to cut the rubber band. Face returns to proper colour quite quickly.
peebee
Out of Control
Okay: Having slept overnight on the conundrum I've hatched this plan to get that bicarbonate value. This uses "Hardness" and I've just declared "Say 'No!' to water hardness". Well, I was never one to be consistent.
The OP report provides "Total Hardness" and Sulphite ions (ppm) and Chloride ions (ppm). It's got Sodium ions too, so I can assume that's salt (NaCl) and subtract the Chloride from the total. The remaining chloride and sulphate can be assumed to be salts of Calcium (or Magnesium) (which won't be far from the truth). So, I can get "Permanent Hardness" (can't get the image of blue faced males with a rubber band out me head now ... thanks @Clint!). Subtract that from "Total Hardness" (you can do simple arithmetic with "as CaCO3" values) and I've got a temporary hardness. From which can be derived a Bicarbonate value.
I suspect I'll find most of the "Hardness" is temporary, as I can already tell there won't be much permanent hardness (unlike the Essex report which has shedloads of permanent hardness).
Let's see what @Sadfield was up to (a backup plan will be handy):
Rat's, there seems to be a screenshot of Graham Wheeler's water calculator (that was making a good guess!) that has gone missing.... But the technique is described; it'll be a bit like my conductivity method (from which you estimate "Total Dissolved Solids") but without the conductivity measure. I like that method, doesn't mire anyone in all that "hardness" bobbins.
I'll get on with those tasks ... unless someone can beat me to it?
The alternative is applying a Salifert Alkalinity test, or get the water privately analysed. But where's the fun in that? And it costs money!
The OP report provides "Total Hardness" and Sulphite ions (ppm) and Chloride ions (ppm). It's got Sodium ions too, so I can assume that's salt (NaCl) and subtract the Chloride from the total. The remaining chloride and sulphate can be assumed to be salts of Calcium (or Magnesium) (which won't be far from the truth). So, I can get "Permanent Hardness" (can't get the image of blue faced males with a rubber band out me head now ... thanks @Clint!). Subtract that from "Total Hardness" (you can do simple arithmetic with "as CaCO3" values) and I've got a temporary hardness. From which can be derived a Bicarbonate value.
I suspect I'll find most of the "Hardness" is temporary, as I can already tell there won't be much permanent hardness (unlike the Essex report which has shedloads of permanent hardness).
Let's see what @Sadfield was up to (a backup plan will be handy):
Rat's, there seems to be a screenshot of Graham Wheeler's water calculator (that was making a good guess!) that has gone missing.... But the technique is described; it'll be a bit like my conductivity method (from which you estimate "Total Dissolved Solids") but without the conductivity measure. I like that method, doesn't mire anyone in all that "hardness" bobbins.
I'll get on with those tasks ... unless someone can beat me to it?
The alternative is applying a Salifert Alkalinity test, or get the water privately analysed. But where's the fun in that? And it costs money!
peebee
Out of Control
7.8 ppm Na accounts for ... well, all the Cl plus some. I think I'll just ignore Cl!
56.4 ppm SO4 accounts for 23.5 ppm Ca (i.e. as gypsum).
This translates to 58.5 ppm as CaCO3. Permanent Hardness (if I'm lucky!).
The remaining Ca is assumed to be Temporary Hardness: So, that's 51.3 - 23.5 = 27.8 ppm Ca. Convert that to CaCO3 and I have 69 ppm as CaCO3. Don't forget the Magnesium: That's 3.9 ppm, which can be expressed as CaCO3 by multiplying by 4.1 (flippin' nonsense) to give 16 ppm as CaCO3, added to the Calcium figure: 69 + 16 = 85 ppm as CaCO3, which is Temporary Hardness. Just to check, add Temporary and Permanent together to get Total Hardness: 85 + 58.5 = 143.5 (eh ... the documented figure is 144, how the hell did I pull that one off?).
Temporary Hardness is all down to Carbonate/Bicarbonate. So, converting "as CaCO3" to bicarbonate gives 103.7ppm HCO3.
Let me double-check with the "Total Dissolved Solids" method as @Sadfield was suggesting (I'll do this in Brun Water as I have been for much of the above calculations ... all those numbers give me a headache!). I've made one change and added 10ppm Nitrate ions which are a common component in water ... I got the number from my report which, apart from the temporary hardness figure, is very similar (similar agriculture too, often the main contributor to nitrates, i.e. a load of sheep!). I also enter the bicarbonate figure arrived at above as a decent place to start balancing the cations and anions:
The cation/anion difference has worked out as 0.10meq/l and has been emblazoned green. i.e. there's nowt to do. The bicarbonate is about 103.7 ppm. While all you who've had the patience to go through this with me can now (perhaps) marvel at my mathematical prowess, I can go and have a lie down.
(How the hell did that work? What the hell is happening to me? Those sort of things never happen to me. Something has got to be wrong. Someone will find it soon ... )
56.4 ppm SO4 accounts for 23.5 ppm Ca (i.e. as gypsum).
This translates to 58.5 ppm as CaCO3. Permanent Hardness (if I'm lucky!).
The remaining Ca is assumed to be Temporary Hardness: So, that's 51.3 - 23.5 = 27.8 ppm Ca. Convert that to CaCO3 and I have 69 ppm as CaCO3. Don't forget the Magnesium: That's 3.9 ppm, which can be expressed as CaCO3 by multiplying by 4.1 (flippin' nonsense) to give 16 ppm as CaCO3, added to the Calcium figure: 69 + 16 = 85 ppm as CaCO3, which is Temporary Hardness. Just to check, add Temporary and Permanent together to get Total Hardness: 85 + 58.5 = 143.5 (eh ... the documented figure is 144, how the hell did I pull that one off?).
Temporary Hardness is all down to Carbonate/Bicarbonate. So, converting "as CaCO3" to bicarbonate gives 103.7ppm HCO3.
Let me double-check with the "Total Dissolved Solids" method as @Sadfield was suggesting (I'll do this in Brun Water as I have been for much of the above calculations ... all those numbers give me a headache!). I've made one change and added 10ppm Nitrate ions which are a common component in water ... I got the number from my report which, apart from the temporary hardness figure, is very similar (similar agriculture too, often the main contributor to nitrates, i.e. a load of sheep!). I also enter the bicarbonate figure arrived at above as a decent place to start balancing the cations and anions:
The cation/anion difference has worked out as 0.10meq/l and has been emblazoned green. i.e. there's nowt to do. The bicarbonate is about 103.7 ppm. While all you who've had the patience to go through this with me can now (perhaps) marvel at my mathematical prowess, I can go and have a lie down.
(How the hell did that work? What the hell is happening to me? Those sort of things never happen to me. Something has got to be wrong. Someone will find it soon ... )
Galena
Landlord.
peebee
Out of Control
"As CaCO3" or "As HCO3"?
Well, no prizes for guessing what I believe! Both are used to express "Alkalinity", but the latter is unfortunately rarer. "Hardness" is most often expressed "as CaCO3", but who cares about "Hardness". Expressed "as HCO3" seems to allow you to get away with thinking of it as "is HCO3" for brewing water calculations. Whereas thinking something expressed "as CaCO3" means "is CaCO3" and you're in very deep do-dos!
I mention this now because, apart from driving this point home yet again (yawn), a Beersmith email from Brad Smith has just come in entitled "The Big Six Water Ions and Water Chemistry" and I expect a few of you get it. It instructs how to convert "Bicarbonate" (+1 for discussing "Bicarbonate"!) to "Alkalinity" in CaCO3 units. No mention it was "as CaCO3", you are just expected to know that ... bad Brad; minus 10 points! No mention that "Alkalinity" might also be in "as HCO3" units (I wish it always was!) and then there's no farting about with conversions. Just more un-necessary confusion. To reiterate:
Say "No!" to reporting "as CaCO3"!
While about it say "No!" to reporting in no units at all but meaning "as CaCO3" really!
Well, no prizes for guessing what I believe! Both are used to express "Alkalinity", but the latter is unfortunately rarer. "Hardness" is most often expressed "as CaCO3", but who cares about "Hardness". Expressed "as HCO3" seems to allow you to get away with thinking of it as "is HCO3" for brewing water calculations. Whereas thinking something expressed "as CaCO3" means "is CaCO3" and you're in very deep do-dos!
I mention this now because, apart from driving this point home yet again (yawn), a Beersmith email from Brad Smith has just come in entitled "The Big Six Water Ions and Water Chemistry" and I expect a few of you get it. It instructs how to convert "Bicarbonate" (+1 for discussing "Bicarbonate"!) to "Alkalinity" in CaCO3 units. No mention it was "as CaCO3", you are just expected to know that ... bad Brad; minus 10 points! No mention that "Alkalinity" might also be in "as HCO3" units (I wish it always was!) and then there's no farting about with conversions. Just more un-necessary confusion. To reiterate:
Say "No!" to reporting "as CaCO3"!
While about it say "No!" to reporting in no units at all but meaning "as CaCO3" really!
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Get yourself Brewfather and let the app do the work for you. I start with RO from spotless water
peebee
Out of Control
But @DJDave would be crazy to do that! His water contains about 130 ppm miscellaneous salts (about as much as my "soft" water) and a little less than that in "Alkalinity" (calcium bicarbonate mainly) which will come in handy for brewing. You will have to add salts and Alkalinity to your "RO" water, after you've assumed what salts are left in the water after the RO process, which will be very variable, highly dependent on the state of the RO membranes (which you have no control over if buying "spotless water") and the state of the source water. (You won't be able to use "calcium bicarbonate" for adjusting "Alkalinity" 'cos you can't buy it!).
Although not really important chemically, I'd rather my beer liquor was sourced from rain falling on the fine hills above the Yorkshire Dales than from who-knows-where.
Anyway @DJDave has already had an "app" doing the work for him (I don't think I like being referred to as an "App" though ... still, I get called worse things
).
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Spotless water has nothing in it at least nothing to make a difference then I just build with salts and carbonates up to the profile I want. Puts me in the ballpark which is good enough. Essex tap water is super hard
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Galena
Landlord.
Yes for you it is possibly the best way to go, but for those of us with soft and low alkalinity water it is just not worth doing. Simple enough to just add the correct salts.
Galena
Landlord.
My Phoenix Analytical water analysis reports Total Alkalinity as CaCO3, mg/L
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Absolutely
