Grainfather App Water Calculator

(That's water to the rest of us!) Beer is about 95% water, so if you want to discuss water treatment, filtering etc this is the place to do it!
Binkie Huckaback
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Re: Grainfather App Water Calculator

Post by Binkie Huckaback » Sun Feb 20, 2022 10:55 am

Thanks IPA. I'd read that two or three times and still didn't spot it. Should have read it while awake and not tired and tipsy!

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Eric
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Re: Grainfather App Water Calculator

Post by Eric » Mon Feb 21, 2022 12:23 am

You don't need to enter hardness when you have the quantities of both calcium and magnesium, as it a combination of those that determine hardness. Were you to also enter the quantity of hardness, the program assumes Ca and Mg quantities are unknown calculates an assumed amount of calcium with no magnesium to achieve the given hardness.

Alkalinity is different, it is what may be called temporary hardness, a proportion of total harness, the rest known as permanent hardness. As alkalinity will be a compound of cations and anions, and the program determines the anion quantity for a balance check and determine the acid needed.

All this will seem bamboozling, but read Grahams notes and in time all will fall in place better than it will in a series of posts.

Graham's calculator was produced in a time when relatively few on JBK lived in North America, where water softening by ion exchange is relatively common. That process replaces calcium and magnesium with sodium such that hardness is all but eliminated, while alkalinity is unaffected in quantity, but no longer can be thought of as temporary as neither sodium carbonate or sodium bicarbonate in solution will deposit when boiled as will when in calcium or magnesium forms.
Without patience, life becomes difficult and the sooner it's finished, the better.

f00b4r
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Re: Grainfather App Water Calculator

Post by f00b4r » Mon Feb 21, 2022 9:42 am

Moved this to the water forum (although a "shadow topic" has been left in place so it is accessible from here too at the moment, so it does not look as if it has just disappeared for those involved).

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