Hi,
This is something I've not been able to work out for a while and would ideally like to do so.
Generally I use the "Brewer's Friend" water calculator to work out additions. My water is from Severn Trent, and I can get a reasonable report on their website: [url}https://www.stwater.co.uk/my-supply/wat ... r-quality/[/url]
One thing Brewers Friend asks for is the Magnesium level in the water, and given the main additions I use are Salt, Epsom Salt (MgSO4) and Gypsum (CaSO4) I find the additional calcium/magnesium levels go up very quickly. I have very little sulphate/chloride, ~10-20 mg/L, and I've found that pushing these levels up has significantly increased the quality of my brews (more flavour, armoma, etc. especially in hoppy styles).
I recall reading in John Palmer's water book that high levels of Magnesium can cause a laxative effect; I think it's about 50mg/L. I can end up adding anywhere between 20-40mg/L of Magnesium in building up the water profile I want, but I have no idea how much is in there to start with (it's not explicitly stated on Severn Trent's report). There has been the odd occasion with certain brews where after sharing a few pints there were some "unexpected consquences" among drinkers the next day, and wondered if there was a link...
Is this something I can derrive from the information given? I have "slightly hard" water, and the report includes hardness levels in Clark, French and German. I have managed to derrive CaCO3 using some Hardness Clark conversions on the interweb (it's now built into my Execl sheet at home so I'd need to check how I'm doing it...). The report also offers a pH, but no calcium content. My understanding is that calculated carbonate is a combined total of MgCO3 and CaCO3? Though I could be completely wrong.
(I think I might be tying myself in knots here, hopefully this makes sense to someone...)
Magnesium in the water
Re: Magnesium in the water
You are exactly the sort of brewer I've been targeting recently! Thrown into the depths of all this "water" chatter. Reaching all the (predictable in my mind) mistakes brought about by the illogical use of "Hardness", CaCO3 (I doubt your water contains any CaCO3 ... is that illogical enough?), and so-on.
John Palmer is a right clever chappie on "water", but, doesn't seem to be hitting the spot does he.
The debate is, sort of, still on-going, but this link will that you to a "summary" post that's devoid of all the "water chemistry" clap-trap.
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=84092&start=30#p867178
If you don't mind, I'll be using your post as an example of how easy things can actually be. But the link you include need your postcode (Severn Trent span a large number of water sources) ... post the postcode of a nearby shop (don't post personal details), that'll do. Or a screenshot?
John Palmer is a right clever chappie on "water", but, doesn't seem to be hitting the spot does he.
The debate is, sort of, still on-going, but this link will that you to a "summary" post that's devoid of all the "water chemistry" clap-trap.
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=84092&start=30#p867178
If you don't mind, I'll be using your post as an example of how easy things can actually be. But the link you include need your postcode (Severn Trent span a large number of water sources) ... post the postcode of a nearby shop (don't post personal details), that'll do. Or a screenshot?
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing
Re: Magnesium in the water
Aye, Magnesium can be considered a laxative. Magnesium Sulphate (Epsom Salts) is used as a laxative. So is Gypsum, who can forget "Shippo's gives you the ****os"? (Quite a few would rather we forgot!).
It's not really something to worry about. The actual quantities will be tiny. And Magnesium is a relatively unimportant addition; don't add it at all if it really troubles you.
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing
-
Eric
- Even further under the Table
- Posts: 2879
- Joined: Fri Mar 13, 2009 1:18 am
- Location: Sunderland.
Re: Magnesium in the water
I am not familiar with Brewer's Friend or any other foreign water calculator, so it is on that basis that my reply is written.
Yes, magnesium is indeed a known laxative, milk of magnesia (magnesium hydroxide) remains in regular use to this day. (Please forgive the pun.)
If you fear magnesium as many do, substitute some of your malt with flaked maize, flaked rice or invert sugar, for your salt additions will be much less than the magnesium malted barley provides. Another option would be to mash longer so that more magnesium can combine with the vast quantities of phosphates supplied by malt, to then deposit in the kettle with hot break from a good rolling boil.
Magnesium is essential for both barley to grow and yeast to ferment efficiently, but it does add to taste. I don't add magnesium to my water, but it does normally range around 40 ppm. Tests done in the past determined yeast performance improved in high gravity wort with up to 400ppm Mg, but there was no comment on additional flavour at that level, which, frankly, there must have been.
Indeed levels of 10 to 20 ppm for sulphate and chloride will have near to no influence on flavour perception, especially compared to 10 to 20 times such levels. You might wish to add calcium chloride flake to your range of brewing salts as it will add chloride without additional flavour compared to what sodium might do. Salt is a fine addition and cheap, but not necessarily ideal in every style at every potential level.
CaCO3 is in common use to specify both hardness and alkalinity, but is an equivalent quantity, not a literal measure. PeeBee currently has an excellent thread to expose a trapdoor you might just drop through. As example, hardness provided by an amount of gypsum in solution measured as calcium carbonate will be the amount of calcium carbonate that could provide the same hardness and similarly hardness from Epsom Salts, although those contain neither calcium or carbonate.
The ST water site I found unhelpful. Knowing your postcode may have helped, but I suggest you phone and ask if they can supply levels of calcium and magnesium and report those here. With those and what their site can provide should make it possible by example to get some idea what your water could contain.
A cheap TDS meter will allow you to observe if your water's mineral content varies over time. A Salifert KH test kit will enable you to determine alkalinity every brew day and compensate when necessary.
Yes, magnesium is indeed a known laxative, milk of magnesia (magnesium hydroxide) remains in regular use to this day. (Please forgive the pun.)
If you fear magnesium as many do, substitute some of your malt with flaked maize, flaked rice or invert sugar, for your salt additions will be much less than the magnesium malted barley provides. Another option would be to mash longer so that more magnesium can combine with the vast quantities of phosphates supplied by malt, to then deposit in the kettle with hot break from a good rolling boil.
Magnesium is essential for both barley to grow and yeast to ferment efficiently, but it does add to taste. I don't add magnesium to my water, but it does normally range around 40 ppm. Tests done in the past determined yeast performance improved in high gravity wort with up to 400ppm Mg, but there was no comment on additional flavour at that level, which, frankly, there must have been.
Indeed levels of 10 to 20 ppm for sulphate and chloride will have near to no influence on flavour perception, especially compared to 10 to 20 times such levels. You might wish to add calcium chloride flake to your range of brewing salts as it will add chloride without additional flavour compared to what sodium might do. Salt is a fine addition and cheap, but not necessarily ideal in every style at every potential level.
CaCO3 is in common use to specify both hardness and alkalinity, but is an equivalent quantity, not a literal measure. PeeBee currently has an excellent thread to expose a trapdoor you might just drop through. As example, hardness provided by an amount of gypsum in solution measured as calcium carbonate will be the amount of calcium carbonate that could provide the same hardness and similarly hardness from Epsom Salts, although those contain neither calcium or carbonate.
The ST water site I found unhelpful. Knowing your postcode may have helped, but I suggest you phone and ask if they can supply levels of calcium and magnesium and report those here. With those and what their site can provide should make it possible by example to get some idea what your water could contain.
A cheap TDS meter will allow you to observe if your water's mineral content varies over time. A Salifert KH test kit will enable you to determine alkalinity every brew day and compensate when necessary.
Without patience, life becomes difficult and the sooner it's finished, the better.
Re: Magnesium in the water
Thanks both for replying.
In terms of accessing the same report I have, S12 3GH is the postcode for a local supermarket in the same "Supply Zone" as me.
I suspect it's me just tying myself in knots but my main question was "can I calculate the base level of Magnesium from the data I have?" I'm guessing the answer is no...?
@ Eric: I do use Calcium Chloride as a source of chloride when building my water profile, though I don't use it as much because my base level of Calcium is moderately high, and according to John palmer I should avoid going over 150 mg/l.
This is the water calculator I use, and I just plug in the data I do have and amend the "additions" until I have the profile I want. Again to avoid the calcium levels going too high the only practical method I have for adding a moderate amount of sulphate is Epsom salt; I can only add a small amount of Gypsum befoe the calcium gets to ~150mg/l.
https://www.brewersfriend.com/mash-chem ... alculator/
(the Calcium level I found by using an online calculator to convert Hardness Clark to CaCO3, and another to convert this into Ca2+ in mg/l; these calculations are now baked into the Excel sheet I print off with my recipe card for brewday, reminding me how much of what mineral I need to add)
@PeeBee: Feel free to use this as an example if you want, I did try to read through that "Total Hardness" thread but my head exploded half way down the first page...
My knowledge of water treatment doesn't extend much past "these are the levers you need to pull to adjust the beer's flavour profile" (Ca, Mg, Na, Cl, SO4), and I'm not convinced I need to understand it further beyond trying to interpret incomplete water reports. I'm also acutely aware that the Severn Trent values are only ever "ball-parks" and are effectively guidance rather than accurate values. I did briefly look at Home Test kits to find these values, but fell off my chair when I saw the prices...
In terms of accessing the same report I have, S12 3GH is the postcode for a local supermarket in the same "Supply Zone" as me.
I suspect it's me just tying myself in knots but my main question was "can I calculate the base level of Magnesium from the data I have?" I'm guessing the answer is no...?
@ Eric: I do use Calcium Chloride as a source of chloride when building my water profile, though I don't use it as much because my base level of Calcium is moderately high, and according to John palmer I should avoid going over 150 mg/l.
This is the water calculator I use, and I just plug in the data I do have and amend the "additions" until I have the profile I want. Again to avoid the calcium levels going too high the only practical method I have for adding a moderate amount of sulphate is Epsom salt; I can only add a small amount of Gypsum befoe the calcium gets to ~150mg/l.
https://www.brewersfriend.com/mash-chem ... alculator/
(the Calcium level I found by using an online calculator to convert Hardness Clark to CaCO3, and another to convert this into Ca2+ in mg/l; these calculations are now baked into the Excel sheet I print off with my recipe card for brewday, reminding me how much of what mineral I need to add)
@PeeBee: Feel free to use this as an example if you want, I did try to read through that "Total Hardness" thread but my head exploded half way down the first page...
My knowledge of water treatment doesn't extend much past "these are the levers you need to pull to adjust the beer's flavour profile" (Ca, Mg, Na, Cl, SO4), and I'm not convinced I need to understand it further beyond trying to interpret incomplete water reports. I'm also acutely aware that the Severn Trent values are only ever "ball-parks" and are effectively guidance rather than accurate values. I did briefly look at Home Test kits to find these values, but fell off my chair when I saw the prices...
Re: Magnesium in the water
Sorry, this has taken so long to write I missed the last reply! I might get around to doing it with "real" figures when I've recovered.
With a few assumptions (no reply from JonB yet) let me see what can be done:
Taking an area in Leicester where I once lived when at Polytechnic (Hinckley Road). Severn Trent Zone "ZLC13". Humm ... As Eric says, Severn Trent reports are really naff (okay, he said "unhelpful", and I'm just trying not to use more "colourful" language). But they do seem to maintain fairly good updates.
I can get (Jan-March 2023):
SODIUM 26.8mg/l (fairly stable)
CHLORIDE 26.9mg/l (very unstable)
SULPHATE 63mg/l (unstable +/-30mg/l)
Missing CALCIUM, MAGNESIUM and BICARBONATE (or anything like "Alkalinity", "Temporary Hardness" or "Carbonate" from which "Bicarbonate" could be derived ... that's assuming it's UK tap water).
The values are swinging about a lot ("Sulphate" by 50% in the 3 month period) and the Website warns sources do get switched. So, the "conductivity" is a useful available addition: 465µS/cm at 20ºC ... multiplied by 0.65 gives you a rough "total dissolved solids" (TDS) of 302.3mg/l. The "TDS" can be a good indicator of unexpected change.
"NITRATE" can also be useful as a check because it often accounts for a large amount of dissolved solid ... 16.3mg/l.
Add the knowns together (26.8+26.9+63+16.3=133mg/l ... 302.3 - 133 = 169.3mg.l) approximately gives the sum of CALCIUM, MAGNESIUM and BICARBONATE ions in the water (169.3mg/l). How to split these up?
All Severn Trent is offering is the hardness values, which in my opinion should be ignored! But if it's all there is ... it might give an approximation. Here we've got "Hardness" in "French Degrees" which is the easiest: "20.20" x 0.1 gives 202mg/l "as CaCO3". Times 0.1 ... this is why I said "easiest! We are not interested in the "CO3" bit, but by one of those "flukes" of nature 40% is "Ca", so 202 x 40% = 80.8mg/l "as Ca". Do remember (it is so easy to forget!) "as" means these are "pretend" units. The water companies will make it easier to forget by not using the "as"! Worse still, I've seen some ignore the entire "as CaCO3" bit ... you are expected to guess!
So, I have 80.8mg/l "as Ca" or "Hardness". "Hardness" can be defined as the amount of multi-valent metal ions in the water. Luckily for us over 99% will be Calcium and Magnesium ions. Say very roughly 90% is Calcium and 10% Magnesium (I've seen 30% suggested as Magnesium, but I'm playing safe). So, 80.8 x 90% = 72.7mg/l Calcium and 80.8 - 72.7 = 8.1 ... Magnesium is molecularly lighter than Calcium (this needs someone to confirm, please!) 8.1 x 60% = ... 4.9mg/l Magnesium.
Just "Bicarbonate" left. Flippin' heck, Severn Trent make this hard! I'm beginning to have some respect for those who choose to use bottled water! A good time to remember the report is subject to change depending on where the water is being sourced from (most areas are not subject to swings of this sort). Add these two to our running total ... 133mg/l + 72.7 + 4.9 = 210.6mg/l. Our rough Total Dissolved Solids is 302.3mg/l ... soooo, assume the difference is "bicarbonate" (we're ignoring all the trivial dissolved stuff) 302.3 - 210.6 = 91.7mg/l "Bicarbonate" (which you can convert to alkalinity or temporary hardness if you really want - using a water calculator it comes out as 75.3mg/l "as CaCO3" Alkalinity).
I wish I hadn't started! And someone is bound to point out where I've gone wrong! Remember this was rough to make up for a lot of missing information. But it might illustrate some of the pitfalls in making incorrectly "guessed" parameters. Use the telephone and ring the water company, but the danger with that is it doesn't have to result in an intelligible answer.
With a few assumptions (no reply from JonB yet) let me see what can be done:
Taking an area in Leicester where I once lived when at Polytechnic (Hinckley Road). Severn Trent Zone "ZLC13". Humm ... As Eric says, Severn Trent reports are really naff (okay, he said "unhelpful", and I'm just trying not to use more "colourful" language). But they do seem to maintain fairly good updates.
I can get (Jan-March 2023):
SODIUM 26.8mg/l (fairly stable)
CHLORIDE 26.9mg/l (very unstable)
SULPHATE 63mg/l (unstable +/-30mg/l)
Missing CALCIUM, MAGNESIUM and BICARBONATE (or anything like "Alkalinity", "Temporary Hardness" or "Carbonate" from which "Bicarbonate" could be derived ... that's assuming it's UK tap water).
The values are swinging about a lot ("Sulphate" by 50% in the 3 month period) and the Website warns sources do get switched. So, the "conductivity" is a useful available addition: 465µS/cm at 20ºC ... multiplied by 0.65 gives you a rough "total dissolved solids" (TDS) of 302.3mg/l. The "TDS" can be a good indicator of unexpected change.
"NITRATE" can also be useful as a check because it often accounts for a large amount of dissolved solid ... 16.3mg/l.
Add the knowns together (26.8+26.9+63+16.3=133mg/l ... 302.3 - 133 = 169.3mg.l) approximately gives the sum of CALCIUM, MAGNESIUM and BICARBONATE ions in the water (169.3mg/l). How to split these up?
All Severn Trent is offering is the hardness values, which in my opinion should be ignored! But if it's all there is ... it might give an approximation. Here we've got "Hardness" in "French Degrees" which is the easiest: "20.20" x 0.1 gives 202mg/l "as CaCO3". Times 0.1 ... this is why I said "easiest! We are not interested in the "CO3" bit, but by one of those "flukes" of nature 40% is "Ca", so 202 x 40% = 80.8mg/l "as Ca". Do remember (it is so easy to forget!) "as" means these are "pretend" units. The water companies will make it easier to forget by not using the "as"! Worse still, I've seen some ignore the entire "as CaCO3" bit ... you are expected to guess!
So, I have 80.8mg/l "as Ca" or "Hardness". "Hardness" can be defined as the amount of multi-valent metal ions in the water. Luckily for us over 99% will be Calcium and Magnesium ions. Say very roughly 90% is Calcium and 10% Magnesium (I've seen 30% suggested as Magnesium, but I'm playing safe). So, 80.8 x 90% = 72.7mg/l Calcium and 80.8 - 72.7 = 8.1 ... Magnesium is molecularly lighter than Calcium (this needs someone to confirm, please!) 8.1 x 60% = ... 4.9mg/l Magnesium.
Just "Bicarbonate" left. Flippin' heck, Severn Trent make this hard! I'm beginning to have some respect for those who choose to use bottled water! A good time to remember the report is subject to change depending on where the water is being sourced from (most areas are not subject to swings of this sort). Add these two to our running total ... 133mg/l + 72.7 + 4.9 = 210.6mg/l. Our rough Total Dissolved Solids is 302.3mg/l ... soooo, assume the difference is "bicarbonate" (we're ignoring all the trivial dissolved stuff) 302.3 - 210.6 = 91.7mg/l "Bicarbonate" (which you can convert to alkalinity or temporary hardness if you really want - using a water calculator it comes out as 75.3mg/l "as CaCO3" Alkalinity).
I wish I hadn't started! And someone is bound to point out where I've gone wrong! Remember this was rough to make up for a lot of missing information. But it might illustrate some of the pitfalls in making incorrectly "guessed" parameters. Use the telephone and ring the water company, but the danger with that is it doesn't have to result in an intelligible answer.
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing
Re: Magnesium in the water
JonB,
Don’t worry about your Magnesium. My advice would be to not add any Epsom salts for a few brews but continue to add Calcium Chloride and Calcium Sulphate in the amounts you like. Then if you feel you need to, you can add some Magnesium Sulphate to see the effect on flavour.
That report does not give either the amount of Calcium or Magnesium. It does give the hardness in French degrees as around 12, which is 120 ppm or 120 mg/L Calcium Carbonate.
Hardness can be a confusing unit. It expresses all the Calcium and Magnesium as though they were same thing. So it could be coming from all Calcium or all Magnesium or a mix of both. What you should keep in mind is that that unit includes both the metal (Calcium + Magnesium) part and the Carbonate part. So that the 120 mg/L figure is made up of say 48 mg/L Calcium and 72 mg/L Carbonate.
In reality the 48 mg will probably be made up of mostly Calcium and Some Magnesium, and even the Carbonate part could be partially Carbonate and partially other things like Sulphate and Chloride.
So you maybe have 40 mg Calcium. I haven’t read the Palmer book – I’m not really a fan of his writing style. In any case 150 ppm is about how much Calcium I put in my beers and I could easily add more without any negative effect on the flavour. You can easily add 150 ppm each of Calcium Chloride and Gypsum without hitting 150 ppm total Calcium.
Don’t worry about your Magnesium. My advice would be to not add any Epsom salts for a few brews but continue to add Calcium Chloride and Calcium Sulphate in the amounts you like. Then if you feel you need to, you can add some Magnesium Sulphate to see the effect on flavour.
That report does not give either the amount of Calcium or Magnesium. It does give the hardness in French degrees as around 12, which is 120 ppm or 120 mg/L Calcium Carbonate.
Hardness can be a confusing unit. It expresses all the Calcium and Magnesium as though they were same thing. So it could be coming from all Calcium or all Magnesium or a mix of both. What you should keep in mind is that that unit includes both the metal (Calcium + Magnesium) part and the Carbonate part. So that the 120 mg/L figure is made up of say 48 mg/L Calcium and 72 mg/L Carbonate.
In reality the 48 mg will probably be made up of mostly Calcium and Some Magnesium, and even the Carbonate part could be partially Carbonate and partially other things like Sulphate and Chloride.
So you maybe have 40 mg Calcium. I haven’t read the Palmer book – I’m not really a fan of his writing style. In any case 150 ppm is about how much Calcium I put in my beers and I could easily add more without any negative effect on the flavour. You can easily add 150 ppm each of Calcium Chloride and Gypsum without hitting 150 ppm total Calcium.
Re: Magnesium in the water
Your "real" postcode resolves to "Sheffield South, Zone ZDB02". Not such "hard water" as above and doesn't swing about as much, so if they are bringing in from different sources, they aren't that different.
This is a handy exercise for me to test my ideas outside the soft water areas I'm used to. My ideas are intended to be simple and need minimal knowledge ... honest! After the above Leicester one I think it is still "work-in-progress"!
Ooo ... "killer" has replied while I'm typing this: You're attracting in some "heavies" (I'm only a lightweight).
This is a handy exercise for me to test my ideas outside the soft water areas I'm used to. My ideas are intended to be simple and need minimal knowledge ... honest! After the above Leicester one I think it is still "work-in-progress"!
Ooo ... "killer" has replied while I'm typing this: You're attracting in some "heavies" (I'm only a lightweight).
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing
Re: Magnesium in the water
I really appreciate you doing that as a worked example, I'll try and get my head round the maths/etc. and have a go with the data for my own supply region.PeeBee wrote: ↑Tue May 23, 2023 2:03 pmSorry, this has taken so long to write I missed the last reply! I might get around to doing it with "real" figures when I've recovered.
With a few assumptions (no reply from JonB yet) let me see what can be done:
Taking an area in Leicester where I once lived when at Polytechnic (Hinckley Road). Severn Trent Zone "ZLC13". Humm ... As Eric says, Severn Trent reports are really naff (okay, he said "unhelpful", and I'm just trying not to use more "colourful" language). But they do seem to maintain fairly good updates.
I can get (Jan-March 2023):
SODIUM 26.8mg/l (fairly stable)
CHLORIDE 26.9mg/l (very unstable)
SULPHATE 63mg/l (unstable +/-30mg/l)
[big snip]
So, I have 80.8mg/l "as Ca" or "Hardness". "Hardness" can be defined as the amount of multi-valent metal ions in the water. Luckily for us over 99% will be Calcium and Magnesium ions. Say very roughly 90% is Calcium and 10% Magnesium (I've seen 30% suggested as Magnesium, but I'm playing safe). So, 80.8 x 90% = 72.7mg/l Calcium and 80.8 - 72.7 = 8.1 ... Magnesium is molecularly lighter than Calcium (this needs someone to confirm, please!) 8.1 x 60% = ... 4.9mg/l Magnesium.
Just "Bicarbonate" left. Flippin' heck, Severn Trent make this hard! I'm beginning to have some respect for those who choose to use bottled water! A good time to remember the report is subject to change depending on where the water is being sourced from (most areas are not subject to swings of this sort). Add these two to our running total ... 133mg/l + 72.7 + 4.9 = 210.6mg/l. Our rough Total Dissolved Solids is 302.3mg/l ... soooo, assume the difference is "bicarbonate" (we're ignoring all the trivial dissolved stuff) 302.3 - 210.6 = 91.7mg/l "Bicarbonate" (which you can convert to alkalinity or temporary hardness if you really want - using a water calculator it comes out as 75.3mg/l "as CaCO3" Alkalinity).
I do miss being on Yorkshire water, they were more detailed with their reporting and the water was much softer with less "stuff" dissolved in it.
@Killer:
Thanks for the info, that's really helpful. Just as a quick query, you said 12 French is equivalent to 120mg/l CaCO3. Is this a linear scale (i.e. 10 French is equivalent to 100mg/l, etc.). I really struggled to get my head around the hardness scales when I tried to work this out orignally...
Re: Magnesium in the water
Don't bother with it! It's what I was trying to preach in that other thread but failing to do in this one. "Hardness" is an arcane soap sud covered mire of a subject, designed with some amazing forethought to utterly confuse modern-day homebrewers (hey, I like that idea ... I'm "modern"
). That is the subject I'm wanting to stamp out. I wasn't calculating on Severn Trent forcing some really daft tricks to try and get information out of their flippin' "Hardness" figures (they don't put the information you need anywhere else).Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing
Re: Magnesium in the water
I'll try to beat you to finish! It's not difficult mathematics, apart from a bit of multiplication with percentages (which is where I was guessing anyway) it's all straightforward arithmetic. Okay, I'm going to do this differently (using "magic numbers") but will keep that simple.
SODIUM 22.4mg/l (very stable)
CHLORIDE 14.1 (fairly stable)
SULPHATE 41mg/l (fairly stable)
"Hardness" (from French units) 118.6mg/l as CaCO3 (includes Calcium and Magnesium)
Approximate Magnesium 11.9mg/l as CaCO3 (10%)
Approximate Calcium 106.7mg/l as CaCO3 (90%)
convert to "real" amounts (with magic numbers):
MAGNESIUM 11.9/4.1= 2.9mg/l
CALCIUM 106.7/2.5= 42.7mg/l
(Remember the 1:9 proportions were safe-ish guesstimates!).
Nitrate 12.3mg/l
Total dissolved solids so far: 135.4mg/l
Conductivity 312µS/cm at 20ºC ... x 0.65 gives rough TDS of 202.8mg/l
BICARBONATE 202.8 - 135.4 = 67.4mg/l
Bru'n Water ('cos I can't be bothered - don't need to be - doin' more arithmetic):
- Water.jpg (78.68 KiB) Viewed 1893 times
else, I'll guess I'm right! Ignore the 100 parts per billion of "carbonate" otherwise figure out where it comes from for the fun of it.Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing
Re: Magnesium in the water
Yes 1 French degree = 10 mg/L CaCO3
1 German degree is 17.8 mg/L CaCO3
and they are linear conversions.
Don't use hardness to find your figures. Do as Eric recommends and buy a Salifert Kit and ring up your water provider to get an idea of Calcium and Magnesium.
1 German degree is 17.8 mg/L CaCO3
and they are linear conversions.
Don't use hardness to find your figures. Do as Eric recommends and buy a Salifert Kit and ring up your water provider to get an idea of Calcium and Magnesium.
Re: Magnesium in the water
I was being very careful how I extracted Calcium + Magnesium from the "Hardness" figure. Is there anything you see seriously wrong with it?
But what I can agree with is I'm smudging my own arguments! Having declared "Hardness" is an entirely useless parameter in that "Total Hardness" thread, in this thread I'm suggesting ways to get "near enough" values out of "Hardness" figures! I'm not being consistent! But when writing the "Total Hardness" stuff I wasn't counting on some water authorities for UK water only providing "Hardness" as a parameter to extract some essential information from.
I don't think I suggested it was a good way. I wrote earlier in this thread:
And I really don't like "Salifert Test Kits", but only because they are foisted on us by the majority "Hard Water brewers" yet are entirely useless for the minority soft water brewers (they have nothing close to the desired resolution for "soft water", especially the so-called "Alkalinity test kit"). But in this case (no Calcium and Magnesium, or alkalinity/temporary-hardness, figures supplied by water authority) they do provide a useful alternative for harder water areas than my arithmetic gymnastics.Flippin' heck, Severn Trent make this hard! I'm beginning to have some respect for those who choose to use bottled water!
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing
Re: Magnesium in the water
Ha! I've just come across this that I wrote in the "Total Hardness" thread:
I think that's proof of me not being consistent!... But try and figure out your Calcium from an "as CaCO3" and you will be doomed to fail! (Some do try it!) ...
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing
Re: Magnesium in the water
@ PeeBee,
Thanks for beating me to it, that's more or less in the same ball-park I'd worked out (I had slightly higher calcium and zero magnesium, but that was before your safe guestimate of 1:9 Mg/Ca from the CaCO3 component.
I have seriously looked at test kits (my other hobby is fishkeeping, partiuclarly South Americans who thrive in soft/near-pure water with a low TDS), and unless I spent ~£300.00 the resolution was about as vague as Severn Trent's reports. Given the water here is not far off ideal from the species I'm interested in (with Yorkshire Water it was just a case of strip out the chlorine/heavy metals and it was close enough to perfect), I suspect I'm unlikely to get meaningful results without expensive kits. I can't justify that (generally skint). Just looking at the Salifert kits they are +/-10mg. Given we've estimated my Ca/Mg levels at 43 and 3mg/l respectively, that's pretty wide!
The problem for me is the Salifert kits are designed for Marine systems, where you have Mg/Ca/Na values in the high 100s of mg/l so an accuracy of +/-10 is not significant. Marine users also look at KH carbonate hardness in a completely different way to us, the higher the KH the more stable your system generally is so you get lower magnitude pH swings that can cause a system crash (marines system crash = all your expensive fish and corals die!)
What I will take away from this is the assumptions I have been working with (RE: Ca/Mg) up to this point have been reasonable, and only ~4-5mg/l out.
Thanks for beating me to it, that's more or less in the same ball-park I'd worked out (I had slightly higher calcium and zero magnesium, but that was before your safe guestimate of 1:9 Mg/Ca from the CaCO3 component.
I have seriously looked at test kits (my other hobby is fishkeeping, partiuclarly South Americans who thrive in soft/near-pure water with a low TDS), and unless I spent ~£300.00 the resolution was about as vague as Severn Trent's reports. Given the water here is not far off ideal from the species I'm interested in (with Yorkshire Water it was just a case of strip out the chlorine/heavy metals and it was close enough to perfect), I suspect I'm unlikely to get meaningful results without expensive kits. I can't justify that (generally skint). Just looking at the Salifert kits they are +/-10mg. Given we've estimated my Ca/Mg levels at 43 and 3mg/l respectively, that's pretty wide!
The problem for me is the Salifert kits are designed for Marine systems, where you have Mg/Ca/Na values in the high 100s of mg/l so an accuracy of +/-10 is not significant. Marine users also look at KH carbonate hardness in a completely different way to us, the higher the KH the more stable your system generally is so you get lower magnitude pH swings that can cause a system crash (marines system crash = all your expensive fish and corals die!)
What I will take away from this is the assumptions I have been working with (RE: Ca/Mg) up to this point have been reasonable, and only ~4-5mg/l out.