Spotless water

[cc986]

I know a few people here use Spotless water so I wanted to ask a few questions:

1. How do you build your water profile from it - mix it with local water, add DWB, or build it from scratch with calcium, chloride, etc?
2. Is it totally clear of all minerals as they say on their website - everything down to zero? (I asked them but all they would say is they only test for TDS and suggested I should test for calcium, etc myself).
3. For those that use Brewfather, did you create a new water profile for Spotless or is their RO water profile ok to use? I ask because theirs shows this: Ca = 1, Na = 8, Cl = 4, So4 = 1, HCO3 = 16.

Many thanks,
Chris

[PeeBee]

I know a few people here use Spotless Water so I wanted to ask a few questions: ...

I'll do my best to answer starting with easiest first:

3: Spotless water is RO water. But Spotless use a commercial multi-stage system which produces much (much!) lower wastewater than a domestic (single stage) system. The output is far more predictable, the domestic systems will depend on the mineral content of the source and the state (over-usage?) of the membrane. The output profile that Brewfather use (it's identical to the Bru'n Water profile) will be for a commercial system (you can't provide a profile for an unpredictable single stage system!).

2: "Is it totally clear of all minerals as they say on their website"; do they? Then they are lying! But it's so close to zero I suppose they can get away with it. You "should test for Calcium"? I'm disappointed with them, don't they know a home user will be unable to detect "1ppm"? Or, perhaps they do? Testing for 16ppm "Bicarbonate" is pretty fraught too! Note: The "Bicarbonate" will be your "Alkalinity" figure "as bicarbonate" in these circumstances (it is not a rule you can apply to all circumstances). Divide that by 1.22 and you have "as CaCO3", divide that by 50 to have the value in "milliequivalents per Litre" if you want to be a smarty-pants.

1: The tricky one! Lots of "personal preference" so difficult to provide a concise answer. Here's mine: I have very low TDS anyway (<150ppm) so it would be insanity to use RO water. But I also have low alkalinity and having to battle with that makes me wonder why anyone wants to use RO Water for brewing, especially the unpredictable "domestic RO" version! So, I'd advise mixing your tap water (for which you need a decent analysis) so you start off with an "Alkalinity" you want and build from there.

The spreadsheet I'm gaining notoriety for was actually created to counter the increasing (and in most cases, unnecessary) use of RO Water for brewing. Try it, the link is below in my "signature". And listen carefully for the groaning in the background ... ("Oh no ... this has all been a plug for his flippin' 'Defuddler'!").

You've mentioned "DWB"; you can also use their "AWS" product to reduce alkalinity. Not a recommendation from me, but you might look at it as an option.

[cc986]

Thanks very much for the great answer PeeBee.
The reason I'm looking at RO water is my tap water is very unpredictable as it apparently comes from multiple sources and can be quite different from one month to the next. I used to ask Severn Trent for the latest figures before every brew, but they fluctuated quite a lot (especially magnesium for some reason) and my mash pH readings were often off by quite a bit, which made me think they were making it up a bit sometimes. One report they provided was so wildly different to the previous one that they agreed to test it again and agreed with me it was wrong - and I know next to nothing about water treatment. So mixing the spotless with the tap water might result in equally unpredictable water.
I think the problem with starting off with a profile that is zero across the board is the alkalinity. For example, I am planning a bitter using Murphy & Sons bitter profile that has HCO3 as 25. If spotless is HCO3 zero, I have to build that up to 25 or thereabouts somehow (slaked lime?).
I've also tried using Ashbeck water but theres a lot of plastic involved.
I'll give your spreadsheet a go as well. Thanks for that.

[guypettigrew]

Go to Graham's water treatment calculator on here and enter a water with no alkalinity or ions.

Then select 'Bitter', or whatever you want, from the drop down menu, line 5. Then enter your desired final volume of beer in the bottom section called 'volume to be treated'. This will tell you how much of whichever salts you'll need to add to the RO to get your desired profile.

At least, I think it will! I only ever use it to work out how to treat my usual tap water. Never used it for RO, but can't see why it won't be OK.

Guy

[PeeBee]

Go to Graham's water treatment calculator on here and enter a water with no alkalinity or ions. ...

Cheers Guy.

I'm trying to steer folk clear of the "old regime" of water hardness (which includes Graham's calculator) because many of us home-brewers can't make the split between the older (hardness) system and the "newer" (longtime ago new) alkalinity/ions system, and it results in attempts to mesh the two together, misinterpret what "as CaCO3" means, and ending up in utter confusion!

I prefer the alkalinity/ion approach for this reason (just let the diagrams sink in ... ):

Hardness:

Alkalinity/ions:

[PeeBee]

I didn't add the references for those illustrations:

They're mine!

So, I better take this opportunity to add some explanations: For "Hardness" there's no differentiating Magnesium and Calcium ... It's all Calcium if you misinterpret what "as CaCO3" means. And "Hardness" doesn't care about "non-Hardness" stuff like Sodium salts. So, there's a whole chunk missing from the Hardness numbers, which is fine if you are aware of it, but if not ... Chaos!

[EDIT: Oh, and "Conservative ions" are not much affected by pH, heat and pressure ... ions contributing alkalinity are. And you might also need this:

"TA" or Total Alkalinity = ∑conservative-cations - ∑conservative-anions

... where "TA" in drinking water (pH 6.6 to 8.3) is almost entirely bicarbonate (adding strong acids and bases like Lime will skew the "entirely bicarbonate" a bit ... at least for a short while).]

[EDIT2: While reviewing what I've written, I notice another little snippet missing from pulling the diagrams away from the original location: You can't easily compare two very different elements or compounds side-by-side like in the diagrams (e.g. Sodium has a very different atomic weight to, say, Calcium, and Calcium will form two bonds with other elements/compounds, Sodium creates only one) unless they are expressed as equivalents (all the same). The diagrams are expressing the components as equivalents.]

[cc986]

Thanks very much Guy and PeeBee. I think I will have to just test it out. Assuming that Spotless probably isn't completely devoid of any minerals, I'll probably start with the Bru'n water/Brewfather profile for RO and build up the minerals to match a profile and see what happens. At least with Spotless I will be getting water that is consistently the same - whatever that might be.

[PeeBee]

... Assuming that Spotless probably isn't completely devoid of any minerals ...

Don't "assume", RO really isn't devoid of minerals. That's the space occupied by distilled water. But it's nearly devoid, and it's okay thinking that except for "bicarbonate". But Bru'n water/Brewfather gives you a value for bicarbonate at 16ppm (mg/L) which is better than zero to go with (that's Alkalinity at 16mg/L as HCO3, 16/1.22 or 13mg/L "as CaCO3", or even 13/50 or 0.26mEq/L for smarty-pants.

I'd probably avoid "slaked lime"; it makes for very quick changes to outcomes so probably needs very precise scales to use effectively. Baking Soda (Sodium Bicarbonate) will be easier. "Chalk" ('real' CaCO3) will probably never dissolve ("Hardness" ace Kai Troester of Braukaiser reckons 50% can be utilised) so be on the safe side and ignore "Chalk" altogether.

My own water is given a documented Alkalinity at 25.4mg/L as Bicarbonate, but this is where you run into trouble. Such low Alkalinity is likely (okay, I know in this case) due to dosing with Lime. By the time the water comes out the tap Alkalinity is down to 9.2mg/L as Bicarbonate. My spreadsheet leaps through some very dodgy hoops to accommodate this. It's easy getting measurements of high Alkalinity to drop down to a suitable brewing level ... but you must be incredibly determined to measure a low Alkalinity and to raise it to a suitable level! But you should be all right using a commercial RO water (Spotless) and the 16mg/L as HCO3 value (hear ... that's more Alkalinity than my tap water!).

[EDIT: Here's another useful snippet from the above: Why do we use "as CaCO3" when it isn't talking about "CaCO3"? Look at the snippet "... 13mg/L "as CaCO3", or even 13/50 or 0.26mEq/L for smarty-pants", where the heck has a nice round "50" come from? "CaCO3" is full of nice round numbers like that. 50, 100, 60, 40, etc. Makes it very easy to remember, it's even a compound that has connection with what it's referring to. A very convenient "coincidence", so it's used as a very convenient "equivalent". Now hands up who thought it meant "calcium carbonate" rock? Damn it, so did I until not long ago.]

[cc986]

Understood - thanks PeeBee.

[PeeBee]

Understood - thanks PeeBee.

Thanks!

I have to admit I really was doing all this to further my "Defuddler" creation. Well ... I learnt a hell of a lot creating it and I want to share it around! I have my reasons to want to do it, I sincerely hope I've been of use to you ... thanks for putting up with me!

I've updated the two posts above that I followed my diagrams with (as footnotes). I think those snippets of information might come in handy?

[guypettigrew]

Hi PeeBee

How do I unlock your defuddler, please? It says 'locked' and, when I click on the word, the whole lot gets a blue background and nothing else happens.

Guy

[PeeBee]

Hi PeeBee

How do I unlock your defuddler, please? It says 'locked' and, when I click on the word, the whole lot gets a blue background and nothing else happens.

Guy

That's odd!

It's a drop-down list so a small down-arrow should appear to the box's right. There are only two options to pick: "Locked" or "Unlocked".

What spreadsheet program are you using? Is it opening on the source drive (my Google drive) ... Google "Sheets" takes over, but it can't edit my copy! You need to download a copy or copy it to your own Google Drive (if you have one). I don't like Google "Sheets" 'cos I can't work out how to protect the calculation "cells" (so it's really easy to trash your copy of the spreadsheet).

It seems okay in LibreOffice "Calc" (free download! But I've only tried the latest version) and its native "Excel" (13 onwards) of course.

[guypettigrew]

Ummm--No idea! I click on the link in your signature and get two options to open. xlsx or development.xlsx. The situation with it being locked is the same whichever one I click on. Nice light blue hue to everything after clicking on the word 'locked'!

No arrow appears next to, or anywhere near the 'locked' word.

Guy

[PeeBee]

It is as I expected; you are attempting to open the spreadsheet, and you need to download it first or Google "Sheets" opens it, and it won't like what you're trying to do. It's a pity, I had hoped it (Sheets) would open it but prevent you saving any changes - you could then try it without downloading - but it doesn't (but I've not seen it doing what you describe).

I'll have a look at alternatives later, but at the moment it's download and run in the spreadsheet application of your choice (which might be Google "Sheets" (just be careful with Sheets). I'm sure Microsoft have a free runtime only (no design) version of Excel? ...

[guypettigrew]

Thanks PeeBee, but I don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about!

Guy