Beginners Guide to Water Treatment (plus links to more advanced water treatment in post #1)

strange-steve · Oct 2, 2019

Well you weren't joking, that water's harder than Chinese calculus. I'll have a proper look at your info tomorrow mate but it looks to me like your buddy's recommendations are about right, and personally I'd be looking at dilution with soft water before treatment.

Lee Brown · Oct 2, 2019

Haha! Crazy hard. A pint of this stuff and you pee bullets.

Thanks for considering this, strange-steve. I'd like to go for all tap water and then when I wrap my head around it all, I will start juggling with diluting it wish Ashbeck or something.

I must inputting something wrong as using Brewers Friend says I going overkill on gypsum, CaCl and Phosphoric acid...death levels.

Argentum · Oct 2, 2019

@Lee Brown, It appears as if either your bicarbonate or your alkalinity is stated incorrectly above.

Lee Brown · Oct 2, 2019

Lee Brown · Oct 2, 2019

Yeah, @Argentum. Not sure why I put bicarbonate in there.

I think alkalinity in CaC03 converts to HC03 447.74 (so I'm told!).

Argentum · Oct 2, 2019

You should achieve 25 Liters of nearly zero alkalinity water at ~pH 5.5 by adding ~13.4 mL of your 75% Phosphoric Acid to it. Don't be concerned as to much (if any) flavor impact from the Phosphoric Acid.

Argentum · Oct 2, 2019

Lee Brown said:
Yeah, @Argentum. Not sure why I put bicarbonate in there.

I think alkalinity in CaC03 converts to HC03 447.74 (so I'm told!).

Close enough.

Lee Brown · Oct 2, 2019

Argentum said:
You should achieve 25 Liters of nearly zero alkalinity water at ~pH 5.4 by adding ~13.4 mL of your 75% Phosphoric Acid to it. Don't be concerned as to much (if any) flavor impact from the Phosphoric Acid.

Is that 13.4mL to the mash water or total 31 litres (so it'll cover both mash and sparge)?

Would I use this same amount for every beer, or would it need less for say a lager and more PA for a stout?

Thank you so much for your guidance.

Lee Brown · Oct 2, 2019

I think I am being a bit thick here. I normally ferment a 23 litre batch, from around 31 liters of total water. I am guessing you mean total water of 25 for PA addition.

Argentum · Oct 2, 2019

Your water has ~367 ppm of alkalinity. Lets say that you want to drop 25L of this water to ~47 ppm alkalinity as per the advice you received (as provided above) for AMS/CRC.

367 - 47 = 320 ppm alkalinity to remove

320/50 = 6.40 mEq/L

75% Phosphoric Acid has ~12.1 mEq/mL

6.40/12.1 x 25L = 13.2 mL of 75% Phosphoric Acid to be added.

Lee Brown · Oct 2, 2019

@Argentum, you are a god send. So, if I wanted to make at stout at ~90ppm alkalinity:

367 - 90 = 277ppm to remove

277/50 = 5.54 mEq/L

75% Phosphoric Acid has ~12.1 mEq/L

5.54/12.1 x25l = 11.4 of 75% Phosphoric Acid to be added

Is that right? How do I know if it's in the right PH area - or if"ve removed too much PH? I am taking it that your calculation leaves 5.4PH too? Still not sure how that works, but your workings out make sense to me.

Argentum · Oct 2, 2019

To remove all of your waters alkalinity you would have to drop it to pH 4.3, and to drop it to pH 5.4 instead requires that approximately 91% of any calculated acid sufficient to reduce alkalinity to zero be added. For the case of 25 Liters this becomes:

367/50 = 7.34 mEq/L

7.34/12.1 x 25L = 15.165 mL of 75% Phosphoric Acid to hit ~4.3 pH

15.165 mL x 0.91 = 13.8 mL of 75% Phosphoric Acid to hit ~5.4 pH

matt76 · Oct 2, 2019

Argentum said:
320/50 = 6.40 mEq/L

Out of curiosity @Argentum , where does that 50 come from? I follow the rest of your working but can't see where that number comes from.

Argentum · Oct 2, 2019

matt76 said:
Out of curiosity @Argentum , where does that 50 come from? I follow the rest of your working but can't see where that number comes from.

Alkalinity is expressed in terms of ppm CaCO3. The molecular weight of 1 molar CaCO3 is 100 g/L. But Ca++ has a valance of +2, so the equivalent (or Normal) weight of CaCO3 is 100/2 = 50

That is where the '50' comes from.

Lee Brown · Oct 2, 2019

As a rule of thumb, should I aim for the theoretical wort alkalinity value e.g. ~150ppm for a stout and ~38ppm for a lager - or aim for a mash PH of 5.4 for all brews (adding 13.8 mL to every beer I brew)?

Argentum · Oct 2, 2019

I corrected post #388 above. 75% Phosphoric Acid contains ~12.1 mEq's/mL, and originally (in error) I had stated this as 12.1 mEq's/L.

The calculations derived are not impacted by this initial error since I expressed it incorrectly but calculated it correctly. Sorry if this is confusing, but I really should carry units through all of my calculations, though I often take shortcuts and drop them.

Lee Brown · Oct 2, 2019

It would seem then that the mount of 75% Phosphoric Acid my friend suggested (26.89 mL) would that be way too much?

Argentum · Oct 2, 2019

This chart expresses that to remove 100% of present alkalinity (this time expressed as bicarbonate, or HCO3-) requires hitting 4.3 pH. And also (via a bit of extrapolation along the Y axis which is scaled from 0 to 1) that to hit 5.4 pH requires about 90-91% of whatever acid is required to hit 4.3 pH.

The molecular weight of bicarbonate ion HCO3- is 61, so:

Bicarbonate ppm = 61/50 x alkalinity ppm.

Argentum · Oct 2, 2019

If you know the mEq/mL for any other acid, the same math as above applies, only via the substitution of the mEq/mL of your chosen acid in those places where the value "12.1" appear above.

If anyone knows it, I would like to know what the nominal mEq/mL of AMS/CRC acid blend is considered to be at room temperature (20 deg. C).

foxy · Oct 3, 2019

Lee Brown said:
Haha! Crazy hard. A pint of this stuff and you pee bullets.

Thanks for considering this, strange-steve. I'd like to go for all tap water and then when I wrap my head around it all, I will start juggling with diluting it wish Ashbeck or something.

I must inputting something wrong as using Brewers Friend says I going overkill on gypsum, CaCl and Phosphoric acid...death levels.

I am pretty sure I read that J Palmer is the man behind Brewers Friend water treatment, I also put together a data log, giving me the additions to use for my local water for different types of brewing water from around the world.
Here is some light reading. https://www.morebeer.com/articles/treating_homebrew_water

Beginners Guide to Water Treatment (plus links to more advanced water treatment in post #1)

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