National Homebrew Club Ireland

General Discussions => Brewing Communities => Sligo Brewers => Topic started by: darragh on November 27, 2020, 12:40:54 PM

Title: Water profile for Lough Gill
Post by: darragh on November 27, 2020, 12:40:54 PM
Hi,

Has anyone done a water profile around Sligo?
My water source is Lough Gill so hoping someone might have done a water profile and would be open to sharing the numbers

Thanks
Title: Re: Water profile for Lough Gill
Post by: BeermanB) on December 21, 2020, 06:52:43 AM
If you go onto irish water website they have all the reports of any big water resivoir, if you are on a small scheme they may not have it though
Title: Re: Water profile for Lough Gill
Post by: darragh on December 22, 2020, 09:57:20 AM
Thanks for that, it provides a lot of the parameters needed to create a water profile.
The only parameter I couldn't find is calcium
Title: Re: Water profile for Lough Gill
Post by: BeermanB) on December 30, 2020, 09:21:00 PM
I think you can buy tests for calcium for not too much, Not sure how accurate it will be to the miligram though
Title: Re: Water profile for Lough Gill
Post by: darragh on December 31, 2020, 01:35:44 PM
Some of the test kits for fish keeping have calcium tests but the resolution is around 5mg/l and not accurate under 20 mg/L https://fluvalaquatics.com/us/product/calcium-test-kit/
Title: Re: Water profile for Lough Gill
Post by: mr hoppy on January 05, 2021, 10:31:50 PM
That level of accuracy is plenty good enough for home brewing purposes.

Sent from my SM-A530F using Tapatalk

Title: Re: Water profile for Lough Gill
Post by: bighoppapump on April 16, 2021, 10:30:43 AM
I live out in Drumcliffe and my water comes from a private supply from the mountain. I had my water tested in Murphy labs in England at Christmas and got the following profile:

Calcium 69ppm
Magnesium 11ppm
Chloride 19ppm
Sulphate 15ppm
Alkalinity(asCaCO3) 192

Might be helpful for someone on a similar supply. I also tested it with the salifert kits so I could see how accurate they are and they aren't far off the numbers I got from the lab report. The report was only about 50 quid if you wanted to get one but you need to post it from the north as An Post won't let you post any liquids  :(
Title: Re: Water profile for Lough Gill
Post by: DEMPSEY on April 16, 2021, 09:59:57 PM
That's soft enough water you have. Do you use Beersmith3. If so you can enter this in the water section as your water and then it makes it easy for you to apply any water profile you want with simple adjustment.
 
Title: Re: Water profile for Lough Gill
Post by: bighoppapump on April 19, 2021, 11:10:05 AM
Quote from: DEMPSEY on April 16, 2021, 09:59:57 PMThat's soft enough water you have. Do you use Beersmith3. If so you can enter this in the water section as your water and then it makes it easy for you to apply any water profile you want with simple adjustment.
 
Its on my list of things to try out. I went down the painful route of trying to understand water profiles and adjustments ala leaving cert chemistry textbooks and the relevant sections in How To Brew 4th ed. I think I have it close enough anyways as the only brews I had issue with before were light ale or lager styles like cream ale. Then tended to have a plasticy kind of taste to them. I figured it was due to the high residual alkalinity and add enough calcium (sulfate and chloride) to reduce the alkalinity and my first lager since (a helles) is absent of this plasticy taste.

I think I'll give Beersmith a go in future to see what its all about though