Water - What is it?

[Will_D]

I am doing some thinking and research about brewing water. There seems to be some confusion about how to measure hardness:

Hardness is classed as Temporary or Permanent:

If there is a lot of bicarbonate present then the water is said to posses "Temporary Hardness". This means that when you boil it the bicarbonate is converted to the insoluble Carbonate and a molecule of Co2 is release. This is the "fur" or limescale you see in the kettle.

Note that I said insoluble carbonate. According to my research the solubility of calcium carbonate is 47 ppm so the maximum calcium carbonate in the boiled wort would be around that number (Note the wort acidity of around pH 5 does not affect the solubility !)

If there is a lot of sulphate present then the water is said to posses "Permanent Hardness". This does not come out of solution on boiling.

My question therefore is "Are we overly looking at carbonate hardness when we should be concentrating on the Sulphate hardness

[DEMPSEY]

There is pages of Q&A threads on JBK about this calculator. It is from Graham Wheeler. Go to the Brewing Liquor section and melt your head.

[Will_D]

Anybody like to answer my question?

[DEMPSEY]

Will, we need to get all the information about brewing water,which is MEGGA and try and put it in a format that makes it easy to understand.
CRS which is the best starting place for anyone here with high Calcium Carbonate to reduce it to help with getting the mash PH down to the 5.2 range. But one of the side issue's using CRS is it will increase the sulphate and chloride levels. Now when a brewer reads this,he can get confused because is not sulphate good for the hoppy beer and chloride good for the malty beer,yes and yes :-?. The real issue is getting the balance right for what you are brewing and first knowing what is in your water to start with.

[DEMPSEY]

According to my research the solubility of calcium carbonate is 47 ppm so the maximum calcium carbonate in the boiled wort would be around that number

If I understand what you are saying here is this.
That no matter what concentrations are in the water to start with,by boiling it you will be left with 47 ppm calcium carbonate. :question

[Will_D]

According to my research the solubility of calcium carbonate is 47 ppm so the maximum calcium carbonate in the boiled wort would be around that number

If I understand what you are saying here is this.
That no matter what concentrations are in the water to start with,by boiling it you will be left with 47 ppm calcium carbonate. :question

Yes, Exactly thats my take on the chemistry so far. I am sure I'm missing something but wtf???

I have also posted up on Beoir and hope that Adam(BT) will chip in!

[DEMPSEY]

As I have mentioned before,without knowing what is in our brewing water,we can not know what to adjust. A method of testing our water is a first.
In my article, http://www.nationalhomebrewclub.com/wiki/doku.php?id=water_for_brewing,I mentioned beer types and suggested the appropriate amount of alkalinity to match. This is usually based on the colour of the beer as darker malts tend to make the mash more acidic so more alkaline is needed to reach a PH  of 5.2. However a caveat to this is crystal malt. If you target a colour by using roast malts,there is a linear line of change as in,the amount of roast malt added to the grist is proportionate to the change in the acid. Not so with crystal. The same colour achieved with crystal would have a higher amount of acid. Also crystal malt can be added with no colour change,just a higher amount of acid. Crystal malt also is not linear in that adding more crystal malt and acid increases at a different rate. So simply using the colour of the beer as a measure for what amount of alkalinity is required can be misleading.

[Dr Jacoby]

If I understand what you are saying here is this.
That no matter what concentrations are in the water to start with,by boiling it you will be left with 47 ppm calcium carbonate. :question

But what if there is less than 47ppm before boiling? I don't know much about this stuff but I thought that boiling water with high bicarbonate levels is only partially effective. Maybe 47ppm marks the limit of its effectiveness. But surely that only applies to water that had a greater than 47ppm concentration to begin with. So boiling water with less than 47ppm would be a waste of time. In any case, boiling is not the only (or most effective way) of removing temporary hardness. Diluting the water with RO or distilled water could surely bring the concentrations down, almost to zero given the right level of dilution, in ehich case there is still scope to worry about bicarbonate levels.

I don't see any reason to privilege treating bicarbonate a over permanent hardness by the way. They all matter for mash pH etc. Am I missing something?

[Will_D]

Any water with less than 60 ppm carbonate equivalent hardness is defined as soft.

Agreed that boiling soft water will not reduce the hardness as there isn't any.

Boiling is part of the brewing process any way.

Some people pre-boil just to drop out the lime scale.

Not sure if this is needed as the scale will precipitate out with the rest of the trub during the 90 minute boil.

Boiling the water or wort removes the Temporary hardness ie. converts bicarbonates to insoluble carbonates. As the solubility of calcium carbonate in pH 5 wort is 47 or so ppm thats the number you get for carbonate hardness after the boil.

@dempsey Could you test this theory Brian? Get a carbonate level from the tap then check it from a kettle thats boiled for a few times! (Dont use the Brita or a filter!!)

To all the above I would add: "I think"!

Remember this is a discussion, as I stated earlier I am not quite sure about all this. I am hoping Adam (Biertourist) will kick in as he has a great depth of knowledge about such things.

[Spud395]

I dont pretend to be knowledgable about this Will but from some text I have.

The Carbonates and bi-carbonates that form tempory hardness absorb Hydrogen ions which prevents the mash pH from falling.
Carbonates are about twice as affective at raising the wort pH as Calcium is in lowering pH.

[DEMPSEY]

Will,put your question to a high ranking BJCP man from Indianapolis,Indiana. Here is what he replied,

47 ppm CaCO3 is the solubility under 1 atmosphere (with its partial pressure of CO2) and also at standard temperature (20 to 25 C). When you boil, you drive off all the dissolved CO2 and CaCO3 will precipitate. Under that condition, the solubility of CaCO3 is much reduced. But that is not the alkalinity value that I mention above. That is "alkalinity as CaCO3", not the solubility of CaCO3.

[Dr Jacoby]

So it seems that boiling water with bicarbonate levels higher than 47ppm can reduce it below 47ppm? I wonder is there a theoretical limit to its effectiveness though. I see people say again and again online that boiling usually only reduces the bicarbonate partially. This suggests that there is a practical limit, but if so, how far above or below 47ppm is it?

[Will_D]

Have just spent the Wonga on some testing kits, So right then, I will start doing some science!

As someone abovee mentioned earlier "is Will going to start doing water testing for the NHC?"

Well, so far the answer is maybe!

If you posted me a water sample in one of Shinnys 50ml vials, enclosed a €5 note and your details (e-mail ) I would send you back:

Calcim
Magnessium
Total Hardness
Free Chlorine? ( I may need another kit depending on levels )
pH

I am not trying to make money from this just covering costs of the test kits and chemicals.

I am still trying to find a Sulphate test kit (aka: Permanent Hardness) and as soon as I do will add that test

If someone wants other ions tested then let me know.

[Ciderhead]

Happy to be your first customer
Do I get a discount being an early adopter

[Hop Bomb]

Is it okay for me to send you a vial of Galway tap water also Will? SAE with cash no problem.