Magnesium carbonate

Brewing Processes
1

Does anyone know of a source for food grade MgCO3?

It’s just a geeky thing, but this is one of the few salts I’m mssing. I have a hard time making true Munich water w/o that stuff since there is a lot of Mg and little Cl or SO4. I know that mimicing that water exaclty doesn’t really matter as long as you match residual alkalinity, hardness and maybe the Cl/SO4 ratio. But I’d like to have that salt too. A fellow brewer was able to get me MgCl2, which isn’t widely used by brewers either.

Google didn’t show much. There seem to be little food uses of that stuff. I have it as chalk for climbing but I don’t trust that it is pure.

Kai

2

Got an idea Kai

You could take some RO water and put the climbing chalk in there and send it to Ward Labs

Would tell you a few things

Whats in the chalk and how thorough the RO system is working.

Could just get you some of my water at the February meeting, I know its got Magnesium in it forget the number though.

3

I fond the stuff in health food stores.

Some of the climbing chalk claims to be 100% pure with no additives but I have always been a bit cautious with that. Although, I have breathed my fair share of chalk dust at this point. Maybe I try dissolving it wit CO2 to see if it would actually work.

My tap water has a lot of Mg too, but also arsenic, which is why I use RO water in the first place.

Kai

4

You may have better luck in finding MgO. It is used in water conditioning and in the pharmaceutical world. Easier to find would be my guess.