Speaking of RO, has anyone had the water from those grocery store machines tested? I’m just wondering how good a job they do.
How can I get my water tested? How much should it cost?
If you go to the 3rd post in the thread, you will find that I posted store bought RO water and my tap water. Everything was <1 for the store bought RO. The feed water for the RO is the same as Gail’s later in the thread.
Click on “Fee Schedule” on the left and look at the pdf fee schedule document. You’re looking for test W-6 on page 8. $16.95.
Thanks Dude - I called the local federal lab, and they wanted almost $400.
I live in Milford, DE. Here is our water report for 2009.
http://www.cityofmilford.com/milford/ccr2009Milford.pdf
If anyone can make heads or tails out of it, I’d appreciate it. Water is still something I have to get down. I use the water out of the tap and I never treat it. I’m sure my beer would benefit if I paid a little more attention to this facit of brewing. Work in progress.
Cheers,
Richie
Shrewsbury MA
pH: 7.5
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est: 376
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm: 0.63
Cations / Anions, me/L: 5.8 / 5.7
Sodium, Na: 71
Potassium, K: 10
Calcium, Ca: 39
Magnesium, Mg: 6
Total Hardness, CaCO3: 123
Nitrate, NO3-N: 0.7 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S: 9
Chloride, Cl: 138
Carbonate, CO3: <1
Bicarbonate, HCO3: 65
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3: 54
Richie that’s a weak report for a brewer to follow LOL. Probably OK to brew mid-range beers. Here’s two examples and excellent info: read on…
http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-1.html
http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-3.html
The Nomograph helps as well as the spreadsheet.
Wenonah, NJ
pH 8.2
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est 259
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 0.43
Cations / Anions, me/L 4.6 / 4.3
ppm
Sodium, Na 85
Potassium, K 6
Calcium, Ca 10
Magnesium, Mg 3
Total Hardness, CaCO3 38
Nitrate, NO3-N 0.1 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 2
Chloride, Cl 47
Carbonate, CO3 6
Bicarbonate, HCO3 160
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 141
For bottled water analyses, try www.bottledwaterweb.com. Looking around a little, I saw a number of commonly-used bottled waters, including Poland Spring.
Good site Gail. I think I bookmarked this one off of the HBD a long time ago.
I used to drink Selters and Gerolsteiner when I lived in Germany. Those have some minerals. :o
That’s a lotta waters on that site, Jeff! Curiously, they list ppm of Uranium and I got to wondering how much Uranium is OK…
I know a few good brewers who use bottled water (Poland Spring) and have done great beers with it. It is especially easy on days like National Homebrew Day when you’re lugging all your stuff to brew somewhere other than home. Now that I’m learning more about brewing with straight RO, I’m less hesitant to use 100% RO in a brew and add some minerals back in. RO is really cheap next to a “name” water. However, I talked a little with Gordon Strong about this recently and he said his Kroger RO had hardness approaching 80 ppm but the water from his area is ridiculously hard so the RO is just perfectly manageable. I always assumed that RO was almost mineral free but maybe Kroger’s filters just don’t get changed often enough? That makes me curious about an analysis of other RO waters that are easily purchased at a local grocery.
Anyone have any info about this?
Gail, the water in many parts of Germany is hard. There is are several hot springs in Weisbaden that you can drink from. One had its mineral content listed, and the Na and Cl levels were very high, both around 2000 ppm if I remember correctly. The Strontium level was high enough that there was a warning to drink no more than 1 liter per day!
The RO water I buy is from Culligan machines at Meijer’s in Wixom. These tested at <1 ppm for all the minerals. Feedwater is Detroit City water. RO takes out about 98% of the minerals, so 2-3 ppm would be reasonable for a reading. Gordon must have hard source water and a machine at Kroger that needs to be serviced.
Eau Claire WI
ALKALINITY,TOTAL 91 MG/L
HARDNESS, TOTAL (CAC03) 110 MG/L
PH 8.89 SU
CALCIUM 30 MG/L
MAGNESIUM 8.5 MG/L
SODIUM 8.5 MG/L
CHLORIDE 19 MG/L
SULFATE 5.8 MG/L
Verona, WI
pH 7.7
Sodium, Na 13 ppm
Potassium, K 1 ppm
Calcium, Ca 78 ppm
Magnesium, Mg 46 ppm
Total Hardness, CaCO3 387 ppm
Nitrate, NO3-N 4.8 (SAFE) ppm
Sulfate, SO4-S 6 ppm
Chloride, Cl 36 ppm
Carbonate, CO3 <1 ppm
Bicarbonate, HCO3 358 ppm
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 293 ppm
Fluoride, F 1.31 ppm
Total Iron, Fe < 0.01 ppm
All the more reason to stick to the beer in Germany…yikes…
As far as the Kroger RO goes, I guess if one really wants to depend on Kroger water, they should do as you did with Meijer water and test it to see. I was truly blown away by those stats but the source water was ridiculously hard…unbrewable really…and he’s won a couple of ribbons so I guess that Kroger water is working for him (once he knew how much hardness was remaining, just as you have done). Got to know and understand your water (maybe a lifelong process).
BTW, still working on obtaining a new mineral analysis from Detroit/Dearborn.
Gail,
“and he’s won a couple of ribbons”
That is very true, in an understated way.
Jeff
How do I insert an image. I tried using the “Insert Image” button but it only inserts the text:“img/img” in square brackets ???
You have to put a URL for the image in between those brackets. The pictures need to be hosted on a picture sharing site or your own site.
On the first page of the water reports someone included what seems like a JPEG in the middle of the Text. How’s that done?