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HOMEBREW Digest #5685
HOMEBREW Digest #5685 Wed 26 May 2010
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Digest Janitor: pbabcock at hbd.org
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Contents:
RE: Sodium Chloride ("David Houseman")
re: agua (Joe Katchever)
RO water - recovery rate (Calvin Perilloux)
RO Concentrate ("A.J deLange")
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* Beer is our obsession and we're late for therapy! *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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Financial Projection As of 21 May 2010
Projected 2010 Budget $3505.65
Expended against projection $ 874.75
Projected Excess/(Shortfall) ($2080.54)
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Date: Tue, 25 May 2010 23:31:00 -0400
From: "David Houseman" <david.houseman at verizon.net>
Subject: RE: Sodium Chloride
AJ asks:
"But why would you want to use a
softener in the first place? It doesn't "remove" anything but rather
only replaces polyvalent ions (calcium, magnesium, iron, strontium...)
with equivalent amounts of (monovalent) sodium."
Good question. My well water is acidic enough to take the paint off cars
and has enough iron that laundry, toilets, tubs and glasses of water settle
out red iron deposits. The water softener does just that, takes out the
unwanted ions; and I balance the pH by injecting light soda ash solution
into the water line on the way to the softener. Water then tastes great.
Makes excellent beer when I replace the missing desirable ions. And my
sodium and chloride ions are not terribly high. Not enough to justify an RO
system. I can continue to work with what I have. Just thought that if
there were a nifty way to minimize the sodium and chloride ions I'd give
that a try.
Dave
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Date: Tue, 25 May 2010 15:37:19 -0500
From: Joe Katchever <joe at pearlstreetbrewery.com>
Subject: re: agua
As expected, I received a whole
wagonload of responses to my query about softened water and pilsner
beers. As I also expected, the array of answers pointed in every
conceivable direction. Answers from, "don't do anything - just brew
with what you got and the beer will be good" philosophies to very in
depth scientific explanations. I got a few people who wanted to know
what I heard and so, in summary, here's what I got....
My question was, could I (should I) brew with softened water, or
low-mineral--high sodium water. Some say no some say sure why not.
Let me just point out that I am not trying to brew good beer here. I am
at such a point in my brewing career, that I aim to brew exceptional,
outstanding beer only.
I would like to use water with a maximum alkalinity of 50ppm, as I
understand all pilsners, regardless of their origin or mineral content
have low-alkalinity in common. With this in mind, my pilsner water
options include (1) softened water, remineralized with calcium, (2)
nanofiltered water, which removes minerals, (3) RO water (pure water),
remineralized, (4) lime treatment to lower bicarbonates and
subsequently, alkalinity.
I decided not to go with nanofiltered water or RO water, mainly because
I don't have an RO filter, or other nanofilter and, no, I don't have
the $8,000 to buy one.
There was only a lukewarm response to the idea of using softened water,
even with adding back some essential minerals. This warrants some
further exploration. The only problems seem to be not enough calcium,
which is easily fixable with a dose of CaCL; and too much sodium.
Although my sodium level of 175.8 is considered below the taste
threshold, Dave Miller says, "sulfate levels under 100ppm are usually
acceptable, but the effect of sulfate (harsh bitterness) is magnified
and worsened by potassium and sodium. My sulfate level is only 12.9, so
does this sodium level of softened water even matter? It seems, If I
COULD remove the sodium, this might be a good option. No one has
proposed any method of removing the sodium from this water. Anyone want
to chime in? How about boiling the softened water? Won't that remove
any sodium, or does it need to be distilled?
Lime treatment could be an option. I got explicit instructions from Mr
Martin Brungard as to how to use lime treatment to lower the
ankalinity. (thanks, Martin!), although he didn't have all the info. on
my water that he needed. I may have failed to mention that my water has
some hefty alkalinity issues: it is 262 raw and drops to 168 in the hot
liquor tank. Even at 168, it is still over three times my target. I
have more questions about this lime treatment: how much lime do I need
per gallon (roughly)? My brewing water is as follows:<br>
Ca=51.16, Mg=17.65, Na=12.24, hardness=200, sulfate=12.9, Cl=27.2 and
alkalinity= 168.
What say, sir?
On a side note: as Pat Babcock has noted in recent digests, the HBD is
way under budget and is "struggling to meet it's meager operating
expenses of approx. $3500/year." Looks like these guys are about
$2080.54 short. The janitors here run this board every day for us to
read and don't get paid for it so, if you read it (I see you do) then
toss in a few bucks. They even take Paypal! I'll even throw in the
$80.54 right now and I'm poor!
-Joe
Joe Katchever
Pearl Street Brewery
La Crosse, Wisconsin
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Date: Wed, 26 May 2010 06:58:37 -0700 (PDT)
From: Calvin Perilloux <calvinperilloux at yahoo.com>
Subject: RO water - recovery rate
AJ notes in his latest posting on Reverse Osmosis units:
> In the system which replaced those small units
> I feed softened water and feel quite comfortable
> operating it at a recovery of around 40% (which
> should make all you environmental types feel all
> warm and fuzzy inside).
AJ, The tree hugger in me wonders about something...
If I'm at a recovery rate of only 17% like your old RO
units, I'd only be increasing the ion concentration in
the waste water by about (1-(1-.17)) = 20%. Hence, that
waste water could be useful for my garden, since it's
fairly close to what my garden lives on already.
If I go to a much higher recovery rate, though, that
waste water might be much saltier, 67% more instead of
20% more, and so for a high-mineral water source, instead
of using the waste on a parched garden, I might run it
down the drain.
So perhaps the low-recovery units are in fact more
environmentally friendly -- if you make use of the
waste water.
(To be honest, me being on a well, for my water it would be
a case of "from the earth you came, to the earth you shall
return" even for waste water I dump out, so there's not
much environmental effect other than energy usage to pump
the stuff to the surface.)
And now that you mention that a Home Depot RO unit is
under $300, you have me thinking of how much I've spent
at Walmart for distilled water and wondering if it's
actually cheaper to make my own. Hmmmmm...
Calvin Perilloux
Middletown, Maryland, USA
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Date: Wed, 26 May 2010 11:28:00 -0400
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: RO Concentrate
WRT to concentrate disposal:
In my particular situation (which should be pretty similar to
Calvin's) the well typically runs 22 mg/L Ca++, 11 mg/L Mg++, 73 mg/L
HCO3-. 12.4 mg/L NO3- (as the nitrate); 7.1 mg/L Na+; 23 mg/L SO4--
(that's the one I'm really after); 28 mg/L silica with smidgeons of
copper, potassium, fluoride iron and manganese for a total TDS of 155
mg/L excluding the silica or 183 mg/L with. The magnesium and calcium
total 2.02 mEq/L and so 33 mg/L of them gets replaced by the softener
with 46 mg/L sodium for TDS (sans silica, a thing to be devoutly
wished) of about 168 mg/L (the meter on the RO unit, calibrated
against who knows what salt mixture and which doesn't respond to the
silica) reads about 140 mg/L. So, to make the math simple, at 50%
recovery the concentrate I'd be dumping out would be at 336 mg/L with
106 mg/L of that being sodium and all the other ions concentrations
about doubled (assuming 100% rejection - again for simple math). The
only one of those I might worry about WRT to a garden would be the
sodium and my gut says that even at that level it shouldn't be a
problem but Calvin may have better data on this. I'm in the rarish
hybrid situation of having county sewer but no county water so my
concentrate just goes down the drain. I'm sure it takes many hours of
operation of the RO system to dump as much sodium as a single cycle of
the softener.
If sodium discharge is a concern it is always possible to operate the
unit on un-softened water. The calculation for maximum allowable
recovery isn't that bad and I'd be happy to do it if wanted. In the
case of unsoftened water you would, effectively, be "liming" your
garden - a good thing around here as soil pH is lowish.
Of course Calvin is welcome to come by anytime for as much RO water as
he can transport and I'll even throw in some sauermalz and a beer (or
2). Given where he lives relative to me and assuming a buck a gallon
for DI water and 3 bucks a gallon for petrol I'm guessing this may not
be such a great proposition in financial terms but the beer is good
(and free).
A.J.
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End of HOMEBREW Digest #5685, 05/26/10
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