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Water Analysis, send it out or test in-house?

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  • Water Analysis, send it out or test in-house?

    Just doing the preliminaries on setting up water analysis and deciding if and when to adjust our beers. This is for a brewpub, and our upcoming production brewery setting in Ohio.

    I have obtained a city water report, but we would like to back this up with some on-site sampling.

    What makes more sense financially and realistically, if we are going to be sampling, say, once a quarter to track changes: sending it out for lab analysis, or buying a test kit?

    And any specific recommendations on labs, or test kits, with your suggestions would be great.

    Thanks!

  • #2
    Further question, is it possible to calculate the Calcium and Magnesium concentrations from the hardness and alkalinity values? I don't think so, but just checking. These are not tested individually by our local water treatment plant.

    We will be tracking all of our mash and wort pH's of course, in addition to looking into the basic mineral makeup of the water. I know that is the most important part.

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    • #3
      The cost would depend on what you are looking at and what it costs to set up to do the analysis. Working in a brewery and in the past having worked in an environmental testing lab, it is probably way cheaper sending it out.

      Like the hardness number you got from the city. They had a titration performed on the water for hardness, and it gives you a combined hardness, most of which would come from the calcium. To perform an individual analysis you will need thousands in equipment and some training to operate it. Just to do the titration, it takes at least a half hour to set up and standardize, not to mention a $100 or so in equipment and standards.

      Getting a hardness, calcium and magnesium should be under $30 from a lab.

      Jim Lieb
      RRBC Brewer

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      • #4
        Thanks, and yes, looking into some of the equipment prices, it definitely looks like we'll just send it out for lab reports every once in a while, other than that we'll just keep an eye on mash pH for every brew to make sure no problems come up.

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        • #5
          I haven't worked with these guys but their W-6 test at $16.50 looks like it might make a good quarterly test.



          We're on a great municipal system so I wouldn't expect to see much change or feel the need to look for anything exotic.
          Clarke Pelz
          Cynosure Brewing

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          • #6
            I've used Ward Labs a bunch of times and it has been very easy and the turnaround is pretty quick. Our water varies a bit over the course of the year, so we test quarterly.
            Steve Sanderson
            RiverWalk Brewing Co.
            Newburyport, MA

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            • #7
              Yep, I think we're going to go with ward labs and get at least the W-6 analysis, maybe the W-5.
              Thanks for the help!

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