We’ve been discussing experimenting with our water chemistry. Making changes to your brewing water has to start with knowing what’s already in our water. I made reference to an online report I found from my town already. John and I have also discussed getting our water tested by a water testing lab. Not that I don’t trust my town water report, but it would be interesting and a good exercise to see what a testing lab comes back with in comparison. (That way in the future I’d feel more confident in the town report.)
Ward Labs in Nebraska has become well known in homebrewing circles as just the type of place that will take your water sample for analysis. They do all sorts of testing for agricultural samples; like soils, feed, well water, etc.
Homebrewers have been using Ward Labs water analysis services so much over the years that they have even set up a little portion of the site just for homebrewers and have a separate test just for us, Ahhhh….
That said though the homebrewers test has a couple extra data points in it that I don’t find we particularly need. Namely iron and total phosphorous. My plan is to spend a little less and get the basic household water mineral test (W-6).
You can pre-pay/order a homebrewers kit for $36, or you can fill out a simple sheet, enclose a check and the sample for $16.50. All that’s needed is a 16oz water bottle, filled with the tap water of your choice (rinse well) and mail it out. They’ll email the results back to you. (As a PDF I assume). It also appears that while they are drumming up a little extra business with the “premium” package, they actually prefer the print and ship in your own bottle to reduce their work load and maintianing a stock of homebrewer test kits.
So that’s our next plan with improving our brewing.
Anyone else out there used Ward Labs? What was their turnaround time with the results?
Herb Meowing
The $26 kit is more than adequate.
It comes with a sample bottle…a postage-paid shipping container…and bubble wrap.
Very convenient.
Saves scrounging a box to ship your bottle and a trip to the Post Office for postage.
Only complaint was Ward did not email “the results…by 5 pm one working day after we receive the sample(s).” I had to contact them a week after mailing the sample to ask about when I’d get my results.
Don’t yet know if doctoring my water has done any good.
Batches with brewing salt additions are bottling conditioning but will start coming out of the pipeline this weekend.
brewella deville
The W-6 test gave me everything I needed to start water adjustments, and was cheaper than the “homebrewer’s test kit.”. I printed up the simple paperwork I needed from their PDF and sent my own sample bottle with a check. I received my results very quickly by e-mail, I think three but definitely within four days of mailing the sample. I just had to put Ward Labs was in my e-mail contact list to make sure the report wasn’t automatically sent to junk mail.
I’ve now sampled two beers made with water adjustments, and the difference between these and my previous brews is like night and day. Now I’m kicking myself for not sending a water sample in before my first all grain brew.
A
I’m interested in getting a personal water report not because I don’t trust the one from the treatment plant, but because water travels a unique path to get to my house. My neighbor and I are on the same water system and have made the same recipes, but until I switched to bottled water, all of my beers were undrinkable. I’d like to know what it is in my pipes that ruined those batches.