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Anyone got a recent Melb Water analysism, ie in last few months?
 
Awesome!

There is just one minor problem: trying to determine which reservoir(s) supply which areas.

I still aren't sure which one supplies my part of Reservoir. I think it's a combo of Silvan, Yan Yean & Sugarloaf...?
(For Area 14, From the YVW 11/12 annual report)
 
You can email melbourne water and get specifics as to your water source -as you say, often a mix.
 
Yeah I had a lengthy phone call with Yarra Water - who supplies my area. Spoke with a nice bloke who mentioned 3 different sources, depending on a number of different factors. Got all three reports and average them out... all you can do, I guess.
 
Meh, just spoke to the head of the Water Quality team at Yarra Valley Water, a guy called Brian Cole. He was very helpful but couldn't ultimately supply any exact quantities of the water components due to the mixing Spiesy mentioned above.

FWIW, the info referred to is in the link Yob posted in post #42 above.

Basically Brian was confirming Reservoir 3073 is supplied by the combination of Silvan + Sugarloaf + Yan Yean.
EXCEPT Yan Yean has been offline for the last few years due to poor quality of taste in the supply, and while water levels are good in the other reservoirs, will probably remain offline indefinitely.
ALSO, Sugarloaf = Winneke in the reports (Winneke is the treatment plant at Sugarloaf reservoir.
Finally, the supply to a particular location (e.g.: my house) on any given day varies between the 2 reservoirs quite a bit because the water supply system operated by Melbourne Water is quite dynamic. So depending on who's using a lot or a little water, the supply to that location could be coming mainly form one or the other reservoir, or a more even combo of both.

Basically it looks like i'll have to stump up for a decent pH meter.

The main ions vary a bit between Silvan & Sugarloaf/Winneke, but are generally all quite/very low in the grand scheme of things (as mentioned by manticle et al previously).
The main thing that seems to vary between the 2 supplies is the Alkalinity, which is obviously of major concern. Hence, i'll simply need to get a pH meter to be sure. Bugger it.

Any ideas for the cheapest good pH meter??
 
Thanks for confirming what I was trying to say previously.
 
True that.
Just reread your earlier post, Heyhey, and I think I pretty much rewrote what you'd said previously - I thought I'd scanned the last page or 3 before posting but somehow missed yours it seems :lol:
Anywho, I s'pose at least it's handy to have it all confirmed by YVW's top water quality guy (I believe).

Basically, in Melbourne, you can assume there's v little of any minerals, but the pH/Alkalinity can vary (unpredictably) enough that a brewer needs a pH meter. Simples.
 
Yep pretty much. I worked with Brian Cole and he's being doing it long enough to know what he's talking about.

As you said, you can safely assume that Melbourne's water contains very little mineralisation, but there is variation due to the numerous reservoirs, retention times, chlorination rates, etc. It's all a bit different to here in Shepparton where we only have one water treatment plant that runs 24/7 and two relatively small potable water reservoirs. We only get seasonal variation depending on what the Goulburn River is doing.

I believe the industry in Melb (breweries, paper manufactures, food processors, etc) all run their own water treatment plants and analysers due to water quality variation.
 
Tried to find an email address on South East Water to ask them about my local area info. Does anyone happen to have a recent report for the Moorabbin / Bayside area? Or even an email address I can write to to enquire. Trying to find some water profile info and not having much luck with their site.
Cheers
 
citizensnips said:
Tried to find an email address on South East Water to ask them about my local area info. Does anyone happen to have a recent report for the Moorabbin / Bayside area? Or even an email address I can write to to enquire. Trying to find some water profile info and not having much luck with their site.
Cheers
Have you looked here https://secureapp.southeastwater.com.au/waterquality/
 
Yeah it provided pH and the hardness of the water however was hoping for calcium, magnesium, sodium, chloride...Basically what my very limited water knowledge tells me is important (judging largely of the beersmith tool :ph34r: ).
 
Slap me here for throwing questions that may border on blasphemy but.. All the best beers made around the world just used what they had yeah? When you try to match a water profile on some software your just trying to get close to the water (that they had on hand). Because they made good beer. Or did the brewers then treat their water as well? So if great beer was made with melbourne water would that put us in the software's water profiles to be copied too?
 
Melbourne water is quite deficient in calcium, that's the main issue that needs to be addressed. I don't think people will be trying to emulate 10ppm of calcium.
 
Hey guys, I've got access to triple filtered water at my work (I work at a lab), is this great- or could it remove a bunch of important minerals in the process since its 'triple' filtered.
 
Personally I treat single filtered Melbourne water as pretty much a blank canvas, as it has so little mineral content in the 1st place. I then add various salts containing calcium and magnesium to get the balance of my water where I want it to be. Getting the pH of the mash right is also important, and may be affected by the filtering process (I don't know the answer, but if I measure the mash pH and adjust to around 5.2, I'm not sure I need to)
 
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