Setting up a water profile from city data

[Stingray]

I have a quick question concerning setting up a new water profile in comparison to the locations already loaded into BeerSmith.  What are the units used in your location profiles - they are parts per million but I don't know as what.  My city water analysis expresses the calcium, magnesium, chloride, etc. in ppm as CaCO3.  You can also express it as ppm of other equivalents.  This can make a big difference in the numbers and making comparison to your location profiles.

Do you have any more information on the locations profiles units in BeerSmith?

[factory]

I'm sure that someone will correct me on this, but from what I recall many resources you find show mg/L the same as ppm, but its not exactly true.

Pure water at standard temperature and pressure has a density of 1 kg/L, therefore:

mg/L = mg/kg = ppm

I used this online calculator: http://www.unitconversion.org/concentration-solution/milligrams-per-liter-to-parts-per-million-ppm-conversion.html

It really is so close as to be a direct conversion, so you can almost disregard the calculation and do a direct conversion.

Hope this helps.

[Stingray]

factory - thanks for your response.  I probably need to clarify my question a bit. 

All of the mineral values in the water profile are in ppm.  I'm wondering if all of these are using a common weight basis. 

On most water reports, for example, calcium is reported in terms of "calcium as CaCO3."  The value reported is the weight of CaCO3 that is chemically equivalent to the amount of calcium present.  In my water report, many of the other minerals are also stated in terms of "CaCO3"   I'm wondering if alkalinity and the other minerals in BeerSmith, are all expressed in terms of CaCO3. 

I want to make sure the values for my local water are entered in the same common weight basis as the other locations found in BeerSmith.

[factory]

Stingray,
I'm sorry that I didn't fully understand your initial question.  I'm not overly smart when it comes to chemistry, I'm completely self-taught.  Your question is very interesting to me, and I feel that now I need to look at my own water profile again.  It did find a paper online that describes what I think that you are saying.  The paper has to do with raising fish, but I still think that the basis of water hardness vs. alkalinity is described pretty well.  It also describes the contributions of various minerals expressed in terms of CaCO3.

http://www.ca.uky.edu/wkrec/Hardness.pdf

Again, I realize now that I'm probably not the right guy to answer this for you, but I can hope that I've at least pointed you towards something useful.

[tom_hampton]

Beersmith deals in "ppm as the ion", aka pure ppm...rather than as equivalent weights...as do most other brewing references.  So, you will need to convert your "ppm as CaCO3" to ppm by multiplying by the ratio of equivalent weights (ION/CaCO3). 

See here: http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-1.html  (bottom of the page, section Water Hardness, Alkalinity, and milliEquivalents)  for necessary tables, and formulas.

[Stingray]

Awesome - I had landed on Palmer's table several times searching for information on this topic, but never found anything defining BeerSmith's setup -  "ppm as the ion" vs equivalent weights. I'm going to assume it's the same for all of the minerals.

Thanks for the help!!!