Home Water Analysis Kits

This article originally appeared in the March/April 2018 issue of Zymurgy Magazine

By Nick Flynn, David Reasoner, et al.

There are as many variables associated with brewing great beer as there are opinions on how to do it. Some of these opinions are based more on anecdotal evidence than on scientific knowledge. This is certainly true when it comes to brewing water quality and pretreatment. Homebrewers understand this and sometimes seek out kits for testing brewing water quality.

Several commercially available kits are available to test for ion content of water samples (see Table 1). Some kits utilize colorimetric test strips to estimate ion concentrations. Other more comprehensive kits rely on the addition of reagents using a dropper, followed by a calculation using kit instructions. In some cases, ion concentrations are implied from the measurement of other ions or characteristics of the sample (e.g. hardness or alkalinity).

Some homebrewers rely on these kits because certain ions can dramatically affect flavor and fermentation profiles. Specific ions that these kits test…