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peat filtering



Hello

I have read the whole archive about Water Hardness and peat filtering and
had some newbie questions I hope you can help me with.  

I am trying to understand what happens when I do the following.  I boil
some bottled spring water with a pH of 7.1, a total alkalinity of 35 ppm
and a hardness of 26.20 ppm ( this is from a chemical analysis I got from
the bottled water company.  I have other data if it helps. )

I added 1/8 t of CaCO3 to the boiling water and then 1/2 c. of peat.  Let
it boil for about 3 minutes.  I took it off the heat, added enough cold
spring water to make about a gallon and placed it in a gallon sized bucket
with lid.  Every morning and evening I shake it up really good. 

Last night I measured the hardness with an Aquarium Pharm. hardness test
and it was about 40 ppm.  The pH was about 6.6 or 6.5 using the Wardley pH
test kit which measures 6.2 to 7.4. 

My question is how stable will this water be with respect to pH with the
hardness measure of ~40 ppm?  I thought that peat replaces carbonate with
some kind of organic anion.  Does the hardness test reflect this or is
there alkalinity due to something other than carbonate in my water that the
test cannot measure?  Also if GH is measured by the amount of Ca or Mg then
why isnt my GH higher from the addition of CaCO3? ( i.e. Ca and CO3
separate, CO3 gets replaced by organic anion and Ca++ remains in solution
giving hardness).  I am very new at this and am slowly trying to understand
about the chemistry of water.  

Brewing sites have been very helpful with numbers but nothing seems to work
out like they say.  Brewers never add peat to beer.  Hmmmm, maybe it will
be a new kind of beer, Wicked Peat's Ale.

Thank you for any assistance you may be able to provide.

richardl