Brewing Water Calculator

A TypeScript library for calculating precise salt additions to achieve target water profiles in brewing. Uses quadratic programming to find optimal solutions that minimize deviations across all ions.

Features

• Optimal Salt Calculations: Uses quadratic programming to find the best combination of brewing salts
• Balanced Error Distribution: Minimizes squared deviations for even error distribution across all ions
• Comprehensive Brewing Analysis: Calculates alkalinity, residual alkalinity, hardness, and sulfate/chloride balance
• TypeScript Support: Fully typed for excellent IDE support
• Production Ready: Battle-tested in production brewing applications

Installation

npm install brewing-water-calculator

Usage

import { calculateWaterAdditions } from 'brewing-water-calculator';

// Define your base water profile (in ppm)
const baseProfile = {
  Ca: 22,
  Mg: 2.7,
  Na: 12,
  SO4: 6,
  Cl: 14,
  HCO3: 50
};

// Define your target water profile (in ppm)
const targetProfile = {
  Ca: 48,
  Mg: 2.7,
  Na: 12,
  SO4: 60,
  Cl: 40,
  HCO3: 50
};

// Calculate salt additions for 20 liters
const result = await calculateWaterAdditions({
  volumeLiters: 20,
  baseProfile,
  targetProfile
});

console.log(result);
// {
//   success: true,
//   additions: {
//     "Gypsum (CaSO4)": 1.5,
//     "Calcium Chloride (CaCl2)": 0.8,
//     "Epsom Salt (MgSO4)": 0,
//     "Table Salt (NaCl)": 0.3,
//     "Baking Soda (NaHCO3)": 0
//   },
//   calculatedProfile: {
//     Ca: 48.2,
//     Mg: 2.7,
//     Na: 12.5,
//     SO4: 59.8,
//     Cl: 39.9,
//     HCO3: 50
//   },
//   deviations: {
//     Ca: 0.2,
//     Mg: 0,
//     Na: 0.5,
//     SO4: -0.2,
//     Cl: -0.1,
//     HCO3: 0
//   },
//   totalSaltWeight: 2.6,
//   brewingAnalysis: {
//     alkalinity: 41,
//     residualAlkalinity: 5.8,
//     sulfateChlorideRatio: 1.5,
//     sulfateChlorideBalance: "Slightly Bitter",
//     totalHardness: 50.9,
//     effectiveHardness: 35.9,
//     colorRange: "8-20 EBC (Pale)"
//   }
// }

API

calculateWaterAdditions(input)

Calculates the optimal salt additions to achieve a target water profile.

Parameters:

• input (CalculationInput): Object containing:
  • volumeLiters (number): Volume of water in liters
  • baseProfile (WaterProfile): Starting water profile in ppm
  • targetProfile (WaterProfile): Desired water profile in ppm

Returns: Promise<CalculationResult>

• success (boolean): Whether calculation succeeded
• additions (SaltAdditions): Grams of each salt to add
• calculatedProfile (WaterProfile): Achieved water profile
• deviations (WaterProfile): Difference from target
• totalSaltWeight (number): Total grams of salts
• brewingAnalysis (BrewingAnalysis): Brewing-specific metrics

Type Interfaces

interface CalculationInput {
  volumeLiters: number;
  baseProfile: WaterProfile;
  targetProfile: WaterProfile;
}

interface WaterProfile {
  Ca: number;   // Calcium (ppm)
  Mg: number;   // Magnesium (ppm)
  Na: number;   // Sodium (ppm)
  SO4: number;  // Sulfate (ppm)
  Cl: number;   // Chloride (ppm)
  HCO3: number; // Bicarbonate (ppm)
}

Brewing Salts

The calculator uses these common brewing salts:

| Salt | Formula | Primary Contributions | |------|---------|----------------------| | Gypsum | CaSO₄·2H₂O | Calcium, Sulfate | | Calcium Chloride | CaCl₂·2H₂O | Calcium, Chloride | | Epsom Salt | MgSO₄·7H₂O | Magnesium, Sulfate | | Table Salt | NaCl | Sodium, Chloride | | Baking Soda | NaHCO₃ | Sodium, Bicarbonate |

Brewing Analysis Metrics

The calculator provides these brewing-specific metrics:

• Alkalinity: Total alkalinity as CaCO₃ (ppm)
• Residual Alkalinity: Effective alkalinity after calcium/magnesium compensation
• Sulfate/Chloride Ratio: Balance indicator for hop vs malt character
• Total Hardness: Ca + Mg (ppm)
• Effective Hardness: Palmer's formula (Ca/1.4 + Mg/1.7)
• Color Range: Suggested beer color based on residual alkalinity

Algorithm

The calculator uses quadratic programming to minimize the sum of squared deviations:

minimize: Σ(achieved[ion] - target[ion])²
subject to: salt_additions ≥ 0

This approach ensures:

• Optimal solution that minimizes total error
• Balanced error distribution across all ions
• No negative salt additions
• Mathematically proven optimal solution

Requirements

• Node.js >= 16.0.0
• TypeScript >= 5.0.0 (for development)

Development

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build the package
npm run build

# Clean build directory
npm run clean

License

MIT © Scott Ryburn

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome! Please feel free to submit bug reports or feature requests.

Links

• GitHub Repository
• NPM Package
• Issue Tracker