How to Clone Mineral Water (2012) | Hacker News Reader

How to Clone Mineral Water (2012)

ediblegeography.com

82 pointsdalton13 comments

Burton salts (as used for homebrewing, to match the mineral content of the water of Burton-on-Trent: https://www.morebeer.com/products/burton-salts-brewing-1-lb.... ) are a pretty close match to San Pellegrino at 1.2g/L. You want the salts to be dissolved in the water before carbonating it. And of course, this might not work well if you have highly mineralized tap water to start with.

Why before?

The salt will act as a nucleation site, pulling all the CO2 out of the water before it dissolves.

I imagine to prevent the salts from providing surface area to allow the carbon dioxide to nucleate and create bubbles. At least that is my thought on why.

You could experiment with pouring some salt into something carbonated. I believe it would bubble more vigorously than before.

It just won't be the same without San Pel's bubbly sweet kick of uranium, not safe for children under two years of age.

I just happened to have a bottle of San Pellegrino and a Radalert 100 radiation monitor.

Background radiation is about 15 cpm on average, and right next to the bottle was in the same range.

Doesn't appear that there is any danger.

Doesn't uranium mostly emit alpha particles? They won't escape the bottle. It's in the body when the harm can occur.

I have worked in La Hague. It was common knowledge that during an annual check of staff, the tests were accurate enough to identify smokers and it was always asked if the subject was a heavy drinker of San Pellegrino because this had an impact of measures. Ingested radioactive material is far more dangerous than exposition to radiations. I am mostly pro nuclear, but IMHO, the recomandation to avoid San Pellegrino for young childs should be taken seriously.

Wikipedia say young children should avoid it because of the high mineral content not because of radioactovity. - "S.Pellegrino is not suitable for infants under 12 weeks of age,[39] because their gastrointestinal tract and urinary system is immature and cannot withstand highly mineralized water." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.Pellegrino

I grew up not far from Burton-on-Trent and never realised the significance of the water to the brewing industry. In hindsight it's obvious, but I guess, I never really thought about it.

Anyway, found this nice write up [1] on the history of the town.

[1] http://allaboutbeer.com/article/burton-on-trent%E2%80%94the-...

Heh, I'm in Stoke-on-Trent and even though I've been through/past it loads, I've never realised B-O-T is so important either.

Imagine my surprise when I clicked the "a mineral water calculator" link and my browser downloaded an Excel spreadsheet. It'd be cool to port this to the web.

There are a few online. Just search for homebrewing water chemistry calculators.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com