Help with modifying water w/Bru'n Water

DPB · 01-30-2012, 12:30 PM

The recipe is for a simple 5.5 gallon batch of Pale Ale Recipe -7.5lbs 2 Row (2L) and 1lb Carafoam (2L)- with a 2.80 gal. mash water (really 2.75 gal. mash but Bru’n Water rounds up to 2.8 for some reason) and 7 gal. sparge water.

My goal is to get the ph level down to 5.2-5.8 range. I have never attempted to modify my water I wanted to see if I was going about this in the correct manner. It seems pretty simple I add .75 ml/gal of phosphoric acid per gallon and I am in range for my ph.

My question is will the modified water profile potentially produce a better Pale Ale than my existing? I know there are other factors at play than just ph to produce a decent brewing water (my water is pretty hard). Are there other simple straight forward modifications I should be considering/making? I don’t want to get too involved with water modifications as long as I am in the ball park in both ph and profile.

Thanks for any help.

Current profile:
Ca- 102.0
Mg- 26.0
Na- 52.0
SO4 81.0
Cl- 71.0
HCO3- 328

Total Hardness 362
Alkalinity 271
RA 183

Ph 7.4

Desired water profile for a Pale Ale is:

Ca- 165.0
Mg- 18.0
Na- 25.0
SO4- 300.0
Cl- 55.0
HCO3- 180.0

Total Hardness 487
Alkalinity 149
RA 20
Ph

When I add .75ml per gal. of phosphoric acid my finished water profile is:

Ca- 102.0
Mg- 26.0
Na- 52.0
SO4- 81.0
Cl- 71.0
HCO3- 127.8

Total Hardness 363
Alkalinity 106
RA 18

Estimated Ph 5.4

jmf143 · 01-30-2012, 01:50 PM

I've followed Martin's advice and upped my SO4 to the 200 range using gypsum. My pale ales are better for it.

I've also used the Sparge Acidification tab to acidify my sparge water with lactic acid. My efficiency seems a bit higher than before and I've reduced/eliminated the possiblity of extracting tannins in my batch sparges.

**ajdelange** · 01-30-2012, 02:36 PM

If you add 0.75 mL of 80% phosphoric acid per gallon to the water the pH will (assuming it was 7 originally) drop to around 5.36. Note this is the pH of the water - not the mash. This is enough to reduce the alkalinity to around 63 and the RA to around 7. The calcium, however, will go down to about 58 for a total hardness of about 252. With RA of 7 your mash pH will probably be around 5.6 - 5.7 which is marginal

These numbers are based on the assumption that calcium phosphate (apatite) will precipitate until the water is no longer saturated WRT calcium phophate i.e. is at equilibrium WRT to it. Equilibrium may or may not be reached. IOW this is a pretty complicated calculation and has to be considered approximate.

The real message is that phosphoric is probably not the best choice for water that is so hard. You would probably be better off boiling the water to drop most of the calcium and bicarb and then acidifying with phosphoric as necessary to hit mash pH. Several people are reporting success with lime treatment as well. See the thread at http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/treating-hard-water-lime-my-experience-296075/ on that.

DPB · 01-30-2012, 03:10 PM

I added 1 gram per gallon into the Bru'n Water spreadsheet it upped the Sulfate content from 81 to the 228 range. I believe the style has it closer to 300 but I'm fine with 228. Thanks for the tip.

Total hardness is 516 now and Alkalinity is 106 with the addition of the gypsum. Should I be concerned or is this an acceptable trade off? I'm still learning water chemistry and brewing, this may be incredibly out of whack I just don't realize it.

DPB · 01-30-2012, 03:21 PM

Ajdelange,

When I look at the spreadsheet when I entered the phosphoric acid the Alkalinity is 106 and the RA is 18, am I reading the wrong sheet/info? It is on the Water Profile Adjustment Calculator of Bru'n Water (if you are familiar).

If I am understanding you correctly, don't use phosphoric acid for such hard water. Would I be better off diluting my water with RO water? I don't want to burn through the propane and add time to the brew day boiling the water. Thanks for taking the time to answer questions I'm sure you've answered many times before.

**ajdelange** · 01-30-2012, 04:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DPB

When I look at the spreadsheet when I entered the phosphoric acid the Alkalinity is 106 and the RA is 18, am I reading the wrong sheet/info? It is on the Water Profile Adjustment Calculator of Bru'n Water (if you are familiar).

When Apple "improved" their operating system Excel would no longer run on it so Microsoft upgraded Excel but the upgrade won't open spreadsheets done in older versions on a PC. Therefore, I can no longer open Bru'n Water to check but I don't believe it accounts for precipitation of calcium phosphate. If you add a small amount of phosphoric acid to hard, alkaline water like yours and the hardness (calcium content) doesn't change then it isn't accounting for this effect.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DPB

If I am understanding you correctly, don't use phosphoric acid for such hard water.

I did say that but I should point out that the problem is not with phosphoric acid but rather with accurately modeling its effects. There is already a lot of phosphate in malt so adding some more will not have a detrimental effect on the flavor of the beer other than any that might be associated with stripping calcium.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DPB

Would I be better off diluting my water with RO water?

From the point of view of better predictability I'd say yes, You have hard, alkaline water and that alkalinity must be dealt with. It is more than can be handled by increasing hardness so acid is required. The options are remove it (with lime or heat) or dilute it with RO. The latter is definitely the simplest (unless you have to drive half way across the state to get RO water).

Quote:

Originally Posted by DPB

I don't want to burn through the propane and add time to the brew day boiling the water.

Lime treatment is an option but at least as much trouble as boiling.

For guys just starting out I recommend the KISS approach as set out in the Primer in this topic. As you gain experience you can move on to a more engineered approach to your water.

DPB · 01-30-2012, 05:59 PM

Thanks for the link, your patience and your time. It is greatly appreciated by me and I am sure for others starting out.

DPB · 01-30-2012, 06:41 PM

one more thing...

When could/would you use phosphoric acid? In other words what is the recommended hardness, alkalinity of the water be in order to successfuly utilize phosphoric acid?

**ajdelange** · 01-30-2012, 06:53 PM

Well it's not so much a question of when you can or cannot do it but rather a question of when it becomes difficult to calculate. If you took your water and softened it with lime or by boiling to the point where alkalinity and hardness were both about 50 you could add phosphoric acid to reduce the pH to 5.9 (as many do for sparging) without precipitating calcium and, in the process, reducing alkalinity to around 20.

If you wanted to use phosphoric with your untreated water you could do calculations like the ones I described, add the calculated amount of phosporic acid and then measure pH, alkalinity and calcium hardness to see if the model is good for your conditions. Some tweaking might be necessary but you should be able to hit the mash parameters you want after some experimentation.

**Homercidal** · 01-30-2012, 07:06 PM

So I have pretty alkaline water (186) not sure if it's "hard" so much. Last time I measured my pH during the mash it was accurate for the amount of Phosphoric acid I added and the grains used (well, it would have been accurate if I hadn't missed deleting a grain off my list in brunwater.

So how would I know that the amount of acid used is going to be accurate in Brunwater? Is the pH check good enough? How could I check alkalinity?