I was down at the local brewpub on Tuesday for a tasting, stayed around to try some homebrews with a couple other guys and the brewmaster. We'd asked him about water modifications and he said that all they do is filter it really well. They make a great IPA (what I'm striving for) and also do a great oatmeal stout. He said his mash PH is always right around 5.4. I'm not positive he has the same water as me, (being about a mile from my house) but on the other side of the river. I have really really hard water, he said they do as well.
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Primary: Nothin Secondary: Shady Lord RIS, Water to Barleywine, Pumpkin wine, burnt mead Kegged: Crappy infected mild Bottles: Apfelwein, 999 Barleywine, Oatmeal Stout, Robust Porter, Robust smoked porter, Simcoe Smash
Sadly, I know from experience that one cannot make good beer with my "hard" water.
HCO3 - 687ppm.
I think my Mg - 84ppm, probably had a part in destroying those early beers as well.
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"If you do it right, brewing is about ideas. A big impression can be made with brute force, but sometimes a whisper speaks louder than a shout." - Randy Mosher
the conclusion is that there is a correlation between SRM and RA needed for a good enough mash pH but that correlation is loose and not linear. The RA changes needed to shift the pH up or down are fairly large (about 100 ppm for 0.1 pH shift at 1.5 qt/lb) and as a result the range of beers one can brew with moderately hard water is pretty wide.
Sadly, I know from experience that one cannot make good beer with my "hard" water.
HCO3 - 687ppm.
I think my Mg - 84ppm, probably had a part in destroying those early beers as well.
This is way off the chart and I agree that you will have trouble brewing good beer with that water regardless if style. I think cases like yours is what prompted home brewers interest in water chemistry in the first place while most others have water that works well for most styles and therefore see no need to look into water chem.
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On Deck: Apfelwein
Fermenting: Oatmeal Stout
Conditioning:
Drinking:
Wow thanks Kia! My RA is right around 100, so it looks like I shouldn't be loosing much efficiency due to my RA (maybe in really light beers) but perhaps to my crush, which I just bought a MM-2 to fix. And really I should be paying attention to my chloride-sulfate ratio more than my RA when doing my IPAs. I have a water softener I bypass when I brew, but I have galvanized pipe (mostly rusted inside) that I bet holds on to a lot of the chloride.
__________________
"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." - V
Primary: Nothin Secondary: Shady Lord RIS, Water to Barleywine, Pumpkin wine, burnt mead Kegged: Crappy infected mild Bottles: Apfelwein, 999 Barleywine, Oatmeal Stout, Robust Porter, Robust smoked porter, Simcoe Smash
I find it interesting that you found it took 100ppm to change the pH by 0.1. This tells me that Palmer's RA range is flawed when he states that the low range estimates pH of 5.4 and the high range estimates pH at 5.8.
I graphed Palmer's RA range lines onto your RA over SRM with mash pH 5.4 chart and put error bars of 100ppm from the lower RA range line.
The results of that tell me that if I use Palmer's lower RA range then I will be able to secure pH range 5.3 -5.5 regardless of malts used in the 0 -15 SRM spectrum.
That logic fails when moving to 20-40 SRM beer. The line should now have a gentle curve from 15 to 40 SRM with it plateauing at RA of 200ppm. (which I believe I read that Palmer agrees with this.)
Your results have certainly built confidence in my ability to hit an acceptable pH based on SRM without being obsessed with each ppm.
I'm looking forward to what you come up with in terms of typing in a recipe and having an RA prediction based on the types and percentages of malts entered, not just SRM. That application in a Beersmith type program would be great!
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"If you do it right, brewing is about ideas. A big impression can be made with brute force, but sometimes a whisper speaks louder than a shout." - Randy Mosher
I find it interesting that you found it took 100ppm to change the pH by 0.1
This was found as a result of my mash pH experiments and it depends on mash thickness. While, in hindsight, that is obvious since more water per grain means that the water has more effect on the pH it was largely believed that an RA change of 100 ppm causes a pH change of 0.16. That was taken from Kolbach’s pH work which was not about mash pH. It was about cast out wort pH instead.
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I graphed Palmer's RA range lines onto your RA over SRM with mash pH 5.4 chart and put error bars of 100ppm from the lower RA range line.
The results of that tell me that if I use Palmer's lower RA range then I will be able to secure pH range 5.3 -5.5 regardless of malts used in the 0 -15 SRM spectrum.
I have done that to. Just to compare and I agree with your findings. But going forward I’ll refrain from direct comparison, though. I don’t want this to be a competition.
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That logic fails when moving to 20-40 SRM beer. The line should now have a gentle curve from 15 to 40 SRM with it plateauing at RA of 200ppm. (which I believe I read that Palmer agrees with this.)
Yes, I do recall that Palmer said not to exceed an RA of 200 ppm. The most striking difference in his and my recommendations is that for the same beer color grist with large amounts of roasted malts will require less RA than grists with large amounts of crystal malt. But it is also true that you can’t really get beyond 20 SRM by using only crystal malts. Theoretically you can, but who wants to brew a beer with 20% C120.
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Your results have certainly built confidence in my ability to hit an acceptable pH based on SRM without being obsessed with each ppm.
That has been one of my goals and the data that I have seems to do a good job explaining why you can brew a given beer with a wide range residual alkalinities and vice versa a wide range of beer colors with given water.
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I'm looking forward to what you come up with in terms of typing in a recipe and having an RA prediction based on the types and percentages of malts entered, not just SRM.
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