Side by side water modification test - Page 4

Brew-Happy · 12-03-2009, 09:02 PM

OK, I have been following this dialogue and I am befuddles by RA. What does this acronym represent.

And yes I googled it and was tired of finding only the RA but not the definition

Thanks.

Good discussion BTW.

flyangler18 · 12-03-2009, 09:05 PM

Quote:

RA

Residual Alkalinity

Scimmia · 12-03-2009, 09:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaiser

Yes, I do recall that Palmer said not to exceed an RA of 200 ppm.

I've been doing a lot of reading/listening lately trying to understand water in preparation for a RIS this weekend. On Brew Strong's "Waterganza", he recommended topping out at 250 ppm RA, except for the blackest imperial stouts, maxing out at 300 ppm there.

I don't mean to nit-pick or anything, the numbers were just fresh in my head.

Kaiser · 12-03-2009, 10:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scimmia

I've been doing a lot of reading/listening lately trying to understand water in preparation for a RIS this weekend. On Brew Strong's "Waterganza", he recommended topping out at 250 ppm RA, except for the blackest imperial stouts, maxing out at 300 ppm there.

I don't mean to nit-pick or anything, the numbers were just fresh in my head.

Stone brews their RIS with about 70 ppm RA I guess.

The problem with 200+ ppm RA is getting there. Unless your water is that hard you only have chalk and baking soda. If not dissolved chalk's ability to raise the pH is limited to an increase of about 0.2. I don't know why, but that's what I have observed.

The RA you'll need for that RIS will largely depend on how much color is coming from crystal malts. But I don't think you need to go any higher than 200 ppm. The whole water chemistry thing is sparking my interest to brew one of my own.

Kai

boredatwork · 12-03-2009, 11:10 PM

From my experience water chemistry has two functions in brewing:

1. Mash pH
2. Beer Flavor

Obviously in AG you care about both, but even in extract you still care about flavor.

I had a hefeweizen extract beer that came out horribly bitter with filtered tap water because of very soft water and a high sulfate:chloride. When I fixed my water to a desirable profile, I was able to achieve a beautiful hefeweizen (although this one was AG).

But here is the interesting thing, and this has been discussed in other threads, the bad flavor didn't come across until after carbonation. And I found this to be true in two other beers as well (both extract and AG).

So it would be worthwhile to test flavor at different stages.

Brew-Happy · 12-03-2009, 11:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flyangler18

Residual Alkalinity

Thank you. Now I can comprehend the conversation.

adx · 12-03-2009, 11:41 PM

I'm also interested to see the results since I have pretty water with basically no Ca or Mg in it. The one thing that is missing is what are you doing for fermentation (yeast, vessels, time,etc. )?

SpanishCastleAle · 12-04-2009, 11:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaiser

Stone brews their RIS with about 70 ppm RA I guess.

The problem with 200+ ppm RA is getting there. Unless your water is that hard you only have chalk and baking soda. If not dissolved chalk's ability to raise the pH is limited to an increase of about 0.2. I don't know why, but that's what I have observed.

The RA you'll need for that RIS will largely depend on how much color is coming from crystal malts. But I don't think you need to go any higher than 200 ppm. The whole water chemistry thing is sparking my interest to brew one of my own.

Kai

If you don't have alkaline enough water for dark brews, would there be a benefit to adding the dark roasted grains in Stouts/Porters toward the end of the mash? I recently did this on a Porter. I just used bottled water which has an RA suitable for ~12-ish SRM (which is what the beer sans roasted malts would yield), then added the Chocolate/Roasted Barley after I had infused up to 160 F (Hochkurz mash schedule). But I forgot to measure pH after adding the dark grains.

**conpewter** · 12-04-2009, 12:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SpanishCastleAle

If you don't have alkaline enough water for dark brews, would there be a benefit to adding the dark roasted grains in Stouts/Porters toward the end of the mash? I recently did this on a Porter. I just used bottled water which has an RA suitable for ~12-ish SRM (which is what the beer sans roasted malts would yield), then added the Chocolate/Roasted Barley after I had infused up to 160 F (Hochkurz mash schedule). But I forgot to measure pH after adding the dark grains.

Interesting idea! From what I'm reading your RA doesn't make a big difference to PH unless it is way out of range for the beer, so you might be fine anyway. On the other hand you may want to add brewing salts for flavor anyway which could change your RA and help you out.

Kaiser · 12-04-2009, 02:00 PM

We seem to be getting to off-topic with respect to Bobby's initial thread. I created a new thread to continue the discussion: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/srm-ra-analysis-150185/#post1718273

Is it possible to move selected posts to that new thread?

Kai