Pre-measured and mixed salts?

I have just started adjusting my water with brewing salts, and I find that my scale, though calibrated, takes a few minutes and multiple tries to give me consistent readings that are accurate to 0.1 grams. (The scale doesn't like me to sprinkle, it wants me to dump. It also weighs best when I hit the sweet spot at the center of the weighing platform.)

To save time on brew day, I was thinking that I might measure out my gypsum, CaCl, etc. a day or so in advance, and keep the mash and sparge additions in separate little mason jars. The different salts would be mixed together in each jar.

Any problem with this strategy? Will the chemicals react with each other in the jar in a way that would negate their effect on my brewing water?

I do it my self using old yeast vials and haven't had any visual reactions occur. I'm certainly not a chemist, so we may both learn something from this thread, but I believe you'd be ok.

501irishred said:

I do it my self using old yeast vials and haven't had any visual reactions occur. I'm certainly not a chemist, so we may both learn something from this thread, but I believe you'd be ok.

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Thanks. Anyone else care to chime in?

No problem with doing that. In fact I though at one time of putting the salts for Burton water, for Munich water, for Köln water... to treat 5 gal of RO water into 50 mL centrifuge tubes (like what Wyeast yeast nutrient comes in) and marketing them. Discovery that this would have to be done in a facility certified for processing food quickly discouraged me and as my knowledge of brewing water chemistry matured I realized that this was not a good approach so I dropped the idea. But there is no reason not to premix at home if you want to.

I take it one step further which is a big convenience on brew day. I dissolve the salts required to treat a full HLT in enough water to make up 35 mL of solution because my HLT is 35" high. If, during the brew day, I top up the HLT with, for example, 5" water I add 5 mL of this solution.

ajdelange said:

No problem with doing that. In fact I though at one time of putting the salts for Burton water, for Munich water, for Köln water... to treat 5 gal of RO water into 50 mL centrifuge tubes (like what Wyeast yeast nutrient comes in) and marketing them. Discovery that this would have to be done in a facility certified for processing food quickly discouraged me and as my knowledge of brewing water chemistry matured I realized that this was not a good approach so I dropped the idea. But there is no reason not to premix at home if you want to.

I take it one step further which is a big convenience on brew day. I dissolve the salts required to treat a full HLT in enough water to make up 35 mL of solution because my HLT is 35" high. If, during the brew day, I top up the HLT with, for example, 5" water I add 5 mL of this solution.

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Thanks, AJ!

Can you also premix in some lactic acid to this salts vial ?

craigevo said:

Can you also premix in some lactic acid to this salts vial ?

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As I understand it, you need to acidify your mash and sparge water before heating it, unless you're using acidulated malt. Since you add other brewing salts after doughing in, that would mean a lactic acid addition would be kept separate from the salts.

Someone correct me if I'm full of it.

craigevo said:

Can you also premix in some lactic acid to this salts vial ?

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Don't see why not.

tonyolympia said:

As I understand it, you need to acidify your mash and sparge water before heating it, unless you're using acidulated malt. Since you add other brewing salts after doughing in, that would mean a lactic acid addition would be kept separate from the salts.

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There's no reason that I can think of why you would necessarily want to acidify either before or after. Whichever is most convenient (for me it's before). And it's the same with the salts. Definitely more convenient to add them to the water than the mash. The concept of adding them to the mash comes from the days when people often added chalk which doesn't dissolve in water but I think (hope) those days are past.

Until you get 'dialed in' on the amount of acid or alkali (lime) you require it probably makes sense to add them to the mash. After you know how much to use you can add them to the water.

ajdelange said:

There's no reason that I can think of why you would necessarily want to acidify either before or after. Whichever is most convenient (for me it's before). And it's the same with the salts. Definitely more convenient to add them to the water than the mash. The concept of adding them to the mash comes from the days when people often added chalk which doesn't dissolve in water but I think (hope) those days are past.

Until you get 'dialed in' on the amount of acid or alkali (lime) you require it probably makes sense to add them to the mash. After you know how much to use you can add them to the water.

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There definitely is a reason to add acid before heating the water if you are calculating your acid addition based on the lab-reported water alkalinity. Heating the water will reduce the water's alkalinity to some degree and you would end up over-acidifying the mash water.

The problem with AJ's approach is that unless a brewer is brewing and rebrewing a recipe several times to 'dial it in', you wouldn't know where to start. I feel that is a foolish impediment to saddle a brewer with when there are easily applied calculations that do make it possible to get the mash pH in the ballpark THE FIRST TIME. AJ knows this since he provided me with those calculations. Those calculations are easily accessible to any brewer via the Bru'n Water software.

Enjoy!

mabrungard said:

Those calculations are easily accessible to any brewer via the Bru'n Water software.

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Thanks, AJ and Martin. I'm just starting water adjustments (one batch so far) but I've followed the guidance in Bru'n Water.

Waking a dead thread here because I'm consistently seeing a strange issue balancing the pH of my sparge water, and this issue seems to belong here.

Background: I use the Brunwater spreadsheet to great effect balancing my mash - whether it's a lager or a porter - really great. I brew on a 3-vessel HERMS system and always start with 12 gallons of sparge water in the HLT regardless of how much I intend to use (most often with a 10g batch I use most of it). I use the Hanna pHep meter with a good/new probe.

I always add the prescribed amount of salts and acid to the sparge and let it mix/recirculate for at least 10 minutes during the temperature ramp to mash-out 170F. What I've noticed is that if I add, say, 1.3cc, and then extract, cool and measure a sample pH at something like 6.2, I want to add a little additional lactic to bring the down to 5.6-5.8. If I then add 0.2cc, wait 5-10mins, extract, cool and measure a new sample, it will have dropped dramatically to something like 4.7 all of a sudden.

Can anyone explain this weird phenomenon? Is the changing temperature of the sparge water affecting the pH (keeping in mind I cool all samples to room temp before using my pH meter)?

In going from pH 5.7 (I'll use the average) to pH 4.7 the charge on 1 mmol of carbo (the carbonic, bicarbonate, carbonate system) changes Qc(4.7) - Qc(5.7) = 0.156 mEq/mmol. As 88% lactic acid is about 11 N (each cc releases 11 mEq protons in going to pH's near 5) then the carbo level must be
0.2*11/0.156 = 14.1 mmol (for the whole 12 gal).

So we have 0.2*11/(Qc(4.7) - Qc(5.7) ) = 14.1 for this second change in pH. For the first change you used 1.3 mL of acid which has normality of about 11.7 N (because the pH is a bit higher) and the same formula applies:
1.3*11.7/(Qc(5.7) - Qc(pH?) ) = 14.1 mmol
because the amount of carbo is the same but now the shift is from pH? to 5.7. It doesn't take long to figure that pH? = 9.92 and so if the water you started with had a high pH (even if not as high as 9.92 because we are being pretty approximate) then everything is quite normal. Now, OTOH, if you started with water at pH 7 then things aren't kosher here.