Munton's DME mineral analysis

I contacted Munton's for info regarding their DME. I use their x-tra light DME in most of my brews and now that I am playing with the water minerals, I figured it would be good to know what was already in the ingredients I use.

As a public forum, I figured it would be helpful to post the response I got back.

Please find attached the trace element analysis we quote for our Spraymalt products. Note that this is historical data which is now several years old - so use them as an indication only. To be honest, we rarely get asked for trace element data, and hence we don't regularly update this.

Trace Elements:

Figures expressed in ppm (mg/kg) dry weight
Fe 0.5 - 3.5
Mn 0.5 - 2.5
Cu 0.5 - 3.5
Zn 0.5 - 3.0
Mg 350 - 700
Ca 150 - 400
Na 200 - 600
K 3500 - 7000

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To use this info (focusing only on Mg, Ca, and Na) - let's say I use 3lbs (~6.6 kg) of their DME in a batch. This would mean that I am adding 2.3-4.6 grams of Mg, 1.0-2.6 grams of Ca, and 1.3-4.0 grams of Na. I would then factor that into my batch volume to find out my final beer chemistry. Right?

EDIT: just realized there is no info concerning Cl or SO4, which would be nice to know. I'll contact them again to see if I can get those numbers.

This is an interesting analysis and it would be helpful to know what the brewing water was like.

What you see there are minerals that come from the water and from the malt. When we talk about minerals in brewing we generally talk about the mineral composition of the brewing water. Some of these minerals will precipitate and stay behind in the spent grain while the grain will add minerals of its own. Since we cannot easily measure the mineral content of the wort, which you have an analysis of, we don’t care about that and base our mineral recommendations on treatments for the brewing water as well as additional kettle additions.

Basically, you may not be able to use the guidelines that we have for water treatment for finding a target wort mineral profile.

Kai

But those minerals that would be left behind in the spent grain won't be in the extract, right? They're sitting back there at the Munton's manufacturing plant along with the grain that was mashed to create the extract. Given that this is an analysis of the extract and not the original grains, can't it be safe to assume that whatever is in the extract will end up in my wort once I dissolve it? Or are you suggesting that some of the minerals/ions would not dissolve along with the extract?

JLem said:

But those minerals that would be left behind in the spent grain won't be in the extract, right? They're sitting back there at the Munton's manufacturing plant along with the grain that was mashed to create the extract. Given that this is an analysis of the extract and not the original grains, can't it be safe to assume that whatever is in the extract will end up in my wort once I dissolve it? Or are you suggesting that some of the minerals/ions would not dissolve along with the extract?

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yes, everything will dissolve. What I was saying is that we don't have mineral targets for the mineral content of wort, which means it is difficult to say how much is good and how much is bad.

Kai

Kaiser said:

yes, everything will dissolve. What I was saying is that we don't have mineral targets for the mineral content of wort, which means it is difficult to say how much is good and how much is bad.

Kai

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Ok, I get what you are saying, but couldn't we treat the extract just like we would gypsum or sodium bicarbonate?

I mash my grains with my water, which has a particular chemistry. I don't take the actual mineral/ion content of the grain into account, but still add minerals, based on that base water chemistry, to both the mash and the kettle to adjust the Ca, Mg, Cl, SO4, and HCO3 to hit a target profile. If I now know that the extract I am adding to the boil contains 2 grams of Ca, I don't have to add as much gypsum or calcium chloride as I would have if I didn't add the extract.

First off, I think is an issue that can easily be over-thought. But we are in the Science forum where we can geek out as much as we want.

JLem said:

Ok, I get what you are saying, but couldn't we treat the extract just like we would gypsum or sodium bicarbonate?

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JLem said:

I mash my grains with my water, which has a particular chemistry. I don't take the actual mineral/ion content of the grain into account, but still add minerals, based on that base water chemistry, to both the mash and the kettle to adjust the Ca, Mg, Cl, SO4, and HCO3 to hit a target profile. If I now know that the extract I am adding to the boil contains 2 grams of Ca, I don't have to add as much gypsum or calcium chloride as I would have if I didn't add the extract.

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If you, for example, brew with a brewing water that has 100 ppm Ca, the amount of Ca, that will be in the resulting wort is unknown to you since we generally don’t measure Ca levels in the wort. But we know that for getting the desired flavor profile we want to start with 100 ppm Ca in the water.

If some of your extract comes from malt extract with a known Ca content, you still don’t know how much additional Ca you need in the brewing water or as kettle addition to reach the wort Ca content that you would have gotten if all your extract would have come from a mash with a 100 ppm Ca brewing water. This is because you don’t know the target Ca level in the wort.

I used Ca for illustration, but it should also apply to other ions.

Now what should you do? I wouldn’t over-think it. Start brewing with soft water (low mineral content) as Munton’s water profile is already “condensed” in that extract. Then you can play around with various salt additions to the kettle and observe their impact on the flavor profile.

Kai

This OP was made almost 3 years ago, but I'm not getting the conversions from ppm to grams in 3 lbs of extract. My calcs for the highest value of Na (600 ppm):
3 lbs x 1kg/2.2lbs = 1.36kg
1.36kg x 600mg/kg = 818mg
818mg x 1g/1000mg = 0.82g

So only 0.82g of Na in 3 lbs of extract, not 4g. The best part is that 5 gallons of wort that is only about 40 ppm.