First Time with Water Adjustment Evaluation

So I decided to look at my water profile using Bru'n Water to see if I should be adjusting anything.

I plan on brewing the Bells 2 Hearted Clone Recipe from this site. After working my way through the sheets it looks like my water (without dilution) will be acceptable for brewing using the pale ale profile other then both the mash and sparge needing additions of lactic acid to bring the ph into range.

My sodium content does appear to be outside of the range (but below the max 150ppm) which looks like it can be corrected with a small dilution of water if required. Hoping to avoid this unless being much lower will make an important difference

I was hoping someone could take a look and tell me if I'm missing something or if I should be making any other adjustments.

Thanks in advance

While sodium can be fine in some styles, I think you will find that this beer will be minerally tasting with that Na content. 150 ppm Na is pushing it for most styles. You might find 90 to 100 ppm interesting in a porter or stout, but I find that you do want the Na content significantly reduced in paler styles and when the water has much sulfate. I would cut the Na in half if you intend to use the pale ale profile.

Thanks for the reply mabrungard.

In order to drop the sodium to half I have to dilute with RO water at a ratio of 50/50. When I adjust this my calcium and sulfate values are quite low which can be corrected with 4.8 grams of gypsum. In addition I no longer need any acid to correct the mash ph. The sparge still requires an addition of lactic acid. Is there any concern treating both the mash water and sparge water with gypsum as indicated?

Thanks again!

I am also trying to learn this water thing, so I am interested in this as well. How much of a concern is his bicarbonate level? I haven't seen good guidelines for bicarbonate, like for boh. pilsner it should be in such range, for ambers in this one and stouts and porters get this much. Is that something that people generally aren't concerned with?
Also, let's say a boh. pilsner calls for range in the 80s, what affect would bicarbonate in the 100s have on it?
He has 185, is his only option dilution, or is bicarbonate something not important as long as the salts and ph are appropriate?

Bicarbonate content (aka: alkalinity) is always the most important concern in brewing since it is the largest determinant of mash and wort pH. These is a proper level for each brew. When the raw water contains too much alkalinity, then the potential is higher for the acid used to neutralize that excess alkalinity to overly flavor the water and the resulting beer. Brewers should not fixate of a bicarbonate content, they should focus on producing an acceptable mash and wort pH.

Your mash pH calculation is wrong.

You have 2 gallons as your mash volume. That's very small. I can't imaging you're mashing 10 lbs of grain with 2 gallons only.

Assuming you mash with 1.2 to 1.5 qt./lb of grain the mash volume should be 3 to 3.75 gallons.

Change that and your pH will rise closer to true value.

Also 300ppm sulphate as a chosen target seems crazy to me.

300 ppm is not excessive. I recently tried a lesser sulfate level in my standard APA recipe to see if I liked it better. I dropped the level to about 200 ppm. The result was good, but not as good as with 300 ppm in my opinion. I've also tried 100 ppm sulfate in the same APA recipe and was nowhere close to what I expect, but still nicely drinkable. Sulfate is an important factor in producing a nice dry finish to the beer and allowing the bittering and hop character to come through strongly.

I won't say that 300 ppm sulfate is what all drinkers will prefer, but many do.

mabrungard said:

300 ppm is not excessive. I recently tried a lesser sulfate level in my standard APA recipe to see if I liked it better. I dropped the level to about 200 ppm. The result was good, but not as good as with 300 ppm in my opinion. I've also tried 100 ppm sulfate in the same APA recipe and was nowhere close to what I expect, but still nicely drinkable. Sulfate is an important factor in producing a nice dry finish to the beer and allowing the bittering and hop character to come through strongly.

I won't say that 300 ppm sulfate is what all drinkers will prefer, but many do.

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Good to know. It seems to be up there at (brewer un-modified) Burton on Trent levels. I've never gone anywhere approaching those levels out of fear I suppose and have wondered why it is the default for an APA in your software.

As a novice I'm in no position to disagree with an expert like yourself.

Thanks for the education.

Thanks for the heads up on the mash volume. I have it correct on the adjustment portion but messed up on the page outlining the grain bill

Yea fixing that up increases ph enough that acid addition is required in the mash. Thanks Gavin C.

mabrungard said:

Bicarbonate content (aka: alkalinity) is always the most important concern in brewing since it is the largest determinant of mash and wort pH. These is a proper level for each brew. When the raw water contains too much alkalinity, then the potential is higher for the acid used to neutralize that excess alkalinity to overly flavor the water and the resulting beer. Brewers should not fixate of a bicarbonate content, they should focus on producing an acceptable mash and wort pH.

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This confuses me. In bru'n water, you have separate table for alkalinity and hardness and separate table for estimating carbonates and bicarbonates based on total alkalinity and ph. Why are you saying that bicarbonate content is the same as alkalinity? Also, all desired water profiles list bicarbonate and alkalinity as separate fields. If they are the same, then why list both? I understand the role of alkalinity when it comes to adjusting mash PH, but I'm not clear why you are listing bicarbonate as a separate variables and then displaying it on the water adjustment sheet as well. That is if it's effectively the same as alkalinity.
Is the bicarbonates value something that can be ignored as long as mash PH is in the appropriate range, or something that brewers should be concerned with? If we should be concerned with it, then what measures do we need to take to address its value, one way or another?
If we should not be concerned with it, then why list it as a separate variable on the sheets?

alagenchev said:

This confuses me. In bru'n water, you have separate table for alkalinity and hardness and separate table for estimating carbonates and bicarbonates based on total alkalinity and ph. Why are you saying that bicarbonate content is the same as alkalinity?

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I'll leave it to Martin to explain why he uses bicarbonate as a proxy for alkalinity but I will point out that brewers don't care a fig about bicarbonate or carbonate except as curiosities. What we care about is alkalinity. There is history relevant to using calcium carbonate as a proxy for alkalinity. It is sketched out at https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=473408.

alagenchev said:

This confuses me.

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I am opposed to the use of either 'as calcium carbonate' or 'as bicarbonate' because you aren't the only one confused. There is a rationale for 'as calcium carbonate' in natural waters as it is far and away the major source of alkalinity in natural water. Besides that we've been using those units for years in the US and it isn't going away soon. We can use any ion as a proxy (I kind of like 'as Vanadate') and a chemist, if he sees alkalinity expressed as Vanadate, even though there is no vanadate present, knows exactly what that means. The same is true of 'as bicarbonate'. The problem arises when someone such as yourself uses the spreadsheet to calculate the effects of adding lime to distilled water and sees that, according to the spreadsheet, there is bicarbonate in his water. Or, more confusing still, when he adds acid he gets negative bicarbonate. I understand what that means but I also certainly understand that many people wouldn't.

I think, I finally understand. Bicarbonate and Carbonate are the main buffers(bases) that make up alkalinity. Since at the ph that we usually work with in brewing, we have primarily Bicarbs, then it's OK to consider it as an extension of Alkalinity.
However, I am not sure why it's needed if we already have alkalinity? I am guessing that Martin might be using it as a direct input to some of his equations.
Thanks AJ for clearing things up. This thread is very helpful as well https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=387390

Just realised that I might contribute to the confusion. Bicarbonate is an ion. When it reacts with acid, it acts as a base. When it reacts with a base, it's effectively an acid. That's why I had base in perentheses, it really is just a buffer.

Yes, bicarbonate is amphoteric for sure but that is not what is important here. I don't know, of course, what any of these spreadsheets do in detail but it seems that they do use it a a complete proxy for alkalinity. At some point, in doing mash pH prediction, one has to knw how many mEq of acid are needed to move the water from the pH at which it came out of the tap to the desired mash pH. To do get this one needs to calculate the total amount of carbo (carbonic, bicarbonate and carbonate) in the water at the pH of the water before any treatment. This depends on pH and alkalinity to a (known) alkalinity titration end point. Rather than do any of this these programs seem to prefer bicarbonate input and divide it by 61 to get an estimate of the alkalinity rather than the more sensible approach of taking the alkalinity and water pH to calculate carbo and from that the amount of acid needed to get to pHz, the desired pH.

ajdelange said:

I'll leave it to Martin to explain why he uses bicarbonate as a proxy for alkalinity but I will point out that brewers don't care a fig about bicarbonate or carbonate except as curiosities. What we care about is alkalinity.

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AJ, I'm disappointed in you! I can assure you that most brewers don't care a fig about alkalinity either. All they care about is that their beer tastes better.

Yes, Bru'n Water does employ bicarbonate concentration as an allegory for alkalinity. I'm sorry that this usage hurts your intellect, but it still enables me to properly account for the acidity, alkalinity, and resulting pH.

What hurts is that I know full well that you have the intellect to account for these things in proper fashion thereby reducing confusion and yet steadfastly refuse to do so.

One additional question that I have is the Bru'n water spreadsheet seems to calculate all the additions based on total water volume. Does this not result in to high concentrations once I've boiled down to my final batch volume?

Destovi said:

One additional question that I have is the Bru'n water spreadsheet seems to calculate all the additions based on total water volume. Does this not result in to high concentrations once I've boiled down to my final batch volume?

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That is correct. But the starting water concentrations are a decent way to look at water treatment. If we consider that a typical brewer is going to lose 10 to 15 percent of the original volume and the resulting beer gives a pleasing result, then it really doesn't matter where the concentrations ended up at.

However, if a system or a boiling regimen resulted in well over 15 percent loss, then we no longer have an apples to apples comparison. Under that situation, it would be better to calculate mineral additions based more on the end of boil volume than the start of boil volume. Performing that adjustment is more difficult than using the starting water volume method, but it might be something that you have to do.

I find that brewers that make smaller batches (say 1 or 2 gal), they can often boil off at a much higher percentage than 10 or 15 percent and they do need to consider reduced mineral additions and may also need to consider the ionic concentration of their tap water constituents.