Water Report - Brewing Double IPA

Attaching water report and EZ water screenshot. I guess my water requires much to reduce the mash PH to acceptable levels. EZ water, using lactic acid, requires 4ml to get it down to 5.5.. Does this seem reasonable? also, I added some Epsom salt to drive up sulfates based on profile for Pliny clone. Does this mean I add 1gram in mash and 1 gram in Sparge or Boil?

It's pretty easy to do a sanity check. Take your water's alkalinity (187) and convert to mEq/L (3.74) by dividing by 50 (or doubling and then moving the decimal point 2 places to the left. You will need about 90% of that to neutralize the water to mash pH. This is 0.9*3.74 = 3.37 mEq/L. For 4 gallons mash water (you need to do this for the sparge water too) that's 4*3.785*0.9*3.74 = 51 mEq. Each mL of 88% lactic acid can deliver 11.4 mEq so you will need 4*3.785*0.9*3.74/11.4 = 4.5 mL for the mash water alone. This is certain (if approximate). What is not certain is how much extra acid you will need to get the malt to 5.5. A typical pale ale malt might have a DI mash pH of 5.7 to 5.8 and a buffering of 46 - 50 mEq/kg•pH and the small amount of crystal you specify isn't going to supply but an mEq or 2 so you probably need another 20 mEq or close to 2 mL. That would make the total requirement about 6.5 so I'd say no, 4 mL is is not reasonable as you will probably need more. Best thing to do would be to check a scaled test mash and see what pH you get at the 4 mL rate. If you wind up high increase the rate for the actual brew. I don't think you should go with 6 initially as your base malt might not be 'typical'.

Is their a maximum amount of lactic acid to use in a batch that may run off flavours or astringent?.
Thanks

Yes, lactic acid is pretty strongly flavored but it is a pleasant flavor so it is hard to say how much is too much. You are fighting quite a bit of alkalinity here. One way to avoid possible problems here with lactic flavor (though I don't think you'd have them even with the full 6 mL) is to use more neutrally flavored phosphoric acid and another, the obvious solution here since he wants to add sulfate, is to use sulfuric acid.

The less alkalinity in a beer the better right?.
Thanks

It is certainly generally true that the less alkalinity there is in the water the easier it is to make beer as the brewer must dispose of alkalinity one way or another if he is to make a decent beer. A decent beer is always in a pH range that insures that its alkalinity is very low. The exception is where the brewer wants to use a lot of high kilned malt as this can be pretty acidic stuff. In such cases some alkalinity in the water may be necessary to prevent the pH of the mash from going too low.

Thank you aj....... Appreciate the analysis... Could I use salts to acheive the same effect? My sulfates might not be as high but my PH looks good and Ive avoided too much (if any) lactic acid.

ajdelange said:

It is certainly generally true that the less alkalinity there is in the water the easier it is to make beer as the brewer must dispose of alkalinity one way or another if he is to make a decent beer. A decent beer is always in a pH range that insures that its alkalinity is very low. The exception is where the brewer wants to use a lot of high kilned malt as this can be pretty acidic stuff. In such cases some alkalinity in the water may be necessary to prevent the pH of the mash from going too low.

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Sulfate:Chloride seems a little high

Bru-noob said:

Thank you aj....... Appreciate the analysis... Could I use salts to acheive the same effect? My sulfates might not be as high but my PH looks good and Ive avoided too much (if any) lactic acid.

Click to expand...

We found earlier that you need to neutralize 3.4 mEq/L alkalinity. Calcium (from gypsum or calcium chloride) does react to release protons but it takes quite a bit of calcium, probably about 10 mEq thereof for each mEq of protons. For your 3.4 mEq/L then you would need something like 34 mEq/L calcium which means either 34 mEq of chloride (1190 mg) or 34 mEq of sulfate (1680 mg) per liter. Note that most spreadsheets assume that it takes only 3.5 mEq of calcium to get one of protons. This is based on misreading of Kolbach's paper and recent measurements. The actual value will depend on the malts and the technique so it is possible that less calcium might do the job but probably not less than at least half of the numbers I gave above. Calcium is not a good way to control mash pH but does have enough effect that you do need to consider it.