Sparge Ph

I am a new All Grain Brewer and have made 4 batches.

1st- American Amber- Good (Much more hoppy than the 2nd Amber, same grain bill though, more hops).
2nd- American Amber- Off flavor
3rd- Milk Stout- Great
4th- Blonde- Same off flavor as the 2nd.

The off flavor was really hard to place, somewhat burnt, and also a plastic taste was cited to me by others. I could notice the off flavor as soon as the wort had been boiled and then cooled before pitching yeast, so I know it is not a wild yeast, bacteria, fermenting, etc. issue

Anyway, after doing some reading I decided it may be my brewing water. The water profile changes frequently in the small village I live in. We use various wells that all pump water to a large tower, slightly treated and then it is piped into homes. I was told that the water profile will change many times over the course of the year and depending on weather (Canadian Climate). I just tested the PH of my tap water and got a reading of about 7.2. I think this may be too high for lighter beer and also explains why my stout turned out good.

What is my next step? Can I treat my sparge water only? What should I treat it with, without knowing the specifics of the water report? Would 5.2 Stabilizer work?

Any suggestions would be great, as I really have no idea what to do next.

Thanks

First, read through the Primer sticky here. That should give you everything to get started on managing your brewing water.

Your description of plastic gives me the thought of phenols from chlorine/chloramine in the water, which need to be removed before you brew. These can be expressed as a burning, plastic or bandaid odor, and is sometimes very forward or subtle. These are developed in the mash - and are not boiled off. Give a hard look at chlorine sanitation in the water provided to your village - and use campden tablets to treat the brewing water the night before.

The alkalinity of your water, not its pH is the important criteria. You should check the ph of your mash (sample cooled to room temperature) to determine what adjustments you might need to make on a given batch.

I would suggest to isolate this issue that you purchase spring water or RO water for your next brew and see what happens. If the plastic flavor shows then - you can look elsewhere, such as your cleaning and sanitation regiment, plastics touching wort or beer, etc.

Best of Luck!

This is great. I will pick up some spring water and see if I can get a water report in the meantime to check on the chorine.

What are your thoughts on 5.2 Stabilizer for a beginner? This seems like an easy way to go....maybe I should just jump into managing my water like stated in the sticky.

5.2 is, unfortunately, one of those topics that sometimes leads to a fierce debate.

My understanding (and others can correct me if I'm incorrect) is that 5.2 is a buffer - it is meant to make it so that, when you get the mash to 5.2 pH, the stablilizer makes the mash resist changing from 5.2 pH. It does not make your mash BECOME 5.2 pH.

If you want to drop your sparge water from 7.2 to somewhere lower, try adding lactic or phosphoric acid.

If your water source changes repeatedly there is little use in getting your water tested. It will be different next month or next week. Water companies may add more chlorine or chloramines in the summer when the temps are higher, or when they feel they need to, or after doing repairs or so.
If in doubt, just use a 1/4 Campden tablet in 5 US/Imp gallons. It's a piece of mind, and you can't taste it at that level.

+1 on using RO/DI/Distilled water for the next brew. The primer/sticky will set you straight on which brewing salts to add and how much. That will help tracing and eliminating the problem.

Your lighter beers will showcase impurities and off flavors more prominently. A stout or IIPA can mask a lot.

JonM's advice is spot on regarding 5.2 and using some acid instead.

When your water quality varies, there are a couple of things you can do to help plan and account for with your water to help produce more consistent beer. Relatively inexpensive aquarium water test kits for calcium hardness and alkalinity are invaluable for quantifying your water's current calcium and alkalinity. A second component of home testing should include a total dissolved solids (TDS) meter. With that inexpensive meter, you can determine how mineralized your water currently is.

Those home tests provide you with the bulk of the information a brewer needs to estimate how the mash pH will end up and steps needed to bring it into a desired range. This testing will not provide a complete picture though. One or two complete water tests from a lab like Ward Labs or from the water utility will enable the brewer to fill in the blanks on the other ions that are typically in the water.

This is the water report. Everything seemed to fall into norms for brewing, except Alkalinity.

I hope this will help with some specific instructions on what I should do, besides follow the info from the sticky.

You have a somewhat high level of alkalinity, which in my opinion is on the edge of either using dilution or some other method to lower. You could try boiling the water the day before and decanting off the precipitate or give slaked lime a try. Dilution with store bought RO water, IMO, is the least intensive solution. Your water, like mine is fairly soft, but very alkaline - yet the report provides no carbonate or bicarbonate levels. Just the alkalinity at 185 ppm (I assume as CaCO3). You have a some calcium and a little chloride and sulfate, but that will be reduced a lot to get your alkalinity below 80 ppm where it is manageable with acid (using only about 40% tap water, treated for chlorine). This really comes down to how much effort and energy you wish to expend, versus difficult or convenient it is to purchase and transport store bought water.

I cannot see the full cation/anion ratio presented in the report, but I see that is exceeds more than 0.50 ppm - which is typical of an annual range report. So the data is pretty generic which will throw prediction software into question and useability.

Based on this - it doesn't change my recommendation.

I don't see anything that would indicate an off flavor, other than the strong likelihood and assumption they are using chlorine and/or chloramines to sanitize the water for delivery. Solve your plastic off flavor issue first by removing your water as a variable, then move to solve your long term water source issues.

Also, please don't be put off by the suggestion of starting with the Primer - it is the gateway to a much more intensive and sophisticated look at your water - without getting into the extremes. The recommendations come from very experienced brewers and chemists. You can always experiment from there to determine sulfate and chloride levels that you prefer, while following the stylist recommendations.

Cheers, Matt

I notice the focus always seems to be on mash pH. I find my mash pH is pretty close but if I don’t acidify the sparge water, it extracts astringency. I use twice as much acid in the sparge as in the mash.

Is it just me? I am pretty sensitive to phenols. If the mash pH is off, it’s a little dull. If the sparge pH is off it seriously hurts the beer.

Wynne-R said:

I notice the focus always seems to be on mash pH. I find my mash pH is pretty close but if I don’t acidify the sparge water, it extracts astringency. I use twice as much acid in the sparge as in the mash.

Is it just me? I am pretty sensitive to phenols. If the mash pH is off, it’s a little dull. If the sparge pH is off it seriously hurts the beer.

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It really depends on the alkalinity of your water. I have a very high alkalinity level, and without treating the sparge water, the lighter colored beers are especially harsh. I now normally use 100% RO water for sparging (and no treatment is needed) or acidify the sparge water if it's a tap water/RO mix.

It really depends on the alkalinity of your water

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Does it ? My point is that treating your mash is not enough, maybe not even the primary concern.

Based on my experience, more acid is required for the sparge, and the consequences of not treating the water are way worse.

If you treat all the water at the same time, it may be close enough.

My water is a little over 100ppm alkalinity, which I think is pretty typical for surface water. My guess, is that if you need acid for the mash, you need more acid for the sparge.

Hi Yooper I would totally vote for you if I were in the AHA. Maybe you can straighten them out to the point that I would join. Good luck with that.

I understand the argument, but agree with Yooper that alkalinity in the sparge water is what drives the need for and amount of acid required. Like Yooper, I switched to all RO and no longer treat the sparge liquor as the bicarbonate (the primary buffer) is nearly depleted. It has made all the difference in the world in the quality of my beers... Treating to 6.0 is really to minimize the amount of acid (and flavor impact) and cap the higher pH potential. Otherwise we would treat to 5.2 or 5.4 (AJ discusses this in a recent post... Titrating the whole liquor to 5.4).

That said... Screw up the mash and the beer is ruined. Screw up the sparge, and the beer MAY be ruined. I don't remember to what extent the Primer speaks to sparge water treatment, but for low alkaline water, the risks of tannin extraction fall. Very high levels of alkalinity will pull the mash pH up sharply creating the issue. I tend to focus on the mash because it is the hardest to get right.

I did experience your point, Wynne-R, when I was using my tap, filtered and Camden treated. The astringency, as well as the seemingly large amounts of acid I needed were ruining my beers. The bicarb content of my rural Bastrop Texas water is well over 400 ppm...

FYI to you and Yooper, Bastrop Brewhouse is closing this week. It's a real shame, but the owner seems bent on a production brewery not a brewpub. Hopefully someone will fill the gap soon.

mchrispen said:

FYI to you and Yooper, Bastrop Brewhouse is closing this week. It's a real shame, but the owner seems bent on a production brewery not a brewpub. Hopefully someone will fill the gap soon.

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I'm sorry to hear that! I was hoping to stop in in a few weeks. We're leaving tomorrow morning for the coast, and should be in Rockport on Sunday. I'm not sure when we're going up to Smithville to our friend's 40, but we will make sure to stop in Shiner on the way. I love the Shiner brewery, and it's right on the way.

Anyway, I'm certainly no water expert but if I sparge with RO water, I do not need to add acid. I sometimes treat my sparge and mash water separately, as my HLT only holds about 14 gallons and I have to refill it after I mash in. Otherwise, it would be appropriate to treat the mash and the sparge water the same and acidify it, as it wouldn't hurt- but it's not necessary when using RO water or distilled water due to the low alkalinity. As Matt mentioned, it has to do with the buffering and not the actual pH of the water.

Wynne-R said:

I notice the focus always seems to be on mash pH.

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That's because it is the sine qua non. Botch mash pH and it doesn't matter if you did everything else right or not, the beer will be diminished.

Wynne-R said:

I find my mash pH is pretty close but if I don’t acidify the sparge water, it extracts astringency. I use twice as much acid in the sparge as in the mash.

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Assuming that you are getting proper mash pH this implies that you are using a fair amount of acidic malt in your brews. Some of even the relatively light colored crystals and caramels have quite a bit of acid in them.

Wynne-R said:

Is it just me? I am pretty sensitive to phenols. If the mash pH is off, it’s a little dull. If the sparge pH is off it seriously hurts the beer.

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It could be that you are hyper sensitive. OTOH if you wait long enough phenols tend to complex and settle out. In lager brewing the husks are boiled twice. Typical mash pH offers some protection but a fair amount of phenol is extracted. These fall out during lagering.

As to the OP: Given the description, my money is on chlorphenolics. A simple test in which a glass of the water is allowed to stand over night and then poured back and forth between two glasses in a pretty good indicator, if chlorine is smelled the next day, that chloramine is present. A quarter campden tablet in each 5 gallons should solve that problem.

I picked up some campden tablets and also put my water profile into Brunwater. According to the program, I would be alright to treat my water with a little acid.

Spring water is all that seems to be available in my area to purchase. Can I be certain that the alkalinity will be low enough in it?

Could I just use the Campden tabs with my water instead of RO water if I needed to, for a test of the off flavour coming from chlorine?

MrT2u said:

I picked up some campden tablets and also put my water profile into Brunwater. According to the program, I would be alright to treat my water with a little acid.

Spring water is all that seems to be available in my area to purchase. Can I be certain that the alkalinity will be low enough in it?

Could I just use the Campden tabs with my water instead of RO water if I needed to, for a test of the off flavour coming from chlorine?

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Spring water is a term that has no water quality indications. It could have very low mineralization to very high mineralization depending upon where it came from. If you require low alkalinity water, use either RO or distilled water.

Campden tablets are for another purpose...the removal of chlorine compounds from the brewing water so that they don't react with wort compounds and form chlorophenols.

mabrungard said:

Spring water is a term that has no water quality indications. It could have very low mineralization to very high mineralization depending upon where it came from. If you require low alkalinity water, use either RO or distilled water.



Campden tablets are for another purpose...the removal of chlorine compounds from the brewing water so that they don't react with wort compounds and form chlorophenols.

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Yes, the Camden tabs were for that reason. Mentioned earlier about the off flavour, it was thought that the flavour may have been due to chlorine in the tab water, rather than the ph.

The flavour was described as being a little burnt with a rubber or plastic taste as well.

That's what I thought about the spring water as well.

Thanks

Thanks for the answers, Yooper, Matt, AJ.

To the OP, ‘plastic’ is a good description of chlorophenol, and Campden is an easy solution.

MrT2u said:

The flavour was described as being a little burnt with a rubber or plastic taste as well.

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Those words describe yeast autolysis.

To do an is-it-chloramine test all you have to do is the experiment I described in #14 with water standing overnight. If you want to be absolutely sure just brew with the water that has been giving you problems with a half a campden tablet per 5 gal. That will completely knock out any chlorine or chloramine and you will have no smoky or plastic-like flavor/aroma. This won't have any effect on yeast autolysis (burnt, rubber....) tastes.

ajdelange said:

Those words describe yeast autolysis.

To do an is-it-chloramine test all you have to do is the experiment I described in #14 with water standing overnight. If you want to be absolutely sure just brew with the water that has been giving you problems with a half a campden tablet per 5 gal. That will completely knock out any chlorine or chloramine and you will have no smoky or plastic-like flavor/aroma. This won't have any effect on yeast autolysis (burnt, rubber....) tastes.

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The thing is, I could taste this off flavour right after the boil when the wort was cooled, without the yeast added yet.

That points the finger back at chlorphenolics then.

Wouldn't it be easier to just buy a ro filtration setup and build your water up from there? I guess if OP lived in an area that had water usage policies it wouldn't be a solution but otherwise aside from cost I think he's a good candidate for purchasing one. And seeing how time, fuel, and energy are needed to go to the store and acquire ro or spring water eventually it would pay for itself. Why try and chase an ever changing variable when for a few hundred dollars you can eliminate it.

Obviously this wouldn't solve a chloromaine problem but as others have stated campden tablets fix that.

In my opinion it is clearly the way to go but not all share that opinion and that's fine.

RO does sort of solve the chloramine problem in that chloramine will poison many RO membranes and, therefore, systems are equipped with a large enough pre-filters (carbon) to remove it. If I were on a chlorinated water system I think I would obtain a second carbon filter and run with belt and suspenders.

I found a place that had RO water. I used 40% RO in my mash. I wanted to use some tap water for the mineral content, I used Brunwater to calculate the dilution. I also used campden in the tab water. I sparged with 100% RO water in order to keep the pH down.

On first taste after the boil, I did not have the off flavour as I did before.

I think I will use my tap water with campden and some acid to control pH on my next batch to see if that will work.

I will keep some RO water around too and keep using Bru n water to make adjustments with RO and acids.