soupfist
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So for the past few batches, I've moved up from partial boil/extract brewing to partial boil/partial mashes of about 3-4 lbs. worth of grain.
So far I've created an absolutely horrible oatmeal stout and an Irish Red Ale that started out OK but I'm trying to drink quickly because each bottle has a stronger phenol bite than the previous one (it's sinking fast...). Also just bottled a brown ale that seems a little bit on the tannin-y side, and a vienna lager in a primary that I'm crossing my fingers on...
Then I started reading about water chemistry and took a look at my water vs. what I was trying to brew. Realized my mash PH was quite likely going through the roof because the local water has really low alkalinity and everything I've been brewing has been on the dark end.
So, obviously there are many calculators to help correct the mash pH. All the ones I have seen start with the approximate SRM you're trying to brew and adding salts to raise or lower alkalinity. But it occurred to me, if all I'm doing is mashing 4 lbs of grain in 2 gallons of water, sparging, and then adding extract during the boil, wouldn't I have to adjust to the SRM of the wort being mashed? In other words, calculating the SRM based on the grains being mashed in 2 gallons of water?
Example: I'm looking at a recipe for the vienna lager I just brewed. It's SRM 11 and the recipe called for 2 lbs Vienna, 1 lb Pilsner, 4 oz Melanoidan and 2 oz De-husked Carafa III, with 3.3 lbs of light DME backing it up. If I remove the DME and change the water volume to 2 gallons in my brew calculator, the estimated SRM of the mashed wort becomes SRM 19. Would I be right to plug that value into the alkalinity calculator instead of SRM 11?
Am I overthinking this? I tend to do that...
So far I've created an absolutely horrible oatmeal stout and an Irish Red Ale that started out OK but I'm trying to drink quickly because each bottle has a stronger phenol bite than the previous one (it's sinking fast...). Also just bottled a brown ale that seems a little bit on the tannin-y side, and a vienna lager in a primary that I'm crossing my fingers on...
Then I started reading about water chemistry and took a look at my water vs. what I was trying to brew. Realized my mash PH was quite likely going through the roof because the local water has really low alkalinity and everything I've been brewing has been on the dark end.
So, obviously there are many calculators to help correct the mash pH. All the ones I have seen start with the approximate SRM you're trying to brew and adding salts to raise or lower alkalinity. But it occurred to me, if all I'm doing is mashing 4 lbs of grain in 2 gallons of water, sparging, and then adding extract during the boil, wouldn't I have to adjust to the SRM of the wort being mashed? In other words, calculating the SRM based on the grains being mashed in 2 gallons of water?
Example: I'm looking at a recipe for the vienna lager I just brewed. It's SRM 11 and the recipe called for 2 lbs Vienna, 1 lb Pilsner, 4 oz Melanoidan and 2 oz De-husked Carafa III, with 3.3 lbs of light DME backing it up. If I remove the DME and change the water volume to 2 gallons in my brew calculator, the estimated SRM of the mashed wort becomes SRM 19. Would I be right to plug that value into the alkalinity calculator instead of SRM 11?
Am I overthinking this? I tend to do that...