basic water adjustments - low in calcium, high in bicarbonate

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tomaso

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I'm new to the subject of water chemistry so I'm sure my understanding is flawed somehow. I got my first introduction from this BYO article...
https://byo.com/stories/issue/item/1493-the-power-of-ph

I use bottled spring water that is low in calcium (see picture; mine is the one on the left) with 43,2mg/l but very high in bicarbonates with 167 mg/l (at least as far as I understand).

What I find strange is that I thought Calcium lowers the ph and I have little calcium and bicarbonates increase the ph and I have loads of them so that makes me think I should have a too high ph while mine seems to be the opposite....

When measuring my mash ph with strips as far as I can tell the ph is at about just below 5 measured at mash temp so with some correction I guess my ph is just in or a bit below the acceptable range of 5.2 - 5.8.

While half of my beers turn out fine, the other half has a certain astringency /acidity to it that I now suspect to possibly be caused by the low mash PH and maybe not enough calcium.
So I would like to try to raise the mash ph (And maybe get more calcium into it) and see if my beer turns out maltier/rounder/less astringent.

So my question is first of all what can/should I add to my water? Gypsum maybe to increase the calcium but then the mash ph might go down even further. And baking soda to increase the ph but what about the bicarbonates?

Well, I'm sure some of you have some brilliant advice for me, Thanks already!

Font Vella composition.png
 
With that water and no adjustments I'm almost sure your mash pH is too high. I bought a pack of those pH strips back when I started all grain, then tossed them when I realized they read 5.0 for everything - no matter what grist or what adjustments I made. You probably want to look into a water program and a pH meter, as long as you'e buying water might be easier just to start with RO. Hopefully the water guys will chime in, or you can also post in the brew science forum.
 
Get the BrunWater spread sheet. It has a bit of a learning curve but it is free and very useful. I use a pH meter and BrunWater predictions always end up within 0.1 of what the pH meter reads. The program was written by Martin Brungard who you can find in the Brew Science forum. He and AJ are a great resource there. Try posting this there and you will get tons of advice.

Meanwhile, I suspect they will tell you to adjust your calcium and other minerals with CaCl and/or gypsum and/or Epsom salts and use acid or acid malt to adjust your pH. BrunWater will guide you through it.
 
With that water and no adjustments I'm almost sure your mash pH is too high. I bought a pack of those pH strips back when I started all grain, then tossed them when I realized they read 5.0 for everything - no matter what grist or what adjustments I made. You probably want to look into a water program and a pH meter, as long as you'e buying water might be easier just to start with RO. Hopefully the water guys will chime in, or you can also post in the brew science forum.


Get the BrunWater spread sheet. It has a bit of a learning curve but it is free and very useful. I use a pH meter and BrunWater predictions always end up within 0.1 of what the pH meter reads. The program was written by Martin Brungard who you can find in the Brew Science forum. He and AJ are a great resource there. Try posting this there and you will get tons of advice.

Meanwhile, I suspect they will tell you to adjust your calcium and other minerals with CaCl and/or gypsum and/or Epsom salts and use acid or acid malt to adjust your pH. BrunWater will guide you through it.

Wow, too high instead of too low----Ok, that's good to know, thanks. I've already posted it over there as well and Brungard already replied saying the same as you guys. I'll have a look at his Bru'n water sheet and also get a PH-meter.

Lookings forward to exploring yet another new part of this malty cosmos :)

So you think then that I can deduce from this that the slight acidity / astringency I notice in some beers doesn't come from a low PH, i.e. not from the water but some other cause`?

Thanks a lot!
 
High pH can cause tannin extraction and astringency. It also dulls the flavor. So that could be part of the problem or fermenting too high or a bit of both.
 
That sounds like my problem! Hope it is cause that would mean I can more or less easily fix it!
Thanks
 
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