Z Alkalinity (+Z et-al). Who will be the 1st to issue a spreadsheet based upon this?

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Larry Sayre, Developer of 'Mash Made Easy'
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I just completed reading "Water" by John Palmer and Colin Kaminski, and it introduces us to a potential major advancement over Kolbach. Who will be the first to base a mash pH calculator (spreadsheet or online) upon this more exacting method?
 
I just completed reading "Water" by John Palmer and Colin Kaminski, and it introduces us to a potential major advancement over Kolbach. Who will be the first to base a mash pH calculator (spreadsheet or online) upon this more exacting method?


Not sure exactly what you are referencing but our Low Oxygen brewing spreadsheet has water calculations accurate to 1/100th of a pH point in it.
 
Derek, you make me snicker. Anyone that thinks that their calculations can overcome the vagaries and variation of the natural products we use in brewing, is lost. I'm hoping that I misinterpreted your statement.
 
Derek, you make me snicker. Anyone that thinks that their calculations can overcome the vagaries and variation of the natural products we use in brewing, is lost. I'm hoping that I misinterpreted your statement.


I don't know what to tell you Martin. 50+ sessions using biological acidification have yielded estimates accurate to 0.01 as verified by the Extech model pH meter.

By adjusting malt overrides to match MA sheet distilled water pH, a very high and repeatable level of accuracy is being obtained.
 
I thought we'd brought you down to earth in https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=598079. We pointed out there that the proability of getting 50 pH measurements in a row accurate to ±0.01 was something like E-19 (IIRC) based on the accuracy with which pH can realistically be measured (i.e. assuming your prediction algorithm is perfect which, of course, it can't be).

I have before me on the desk a package of Hach pH 4.01 @25 °C buffer powder pillows. They are labeled 4.01 ±0.02. This means I cannot, with any algorithm, predict the pH of this buffer to better than ±0.02. How then can you continue to claim that you can predict pH of a complicated mash to better accuracy than the standard against which you are measuring it? Using the actual pH of the DI mashes for the actual malts will, as discussed in the referenced thread, increase accuracy appreciably but not, as discussed, to ±0.01. If you continue to claim ±0.01 you will only destroy any credibility you may have and thereby, potentially consign an important finding (that error in malt DI pH is a bigger contributor to error than error in buffering capacity) into obscurity.
 
I just completed reading "Water" by John Palmer and Colin Kaminski, and it introduces us to a potential major advancement over Kolbach. Who will be the first to base a mash pH calculator (spreadsheet or online) upon this more exacting method?

Such a spreadsheet is so simple to gin up that I was able to prepare one while waiting for my turn to speak at the MBAA meeting where I presented this concept. Some of you have the slides from that presentation and the underlying paper and should have no trouble putting something together.

I'll note that Kai's method is actually this method. It's simple acid base chemistry based on accounting for the protons (hydrogen ions) that get exchanged between acids and bases in a mash.
 
I thought we'd brought you down to earth in https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=598079. We pointed out there that the proability of getting 50 pH measurements in a row accurate to ±0.01 was something like E-19 (IIRC) based on the accuracy with which pH can realistically be measured (i.e. assuming your prediction algorithm is perfect which, of course, it can't be).

I have before me on the desk a package of Hach pH 4.01 @25 °C buffer powder pillows. They are labeled 4.01 ±0.02. This means I cannot, with any algorithm, predict the pH of this buffer to better than ±0.02. How then can you continue to claim that you can predict pH of a complicated mash to better accuracy than the standard against which you are measuring it? Using the actual pH of the DI mashes for the actual malts will, as discussed in the referenced thread, increase accuracy appreciably but not, as discussed, to ±0.01. If you continue to claim ±0.01 you will only destroy any credibility you may have and thereby, potentially consign an important finding (that error in malt DI pH is a bigger contributor to error than error in buffering capacity) into obscurity.


You're a little late AJ. That was the same day you set me straight. I've since amended my claim to include the fact that we don't take into account tolerances of the buffer solutions, etc.

In essence I only mean to say that we have seen very consistent results using a calibrated Extech pH110. They just so happen to be within the band I originally describe, without taking into account inaccuracies due to buffer solutions, etc.

Basically, a calibrated pH110, Weyermann base Malts, and our spreadsheet has been giving very accurate and very consistent results. I won't make any claims about the total accuracy anymore, as it has incited some ill will. I understand that my excitement over what we were seeing may have gotten the best of me.

I will say that we are the most accurate that I have seen, and though we have not yet implemented the more rigorous estimation you have in your spreadsheets, we do account for malt analysis pH data. I'm sure there is some error in there somewhere, as you have stated. Measurements are taken 30 minutes in and at 70 °F.

Hope this clears things up.
 
Ooops. Sorry about that. I misread the date as the 18th, which would make it tomorrow but I only thought yeah, it must be the 18th.


No worries. Thanks for all the help. I'm releasing our current sheet for public consumption as a β version later this week.
 
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