I (very) recently started paying attention to my water, and my two most recent brews have resulted in my adding chalk. I've got a scale that reads out to hundredths, but my issue is whatever vessel I place on the scale and tare out to measure additions seems to hold onto the chalk I'm trying to add to my mash. Has anyone found something to set on a scale that easily releases the chalk when it's mash time?
Measuring and Adding Chalk
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Well, unless you are doing something like bubbling c02 through the water, the chalk won't dissolve properly anyway.
Why not use pickling lime or baking soda if you need to alkalinity? here is some good information in the first post about problems with adding chalk (and other bases as well): https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=298867
You should make sure you really do need alkalinity before you add anything alkali. I find it's pretty rare that I do need to add anything alkali. far more often I need to add acid, which is the opposite.
Are you running your recipes through a water calculator like Bru'n Water or Brewer's Friend?
Are you running your recipes through a water calculator like Bru'n Water or Brewer's Friend?
Only relatively dark grists need the alkalinity. Don't go trying to reproduce some published water profile. And forget about using chalk!
You should not use chalk to absorb the proton surfeit of a mash but many of the ion profiles abroad including those is some of the popular brewing programs require the use of it because they ask for calcium in excess of what can be delivered by calcium sulfate and calcium chloride and sodium in excess of what can be delivered by sodium chloride without exceeding these profiles chloride and sulfate specification. In these cases, presuming you are one of those that chases the will-o'-the wisp of profiles it is OK to use CaCO3 as you will have to be adding strong acid to neutralize its alkalinity anyway (you are in effect adding calcium phosphate or calcium lactate). The best way to weigh it out is to use a 'weigh boat' which is a little plastic or metal 'boat' that goes on your balance pan. Tare it out and weigh the chalk. Then crease the weigh boat in half and point the bottom of the V into the destination for the chalk and flick with your finger. This will usually dislodge it. It it doesn't give it a squirt of DI water from a wash bottle.
Thanks for the feedback, all.
This is what I've been doing.
I'm building my water additions in Bru'n Water, starting by calculating acid additions to get mash pH in recommended ranges, and then calculating other additions as needed to best match Bru'n Water's profile for the style I'm working with. Based on recommended ion concentrations and my starting water, chalk seemed like the most effective way to get to healthy calcium levels, as even after I got to recommended levels, based on the acid additions the bicarbonate was either super low or negative.
Instead of matching a certain profile, I'd get the mash pH where it should be and add the other items that are reasonable, but not necessarily matching a certain profile that may or may not be what the breweries in that area used.
Adding acid to get the pH into range and then adding alkali seems counter productive to me, and overly cumbersome.
If you want to add calcium, why not use calcium chloride or calcium sulfate?
I regret saying this is OK. A profile that demands you use calcium lactate or calcium phosphate is not a good profile really. If confronted with one of these reduce the calcium and sodium values to ones that do not require an external acid. The only acid that one should be using to dissolve carbonate is carbonic as that is natures way and how most of the calcium gets into our water.
Because I'm a dummy, I'm new to all of this water business, and I'm about to order calcium chloride/sulfate instead. Still working my way through Palmer's water book, and figuring things out as I go along.
Would I be correct that I'd want both calcium chloride and calcium sulfate on hand, so I can choose which to add for any given recipe?
Thanks for the help all.
Yes, I use those two routinely.
In fact, I rarely use table salt or Epsom salts, although I have those on hand as well. I've never needed baking soda or pickling lime.
If you're ordering, make sure to get some phosphoric acid or lactic acid if you don't have any. I prefer phosphoric for the most part, as there isn't a flavor impact from that, but I've used both.
If you can find them (try science shops) try to get something like some 1 ml pipettes (the kind with the little squeeze bulb at the end - they're something like 50 cents at my local science shop) or maybe a 3 ml syringe. They're great for measuring out the acid additions.
Murphys_Law
Well-Known Member
Let me give you my experience with chalk, FWIW.
I thought I needed it to chase a profile. Added it to the water and thought - WTF!? Dumped the water, rinsed the kettle, and went "commando" that day.
I thought I needed it to chase a profile. Added it to the water and thought - WTF!? Dumped the water, rinsed the kettle, and went "commando" that day.
I don't know where these profiles are coming from. I used to complain that the ones in the literature were impossible because they didn't balance electrically unless you ran the pH up so high that you got enough hydroxyl ions to cancel the charge on the cations. I've finally figures out that this was because they didn't say anything about carbonate species nor pH. Now the ones in the programs are balanced at some pH but impossible to synthesize without adding an acid that certainly wasn't in any real water. Thus I think the best approach is to research the beer and find out what kind of water it was made with and try to get the same general characteristics keeping in mind that water that was hard and alkaline out of the ground will be much less hard and alkaline out of the HLT.
It seems the best way to do it is to figure out what you need to do to the water to get the entire volume to mash pH (proton deficit of 0 at mash pH) or to such low alkalinity that the proton deficit to mash pH is very small. This would be done by decarbonation with lime or by heating or, if the alkalinity is small enough, by adding small amounts of acid. You can also add only neutral salts in order to tweak Ca, Mg, Na, Cl and SO4. At this point the water's effective alkalinity is 0 and you can turn your attention to the proton deficit or surfeit of the mash at the desired pH. Zero that out by the use of more or less high kilned malts, sauermalz, sauergut or bottled acid or base and add those to the grist or in the case of liquid acids or solutions of bases, to the strike water. Acids required for the grist are added to the amounts necessary to treat the strike water. Bases are deducted from it.
The adding of grist acid to water acid or deduction of base is done on paper and the result is what is physically put into the water. If, for example, we found we needed 12.4 mEq acid to treat our entire volume of water and planned to mash with half of it and that the grist required another 12.4 then we could add 1 mL lactic to the entire volume, pull off the half that we are going to mash with and add another mL to that. Or, if more convenient, treat the mash water separately adding 1.5 mL to it and 0.5 mL to the rest of the water. If, conversely, we found that the grist carried a proton surfeit of 3.1 mEq we would add 3.1 mEq alkalai to the mash water on paper meaning that we would deduct 3.1 mEq from the 6.2 mEq required for the water leaving a total of 3.1 mEq (1/4 mL of lactic) to be added to the mash water volume. The rest of the water would still get the 0.5 mL.
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There is certainly more than one way to do the problem. Be aware that chalk and acid to dissolve/neutralize it is required to realize the Pale Ale profile from RO. This came up in another thread. Martin's response there was that you are supposed to understand that it is the sulfate that is important in this profile, not the calcium. If you set the calcium target to 107 you can hit the sulfate to within less than 1% and sodium will be low by 1.4% but who cares about that?
