Stout Brewing Water

[Stand]

I'm new to water chemistry, and I'm trying to use the calculators I found online to figure this out. I read the thread AJ posted here, and it seems to be pushing me in the opposite direction of everything else I'm reading online.

I have a Ward Labs profile, and I've got all the chemicals to make an adjustment, but this is the first time I'm really stepping into this.

Right now my water profile is as follows:

pH: 7.3
Ca: 9
Mg: 4
Na: 15
SO4: 21
CL: 15
HCO3: 21

I found this thread with the profile provided by mabrungard: https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=5341.0

Ca 85 ppm
Mg 4 ppm
Na 12 ppm
SO4 55 ppm
Cl 19 ppm
HCO3 200 ppm

I see what he's saying about the problems dissolving chalk, but I also found an article about using CO2 (I keg, so this is possible).

I'm using ezwatercalculator.com spreadsheet to figure out my final numbers, and I can get them where I want them (except chalk seems to be the answer to getting to that profile), and the residual alkalinity drops into negative territory.

Beersmith has me add: .3g Epsom, .2g Baking Soda, .8g Chalk per gallon to reach that profile.

Now I see people screaming never to add alkalinity to mash?

I don't care about matching historical profiles, I just want to know what is essential to brewing a good stout.

The more I read the more confused I get. Can anyone help me with this?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

0.6 g./gal. Calcium Chloride, add to both mash and sparge water
0.4 g./gal. Baking soda, add to mash water only (cut roughly in half if doing no-sparge)
lactic or phosphoric acid to 5.4 or 5.5 pH, add to sparge water only (skip if doing no-sparge)

This should give you about 80 ppm of alkalinity in the mash (equivalent to just under 100 ppm bicarbonate), which is likely going to prove to be plenty. It will also get your calcium ion concentration up to a bit over 52 ppm, and give you about 97 ppm of chloride ions for flavor (along with a bit of a sodium ion boost, also for flavor).

No need for magnesium (potential bitter taste) or any more sulfate (promotes dryness) or difficult to deal with chalk.

Mineralization is always a highly personal thing (which is why I'm generally confused as to the necessity for canned profiles), but something along the lines of the above is what I would personally do if I was planning a Stout and I did not have a pH meter or any other directional guidance (such as software) to go by.

 

[mabrungard]

Wow! you have very good tap water.

Yes, you do have to add alkalinity to that water to produce a more desirable stout. While all beer mashing needs some form of acid, the typical stout grist has more than enough acid from the dark grain and the water therefore needs a bit of alkalinity to neutralize some of that acid.

Don't rely on a water profile to tell you what the mashing water's alkalinity needs to be. The grist and the resulting mash pH is what should be used to determine what alkalinity is needed in that mashing water. I'm not absolutely sure that BS has that figured out yet.

Don't use chalk since you can't rely on it to dissolve in a timely manner. Your water has nice low sodium content and using baking soda in the mash is not likely to leave your beer with too much sodium. In addition, taste tests have shown that modest sodium content in beer (especially dark styles) is beneficial to beer flavor.

Don't worry about that minor epsom salt addition since the minor Mg contribution is definitely not detrimental nor can you really taste it. Its OK if you do or don't add the epsom. I usually add a bit as you've proposed.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

In retrospect, a dry Stout (as for Irish Stout) would clearly benefit from more sulfate and less chloride (such as can be seen in your chosen profile), whereas the opposite case can be made for Stouts along the lines of Oatmeal or Milk (Sweet) varieties. I should have considered asking what type of Stout you are planning to make before I tossed out my suggestion above (which is more appropriate for Oatmeal or Milk Stout).

 

[ajdelange]

I don't think you will see too many people screaming that you should never add alkalinity to a mash but there are, thankfully, more people today realizing that you shouldn't add it if you don't need it. For a simple stout made with no more than 10% black malts/barleys and no crystal caramel malts e.g. 80% ale malt, 10% flaked barley, 10% roast barley, you shouldn't need any. In fact you may find a little acid is needed. This assumes that you accept that a mash pH of 5.4 - 5.5 is a good range for stouts. There are those who are convinced that stout should be mashed at 5.6 - 5.7. If you adhere to the teachings of that school you will need alkali. Whether you decide to adhere to those teachings is something you will have to decide for yourself by brewing stouts at the lower pH range and in the higher and determining which you prefer.

Now if you replace the flaked barley with 10% 80L crystal and increase the roast barley to 20% you will need alkali even at the lower target range.

If you decide you need it the first question you should consider what the implications of that are. The majority of a natural source water's alkalinity comes from bicarbonate ion (unless the pH is really high in which case you probably won't want to use that water anyway). The ability of a water to supply this bicarbonate depends on its sodium content. Water that is free of sodium (and potassium) can only supply a limited amount of alkalinity, about 1 mEq/L . Water higher in alkalinity than this and low in K and Na comes out of the ground (alkalinity usually no more than 1 - 1.5 mEq/L) of course because chalk was dissolved under higher than atmospheric partial pressure of CO2. Such water will, as soon as heated, precipitate calcium carbonate down to about that level (it's a rough number though but easy to remember) and once precipitated calcium carbonate is effectively out of the picture just as calcium carbonate you add in the hopes that it will add alkalinity is. That also applies to calcium carbonate that has been dissolved under CO2 pressure by you. If we want to draw insight from historical brewing we can appreciate that any brewer of yore that produced a stout with the grist like the one you are thinking of must have had high sodium water. And, thus, if you want a beer made with your proposed grist presumably because it resembles a traditional brew from similar grist you should be willing to accept sodium.

Fist, lets note that sodium bicarbonate is a pretty good source of alkalinity. It takes a little bit more than 84 mg of it to provide 1 mEq of alkalinity and that implies a bit more than 23 mg added sodium. In the example above (70% base, 10% 80L crystal, 20% roast barley) the expected mash pH with RO water and added calcium to 50 mg/L would be about 5.43. If you wanted pH 6 then the requisite sodium bicarbonate addition would add 4.97 mg/L sodium to the mash water. Should you desire pH 5.7 then you'd need enough sodium bicarbonate to increase the sodium by 8.28 mg/L.

If that's still too much then you have the option of using calcium hydroxide. It is not super soluble but you should not require that much. For 5.7 and the example grist you would need about 0.26 g/L and that's well below the solubility limits.

Forget about profiles. Stouts are brewed all over the world with diverse water. Many of the profiles are absurd. Consider, for example, the profile you found on line. Were you to synthesize such a water it would, as soon as it went into the HLT, drop 114 ppm of that alkalinity and 45.6 mg/L of that calcium. In the post you linked he says: "That profile can be achieved by adding 0.25g of gypsum, 0.2g of epsom salt, 0.2g baking soda, 0.2g CaCl2, and 0.4g of pickling lime per gallon of mash water." The very last bit "...0.4g of pickling lime per gallon" says "after you have added the bicarbonate to your water to get the alkalinity you need remove it by lime treatment". Of course he wasn't aware that was what he was saying. Thus the recipe in the post won't get you that profile neither will the one from Beersmith.

All you need to add to a very low mineral water like yours is a bit of calcium chloride to get the levels of those two ions up and a bit of gypsum to get some more sulfate if you want that. For a normal stout you won't need any alkali if you are happy with the normally accepted range of mash pH. Confirm this by making a test mash with about half a pound of the grist and your water and checking the pH. You didn't say whether you have a pH meter or not. If you don't rest assured that with something like the 80/10/10 stout you will be fine without an addition of alkali. And you can go somewhat higher with the roast and still be confident that you are OK.

If you do have a pH meter and find you want higher mash pH use sodium bicarbonate.

 

[ajdelange]

... but something along the lines of the above is what I would personally do if I was planning a Stout and I did not have a pH meter or any other directional guidance (such as software) to go by.

Recognzing that the recommended profile would, in fact, only deliver 50 ppm alkalinity the mash pH would be around 5.7 for a 80/10/10 mash. Were the precipitation of the bicarbonate less such that the delivered alkalinity were higher (50 is only a rule of thumb) then the mash pH would be even higher. You are OK with that?

Of course we should be asking about OP's proposed grist before making any pronouncements (and you did say that).

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

A.J., leaving aside the potential of mashing at 5.7 pH, as well as the fact that we have no idea as to his recipe, are you suggesting that if the OP begins with his initial source water (which is at 21 ppm HCO3-) and he subsequently adds 0.4 grams of sodium bicarbonate to each gallon of his source derived mash water, his resultant mash water will be closer to 50 ppm alkalinity vs. my presumed 80 ppm alkalinity?

Either way, 50 ppm or 80 ppm of alkalinity in the mash water is likely going to be better than the ~164 ppm of alkalinity (actually 200 ppm bicarbonate) that the stout profile the OP originally discovered is recommending.

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

I like to target a water profile of 200ppm bicarbonate in my Dry Irish Stout.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I like to target a water profile of 200ppm bicarbonate in my Dry Irish Stout.

By my current reckoning (pending correction, see the 80 vs. 50 issue above), achieving that would require adding a tad more than 1 gram of baking soda to each gallon of your mash water, if your mash water is RO or distilled sourced.

 

[Stand]

I got so focused on the water chemistry I didn't even realize I hadn't included the kind of stout I'm making. I'm making an American Stout at 6.7ABV although not a very hoppy one.

I've got my grist plugged into the EZ Water Calculator, and with no water changes the result is a pH of 5.54 and a chloride/sulfate ratio of .71

The spreadsheet here includes all the additions I've made after reading the responses. You can see my grist (although I added all of the dark malts together on the spreadsheet.)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cEbxp-mh0X-SdfhlmXe6E-sz3fM4CJ_UN_5COaZLOks/edit?usp=sharing

I bought a pH meter, but I don't have it yet.

I'm taking notes. Thank you so much!

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Perhaps I'm just nitpicking, but with your additions of gypsum, calcium chloride, epsom salt, and baking soda to your source water (as seen in your EZ Water link), how can you say that with no water changes the mash pH will be 5.54? These additions are all assuredly changes to your water.

Whatever you choose to do, do not add any baking soda to your sparge water. It needs some acid to bring it to 5.4-5.5 pH.

In the end I'm OK with this recipe mashing at 5.54 pH. I may not quite agree with 5.54 pH as being what you will find if you measure it, but if per chance you do hit 5.54 that is fine.

 

[Stand]

I wasn't clear. I pulled the numbers with no water additions for a baseline and put it in the post. The spreadsheet includes all the changes I tried to make after listening to the different responses people gave me.

I see now that that's not obvious from the post. I fixed it to make that easier to understand.

 

[ajdelange]

A.J., leaving aside the potential of mashing at 5.7 pH, as well as the fact that we have no idea as to his recipe, are you suggesting that if the OP begins with his initial source water (which is at 21 ppm HCO3-) and he subsequently adds 0.4 grams of sodium bicarbonate to each gallon of his source derived mash water, his resultant mash water will be closer to 50 ppm alkalinity vs. my presumed 80 ppm alkalinity?

No, I was referring to the recipe for the profile OP referenced. His original profile specified an alkalinity of 18.5 (I appeal, again, to posters to tell me your alkalinity, not your bicarbonate. While it's obvious I can figure out one from the other it's a little extra work. The laboratory measures alkalinity and calculates bicarbonate from it. As few, even Ward Labs, doesn't understand how to do this the bicarbonate numbers you get may be incorrect and so too will the alkalinity I calculate from it. We don't really care about bicarbonate in all this. We need the alkalinity number).

If we take that 18.5 water and add 0.4 grams NaHCO3 to it with the 80/10/10 mash the pH is predicted to be 5.72. If we left those 0.4 grams bicarb out it would fall to 5.68. I was really trying to get a sense as to whether you would want a stout to mash at a pH that high. I think Martin would. I wouldn't though I have accepted 5.5 (largely because I was too lazy to acidify) and gotten a pretty good stout out of it.

Either way, 50 ppm or 80 ppm of alkalinity in the mash water is likely going to be better than the ~164 ppm of alkalinity (actually 200 ppm bicarbonate) that the stout profile the OP originally discovered is recommending.

That's true but as noted water formulated the way the referenced post said to formulate it wouldn't yield 200 ppm bicarbonate.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

If I match @Stand with regard to his EZ Water recipe, only doing so in MME, and I do so as closely as possible across the board (while admittedly making critical guesses as to the nature of the unknown sans for weight grist components**), MME says that Stand's recipe will mash at a pH of 5.42 if he adds 2.33 grams of Baking Soda, as opposed to EZ Water's suggested pH 5.54 for the case of 2.30 grams of Baking Soda being added, as can be seen below:

**If the actual 2-Row is more acidic, then more baking soda is required, and visa-versa. And I'm guessing that his blend of roast malts and barleys will come in at an overall 400L. The only reasonable grist confidence here is for the 60L Caramel/Crystal.

 

[ajdelange]

I wasn't clear. I pulled the numbers with no water additions for a baseline and put it in the post. The spreadsheet includes all the changes I tried to make after listening to the different responses people gave me.

I took the baseline water and added the grist as well as I could deduce them from the spreadsheet. Using a high pHDI (5.84) base malt you could expect something like 5.63 with 20L crystal and 5.58 with an 80L crystal. Using a base malt with a lower pH DI of 5.69 (I notice that your calculator declares all base malts to be pHDI = 4.7) you might expect 5.52 to 5.47. So you are sort of on the edge but I do note that you have 19% high colored malts. I would have no problem with any of those pH estimates but if you want something higher you will need to add some alkali and sodium bicarbonate would be the simplest.

The sodium bicarbonate addition you specified in the calculator would raise any of those 4 pH estimates by about 0.043 pH and the calcium salt additions you specified would lower them by about 0.015 with the combined effect of both being an increase of 0.028.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

In EZ Water you can enter the right hand column where the default DI_pH values for the various malt classes are stored and enter your own DI_pH values in each cell (as required) to replace the defaults. This effectively gives EZ Water the ability to accept manual DI_pH override values. You can even overwrite the classes themselves (sans for caramel/crystal) with your own preferred set of malt classes. A versatility that almost no one (sans myself) exploits.

And to avoid the inevitable speculation that this may bring about, MME (to my knowledge) shares no code in common with EZ Water.

 

[Stand]

Here is my grain bill:
18 lbs Brewer's Malt, 2-Row, Premium (Great Western) (2.0 SRM) Grain 6 77.0 %
2 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 7 8.6 %
2 lbs Chocolate (Briess) (350.0 SRM) Grain 8 8.6 %
1 lbs Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) Grain 9 4.3 %
4.0 oz Roasted Barley (500.0 SRM) Grain 10 1.1 %
2.0 oz Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 11 0.5 %

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Here is my grain bill:
18 lbs Brewer's Malt, 2-Row, Premium (Great Western) (2.0 SRM) Grain 6 77.0 %
2 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 7 8.6 %
2 lbs Chocolate (Briess) (350.0 SRM) Grain 8 8.6 %
1 lbs Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) Grain 9 4.3 %
4.0 oz Roasted Barley (500.0 SRM) Grain 10 1.1 %
2.0 oz Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 11 0.5 %

For that I get a need for 3.9 grams of baking soda. Which raises your mash water to ~100 ppm alkalinity. This seems to be reasonably in line with loads of old school thinking with regard to water for stouts. A.J. will likely disagree and say closer to zero grams of baking soda. Technically since MME is saying that without any baking soda this batch should mash at 5.27 pH, you can forgo the baking soda and still be within the perfectly acceptable 5.2 to 5.6 pH window during the mash.

 

[ajdelange]

"That profile can be achieved by adding 0.25g of gypsum, 0.2g of epsom salt, 0.2g baking soda, 0.2g CaCl2, and 0.4g of pickling lime per gallon of mash water."

As most of you have doubtless figured out by now anything like the above represents something to check out in my new spreadsheet as if there is an error in it (and there was) I'll find it. In this case though I learned something else. The alkalinity of a mix of stuff is the amount of acid it takes to change the pH of each item to pH 5.4 (ISO definition of alkalinity). Scaling each of those weights we find we have in each liter of the mixture the weights in the following table with the mEq of acid required to get them to 5.4.

1 L Water.... 0.0316
0.0528 g CaCl2....0
0.067 g CaCO4....0.0003
0.0528 g MgSO4....0.0006
0.0528 g NaHCO3....0.6207
0.1057 g Ca(OH2)....2.8524
Total....3.5056 mEq/L = 175.28 ppm as CaCO3.

The sum is 3.5 mEq/L or 175 ppm - not 200 as the profile would have us believe. This mix, were it stable, would be at pH 11.25. But it is not. It is supersaturated with respect to calcium carbonate. It's saturation pH is 9.36. Thus it will probably drop calcium carbonate reducing the alkalinity still further.

 

[ajdelange]

A.J. will likely disagree and say closer to zero grams of baking soda.

There really aren't any grounds for disagreement or indeed for comparison at all when the question is as to whether a malt OP is going to use is more closely modeled by pHDI, a1, a2 and a3 I measured on a sack of malt 5 years ago or a pHDI you got from a maltsters website and an assumed a1 = -35, a2 = a3 = 0. But we can make a comparison of algorithm performance if I assume the malt models you do and that's what I have done. The summary is here

The mineral additions OP used and the 3.91 grams of baking soda you used are both included for a target pH of 5.4 as you used with MME. As you can see the total proton deficit for pH 5.4 is 47 mEq with the additions contributing most of that (bicarbonate mostly at 42 being offset by the salts at -9). Thus the estimated pH with out the bicarbonate is pretty close to 5.40 being 5.41. Thus it is apparent that MME's algorithm under estimates proton deficit and thus mash pH (by about 0.13).

Technically since MME is saying that without any baking soda this batch should mash at 5.27 pH, you can forgo the baking soda and still be within the perfectly acceptable 5.2 to 5.6 pH window during the mash.

That's way off. Using your malt parameters the estimated pH without bicarbonate is 5.49 - an error of 0.27. by 0.14 which is pretty substantial especially when convolved with the errors from malt misrepresentation with the difference being that the 0.14 error can be removed by going to the Gen 2 approach whereas the malt errors can't.

Now if we use data based on measurements of real malts (which doesn't make them perfect matches to OP's malts by any means) we get

Here I used a target pH of 5.6 in case OP is of the opinion that a higher mash pH is needed for stouts (I am not of that opinion). The predicted pH without any bicarbonate addition is 5.45 and were this my beer I would be very happy with that as I have found that pH to make very nice stouts. But should I want pH 5.6 I would need to absorb 82 mEq of protons. As sodium bicarbonate absorbs 10.2 mEq/g to pH 5.6 it is clear that I would need about 8 grams of it.

The no bicarb estimate for your malts was 5.41. The no bicarb estimate for my malts is 5.45. That's pretty close and while we can't draw global conclusions from it it confirms that most of the error you are showing is in the algorithm - not the malt modeling. This is a good place to remind readers that the Voltmeter is intended as a tool to help developers locate problems in their products. In this post and in the previous one we have used it to do just that.

Nevertheless take note of the a1 (linear buffering term - mEq/kg•pH) column. While a couple of the malts do have buffering close to -35 note that the others do not with the base malt in particular having measured -46.6. This says that using -35 to model this malt will underestimate the acid it needs and thus underestimate mash pH or overestimate base required if any is.

Also note that the Water field in these two summaries says 7.5 L though we have 7.5 gal. That cell is a copy and I copied from the input cell, not the liters cell. All results in the summaries are calculated for 28.39 L (7.5 gal).

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

A.J., I have temporarily stripped the logarithmic pH algorithm from MME and replaced it with a linear algorithm for this test version. I've also moved the buffering to a higher value of 45 to slightly reduce the downward shift in pH due to mineralization. With this I have the @Stand stout recipe mashing pre-adjustment at a pH of 5.37, as can be seen below. I have this as requiring 1.03 grams of baking soda to move it to the 5.40 pH target (as opposed to 3.91 grams in MME test version 3.20).

I'm not sure what water analyticals you are applying, but before minerals are added, the water I used is from the EZ Water link provided by @Stand, and is as follows: Ca = 9 ppm, Mg = 4ppm, Na = 15 ppm, Cl = 15 ppm, SO4 = 21 ppm, Alkalinity = 17.2 ppm (~equivalent to bicarbonate = 21 ppm) I realize that this water is impossible in the real world as it gives me 1.43 mEq/L Cations, and only 1.20 mEq/L Anions, but this is the latest water that @Stand has settled upon. I can get this water to balance if I bump the alkalinity up to 28.5 ppm, but I left it as he has given it to us. If however I do move the water to 28.5 alkalinity the mash pH shifts to 5.38, and the baking soda goes down to 0.62 grams required to hit 5.4 pH.

If we are both using the same source water analyticals, mineralization, and pHDI's for the grist components, does this linear pH approach get my algorithm closer to the truth of your proton model? See below:

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

@Stand here is what I came up with based on your grain bill and a 5.25-gallon batch size. I made several assumptions with your pre and post boil volumes. And that you are using RO or distilled source water instead.

When are you planning to brew this recipe?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

@ScrewyBrewer, are you accounting properly for @Stand 's initial source water and its alkalinity? As is, it appears that you would be in the neighborhood of about 1 gram of baking soda to hit 5.40 pH during the mash (rather than 5.44, which is requiring 2.3 grams in your above image). Would this be a fair ballpark assumption? If the answer is yes, then my temporarily making MME linear rather than logarithmic would bring our two solutions for this recipe into being nigh on the same, sans that you are having some trouble matching his overall water.

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

I got so focused on the water chemistry I didn't even realize I hadn't included the kind of stout I'm making. I'm making an American Stout at 6.7ABV although not a very hoppy one.

Here's where I get confused regarding your mash water volume and batch size. Could you include your....
mash efficiency
pre boil volume
post boil volume
batch size volume
mash temperature

....and hop additions?

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

@ScrewyBrewer, are you accounting properly for @Stand 's initial source water and its alkalinity?

@Silver_Is_Money no I used RO or distilled as source water instead.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

@Silver_Is_Money no I used RO or distilled as source water instead.

Can ezRecipe properly be used by those who utilize as their mash and sparge water sources something other than a base of RO or distilled (such as tap, spring, mineral, or well)? Can it then subsequently accommodate blends of any of these types of waters with RO, distilled, or other? Many brewers (such as @Stand) are starting out with water that has a combination of initial alkalinity and initial mineralization.

 

[ajdelange]

A.J., I have temporarily stripped the logarithmic pH algorithm from MME and replaced it with a linear algorithm for this test version.

For the linear approximation I don't think you'll do better than the Riffe equation. He was on the right track. He just stopped short.

I've also moved the buffering to a higher value of 45 to slightly reduce the downward shift in pH due to mineralization.

That's probably wise but improving your malt models won't get rid of the algorhithm differences. With 35 or 45 we should be getting the same answer.

I'm not sure what water analyticals you are applying, but before minerals are added, the water I used is from the EZ Water link provided by @Stand, and is as follows: Ca = 9 ppm, Mg = 4ppm, Na = 15 ppm, Cl = 15 ppm, SO4 = 21 ppm, Alkalinity = 17.2 ppm (~equivalent to bicarbonate = 21 ppm) I realize that this water is impossible in the real world as it gives me 1.43 mEq/L Cations, and only 1.20 mEq/L Anions, but this is the latest water that @Stand has settled upon.

I converted whatever he reported in bicarb to to alkalinity at the pH he reported and made the mineral additions he said he used. In my post I reported mash pH's with and without your bicarb additions.

 

[Stand]

@Stand here is what I came up with based on your grain bill and a 5.25-gallon batch size. I made several assumptions with your pre and post boil volumes. And that you are using RO or distilled source water instead.

When are you planning to brew this recipe?

View attachment 586330

I'm planning for 8th of September.

Here I used a target pH of 5.6 in case OP is of the opinion that a higher mash pH is needed for stouts (I am not of that opinion).

I am of no opinion one way or the other. I didn't come into this with any intention of moving outside of the normal pH guidelines, but I haven't brewed a stout in at least 6 years and I'm new to the water chemistry. Just trying to learn. This has been very instructive!

Here's where I get confused regarding your mash water volume and batch size. Could you include your....
mash efficiency
pre boil volume
post boil volume
batch size volume
mash temperature

....and hop additions?

Here it is:

Type: All Grain
Batch Size: 10.00 gal
Boil Size: 11.58 gal
Boil Time: 60 min
End of Boil Vol: 10.68 gal
Final Bottling Vol: 9.50 gal
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage
Efficiency: 79.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 81.0 %

Prepare for Brewing

• Clean and Prepare Brewing Equipment
• Total Water Needed: 14.63 gal
• Mash Water Acid:
• Water Prep
  Amt Name Type # %/IBU
  15.00 gal Water Indian Trail, NC 1 -
  10.50 g Calcium Chloride (Mash 60.0 mins) Water Agent 2 -
  4.60 g Baking Soda (Mash 60.0 mins) Water Agent 3 -
  4.60 g Epsom Salt (MgSO4) (Mash 60.0 mins) Water Agent 4 -
  3.00 g Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash 60.0 mins) Water Agent 5 -

Mash or Steep Grains
Mash Ingredients
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
18 lbs Brewer's Malt, 2-Row, Premium (Great Western) (2.0 SRM) Grain 7 77.0 %
2 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 8 8.6 %
2 lbs Chocolate (Briess) (350.0 SRM) Grain 9 8.6 %
1 lbs Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) Grain 10 4.3 %
4.0 oz Roasted Barley (500.0 SRM) Grain 11 1.1 %
2.0 oz Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 12 0.5 %
Mash Steps
Name Description Step Temperature Step Time
Mash In Add 7.55 gal of water at 168.1 F 153.0 F 60 min

• Sparge Water Acid:
• Fly sparge with 7.08 gal water at 168.0 F
• Add water to achieve boil volume of 11.58 gal
• Estimated pre-boil gravity is 1.059 SG

Boil Ingredients
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
68.00 g Cascade 2017 [8.20 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 13 30.5 IBUs
30.00 g Columbus 2017 [16.60 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 14 27.2 IBUs

• Estimated Post Boil Vol: 10.68 gal and Est Post Boil Gravity: 1.066 SG

Really glad to have all the help. Thanks guys!

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

It was hard work on his part, but A.J. deLange is finally beginning to convince this old brewing dog and teach him new dark beer mashing water requirement tricks. A.J. is probably correct in assuming that your recipe needs no baking soda at all added to the mash water.

Stay tuned to the "What's the most baking soda you've ever added to a dark beer recipes mash" thread for A.J.'s comments regarding my pending 4.00 release of Mash Made Easy.

I just used the tentative 4.00 version of MME to assess your detailed recipe (using the above plus your Ward labs source water analyticals from your very first post), and it comes up with 5.40 as the mash pH straight up and with zero baking soda added. If A.J. says I'm starting to head down a more correct dark beer path with MME 4.00, then I'm finally willing to agree with him that you should forego the addition of any baking soda.

I believe A.J. stated above that he actually gets an even higher 5.49 pH for your recipe when mashed straight up with zero baking soda added.

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

Can ezRecipe properly be used by those who utilize as their mash and sparge water sources something other than a base of RO or distilled (such as tap, spring, mineral, or well)? Can it then subsequently accommodate blends of any of these types of waters with RO, distilled, or other? Many brewers (such as @Stand) are starting out with water that has a combination of initial alkalinity and initial mineralization.

I've designed ezRecipe to be used with 100% RO or distilled brewing water. Other types of source water such as tap, well, etc. can be used based on their water report. Add salts and minerals that closely match a given water report then save them as a source 'Water Profile'. Then using the saved source water profile as a starting point. Add more minerals and/or acids until you match your target brewing water properties.

 

[ajdelange]

I notice several entries call for lactic acid and sodium bicarbonate. Are you trying to get the sodium up without increasing alkalinity?

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

I notice several entries call for lactic acid and sodium bicarbonate. Are you trying to get the sodium up without increasing alkalinity?

Yes exactly. When brewing a Witbier two years ago I interpreted something Pierre Celis said about his brewing water. When asked what had made Hoegaarden the perfect location for brewing the Witbier style of beer? Pierre Celis replied “Hard water (calcium-rich water) is good for brewing a wheat beer. Also, there were abundant supplies of water in the area. I have a well at my home”.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

You can get the sodium up (and also the chloride) simply by adding common sodium chloride salt. No need to combine acids and baking soda to achieve this goal. Unless somehow this acid and base combination imparts flavor benefits via some other means of which I'm totally unaware. Is there such a benefit?

 

[ajdelange]

I call what he is doing the "don't care" method. If you want more calcium in your mix but don't want any more sulfate or chloride and don't care about having some lactate or citrate or... get the calcium from calcium carbonate or calcium hydroxide and get it into solution (in the first case) and neutralize it (both cases) with some lactic or citric or ... acid.

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

You can get the sodium up (and also the chloride) simply by adding common sodium chloride salt. No need to combine acids and baking soda to achieve this goal. Unless somehow this acid and base combination imparts flavor benefits via some other means of which I'm totally unaware. Is there such a benefit?

The main benefit is limiting the types of mineral additions to just gypsum, calcium chloride, Epsom salt and baking soda. And experimenting with brewing water profiles. Why add alkalinity only to knock it out with acid is a good question. It's the only measurable way to add Na with those four additions.

I call what he is doing the "don't care" method. If you want more calcium in your mix but don't want any more sulfate or chloride and don't care about having some lactate or citrate or... get the calcium from calcium carbonate or calcium hydroxide and get it into solution (in the first case) and neutralize it (both cases) with some lactic or citric or ... acid.

I've brewed the same Witbier again as recently as June 2018 using a water profile without baking soda. I was still able to create a very hard water profile ala Pierre Celis but without bicarbonate. According to my notes at 20 minutes into the mash, the actual pH was 5.20 on this batch. Using AJ's voltmeter I soon hope to find out where the 0.24 pH differences are hiding.

"Mashed @ 122F for 15 minutes raised to 154F over 15 minutes. Then continued mash for 60 minutes. Mash pH @ 20 minutes: 5.20"

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Of late I've come around to the opinion that about 30-60 ppm sodium adds just a little something to the perception of flavor that is lacking in beer without it. I'm amazed at how many brewers who similarly like some level of sodium are abjectly afraid to add NaCl (salt) to their mash and/or sparge water. I've even heard instructions on several occasions that common salt should literally never be added to brewing water. But once the salt molecule fully dissociates into freely migrating Na+ and Cl- ions within water these dissociated ions are absolutely no different from any other Na+ and Cl- ions sourced from elsewhere, such as Cl- from CaCl2 and Na+ from bicarbonate of soda (baking soda). Type for type, an ion is an ion.

But perhaps the oddest thing I've ever heard (more than once) is that good quality "old" water (meaning naturally sourced good tasting water of low to moderate mineralization and alkalinity) is always going to be found superior to "new" water (meaning made from RO or distilled with added minerals). About the only thing of benefit that I can tell is missing from nearly all of such "new" water is a small trace of zinc. But aside from that, most "new" water also typically lacks HCO3- (dissociated bicarbonate ions). This is why I asked above if anyone perceives a certain flavor magic to be associated with the presence of HCO3- ions, even if they are to be wiped out completely by added acid.

Of all of ScrewyBrewer's water blends which contain both baking soda and lactic acid, if one presumes grams for baking soda and mL's (plus 88% concentration) for lactic acid, only the "CH Evans Brown Ale" water retains any level of HCO3- ions after acidification. Though for the "California Steamin" water it may be a toss-up from one batch to the next as to whether or not any level of free HCO3- remains.

 

[mabrungard]

Of late I've come around to the opinion that about 30-60 ppm sodium adds just a little something to the perception of flavor that is lacking in beer without it.

John Palmer did a couple of trials on sodium perception when AJ and I were helping with the Water book. John reported favorable results and that inspired me to consider it too. Over the years, I've come to the same conclusion. Modest sodium levels are OK, if not good for beer flavor. Don't be afraid to add sodium.

 

[J-T]

The more I read the more confused I get. Can anyone help me with this?

Hypothesis: you're more confused now than when you first posted.
Correct?

 

[Stand]

Hypothesis: you're more confused now than when you first posted.
Correct?

Perhaps. Let's see if I can sum up what I've read so far. Tell me how poorly I've gotten this.

1. There is a great degree of disagreement about the basic formulation of pH, and source water profiles seems to complicate things (calculators work better with RO water).
2. Calculating pH is really flipping hard; measuring is better.
3. Baking Soda additions are generally not necessary except to raise the pH although they won't hurt in small amounts(at least for my water).
4. Higher pH than the traditional brewing range is not necessary, but it has some flavor impact that some people enjoy.
5. Moderate levels of sodium are OK, but not necessary (again this is about taste).
6. Y'all know a hell of a lot more than I do.

I updated EZ water calculator to reflect what I understand (or think I understand) thus far:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...e6E-sz3fM4CJ_UN_5COaZLOks/edit#gid=1267915014

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

As with any formula when eliminating ‘variables’ it makes things more logical and easier to predict.

Predicting mash pH is easier than predicting weather. But the accuracy of both are compared to a measured outcome. Is it raining as predicted? Does mash pH actually match the predicted pH?

I’ll just leave it here. In a Kölsch or a Pilsner style subtle differences are easier to perceive. Brighter color naturally clearer beer better yeast attenuation are more evident. Logically harder to percieve these in a darker or hoppier beer.