frankvw
Well-Known Member
I'm wanting to brew a Belgian dubbel using the water profile for Antwerp embedded in Bru'n water. I have entered the details for my local water from the lab's water report:
Calcium as Ca+ 23.25
Magnesium as Mg+ 8.75
Sodium as Na+ 17.70
Sulphate as SO42- 18.25
Chloride as Cl- 26.2
Total alkalinity as CaCO3 82.50
pH 6.86
As you can see, my water is rather soft with a fairly low pH. No bicarbonates are specified on the lab report, which is where Bru'n Water's alkalinity converter comes. It puts the bicarbonates at 100 and carbonates at 0.
I have entered my grain bill correctly:
Piilsener malt [ Base Malt] 4kg 3.3EBC
Melanoidin [ Base Malt] 750gr 51.9EBC
Biscuit [Base Malt] 450gr 50EBC
Vienna [Base Malt] 450gr 5.9EBC
Wheat [Base Malt] 350.0gr 3.9EBC
Dextrin malt [Crystal Malt] 250gr 1.4EBC
Special W [Roast Malt] 200gr 300EBC
Total batch size will be 21L.
Based on the above, Bru'n Water calculates a beer color of about 25.4EBC. Beersmith puts it at about 31. In order for Bru'n water to achieve the same beer color I need to reduce the total batch size to 15L or so. That can't be right....?
Secondly, having entered the mash and sparge water volumes as per what Beersmith suggests (16.82 and 10.6L, respectively) Bru'n Water calculates a mash pH of 5.56 based on my local water without any mineral additions.
When I then add 1 gram of gypsum and 1 gram of calcium chloride, the mash pH drops to 4.12! This makes no sense to me.
Either I've done something really stupid here (more stupid than not reading the instructions, which I have) or I'm totally misunderstanding something.
What am I missing here?
Calcium as Ca+ 23.25
Magnesium as Mg+ 8.75
Sodium as Na+ 17.70
Sulphate as SO42- 18.25
Chloride as Cl- 26.2
Total alkalinity as CaCO3 82.50
pH 6.86
As you can see, my water is rather soft with a fairly low pH. No bicarbonates are specified on the lab report, which is where Bru'n Water's alkalinity converter comes. It puts the bicarbonates at 100 and carbonates at 0.
I have entered my grain bill correctly:
Piilsener malt [ Base Malt] 4kg 3.3EBC
Melanoidin [ Base Malt] 750gr 51.9EBC
Biscuit [Base Malt] 450gr 50EBC
Vienna [Base Malt] 450gr 5.9EBC
Wheat [Base Malt] 350.0gr 3.9EBC
Dextrin malt [Crystal Malt] 250gr 1.4EBC
Special W [Roast Malt] 200gr 300EBC
Total batch size will be 21L.
Based on the above, Bru'n Water calculates a beer color of about 25.4EBC. Beersmith puts it at about 31. In order for Bru'n water to achieve the same beer color I need to reduce the total batch size to 15L or so. That can't be right....?
Secondly, having entered the mash and sparge water volumes as per what Beersmith suggests (16.82 and 10.6L, respectively) Bru'n Water calculates a mash pH of 5.56 based on my local water without any mineral additions.
When I then add 1 gram of gypsum and 1 gram of calcium chloride, the mash pH drops to 4.12! This makes no sense to me.
Either I've done something really stupid here (more stupid than not reading the instructions, which I have) or I'm totally misunderstanding something.
What am I missing here?