Water addition mistake...........

[madkap_78]

I was making a rye pa today. I use distilled water and just build from there. I was doing my water additions for the mash and I wanted to do 3.5g of gypsum and 1.5g of cal chloride but when I went for the cal chloride I accidently grabbed the cal carbonate instead. I added 1.5g of baking soda before I realized what I had done. I tried the wort before I put it into the fermenter and it tasted ok, good actually. My question is what is this going to do to my beer? Is it ruined? Has anyone done anything similar like this that can give me some feedback on how theirs turned out.

 

[twistr25]

I can't say I've done that before, but most certainly let it ride, especially if your initial sample tasted ok. It shouldn't ruin it, but may have messed with the way the sugars were converted. Let us know how it turns out!

What did you get for your OG?

 

[JonM]

Wait - did you add calcium carbonate (chalk) or sodium bicarbonate (baking soda)?

 

[JimRausch]

If it was Calcium Carbonate, no biggie, because as I have found out in the past couple weeks, chalk doesn't dissolve much at all and therefore has minimal effect on the mash.
However, if you were relying on the Cacl2 to supply Chloride, then you might be deficient there, leading to an imbalance in your sulfate/chloride levels. So, it might be more bitter than you expect.
If it was bicarb, that will raise your mash alkalinity, so that could have been a problem if you didn't plan for it. Plus the hefty dose of sodium.
Did you ruin it? Nah. Will it be the best ever? Let us know.
Full disclosure: I'm not a chemist or a water expert. However, I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express...... and just finished reading 'Water'.

 

[madkap_78]

Wait - did you add calcium carbonate (chalk) or sodium bicarbonate (baking soda)?

sorry. meant calcium carbonate

 

[madkap_78]

I can't say I've done that before, but most certainly let it ride, especially if your initial sample tasted ok. It shouldn't ruin it, but may have messed with the way the sugars were converted. Let us know how it turns out!

What did you get for your OG?

OG before going into the fermenter was 5.5 gal at 1.069.
was shooting for 1.073 at 72% efficiency, only got about 69%

 

[madkap_78]

If it was Calcium Carbonate, no biggie, because as I have found out in the past couple weeks, chalk doesn't dissolve much at all and therefore has minimal effect on the mash.
However, if you were relying on the Cacl2 to supply Chloride, then you might be deficient there, leading to an imbalance in your sulfate/chloride levels. So, it might be more bitter than you expect.
If it was bicarb, that will raise your mash alkalinity, so that could have been a problem if you didn't plan for it. Plus the hefty dose of sodium.
Did you ruin it? Nah. Will it be the best ever? Let us know.
Full disclosure: I'm not a chemist or a water expert. However, I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express...... and just finished reading 'Water'.

after I seen that I did this I added the correct amount of cal chloride to the mash.

 

[madkap_78]

afterwards the put the water additions and all the info into bruwater and it came back with a mash ph of 5.5. Is that ok?

 

[JonM]

Yep, sounds like you're good.

 

[kiblerjd]

It's all good man. Tip a few back for me. I'm really new to the water chemistry game but I will tell you I have played with the software a lot and I have noticed that these 1tsp adds (like 4g ish) of anything seem to just be fine tuning the water. I feel like it would be really hard to "ruin" the beer but that is just my observation. Short of adding like a gallon of lactic acid or 3 cups of calcium chloride I think the beer will still be great.