Water chemistry changes: calculated with batch vol or water vol?

[BigHead33]

Hi, I am planning on brewing a session IPA pretty soon. I have brewed IPA's successfuly in the past and I altered my water chemistry by changing each the strike water and sparge water to the desired mineral levels separately based on their volumes using beersmith. It has worked fine so far but Im wondering if im supposed to calculate the additions based on the batch volume and not the water volumes used. Can anybody provide me any feedback on this matter? Thanks

 

[Yooper]

Hi, I am planning on brewing a session IPA pretty soon. I have brewed IPA's successfuly in the past and I altered my water chemistry by changing each the strike water and sparge water to the desired mineral levels separately based on their volumes using beersmith. It has worked fine so far but Im wondering if im supposed to calculate the additions based on the batch volume and not the water volumes used. Can anybody provide me any feedback on this matter? Thanks

I"m not sure what you're asking. You use the amount of water volume to get the water profile.

Instead of the beersmith tool (which is lacking), I'd suggest reading up on water and using the water tool on brunwater. It has a ton of information on water, and you'll know why you're adding what you're adding as well as get a predicted mash pH (the ultimate goal anyway).

 

[ajdelange]

It's the water volume. If you are going to prepare x gallons of beer you should have a pretty good estimate of how many gallons of 'liquor' will be required and prepare that many gallons in advance.

 

[BigHead33]

Thanks for the help guys. Is brunwater a website or program?

 

[afr0byte]

It's a spreadsheet. Google Bru'n Water.

 

[jmf143]

Just to be sure I'm understanding what's being said - If I desire 100 ppm of Cl in my beer and my total water volume is 10 gallons, I add the appropriate amount of, say, calcium chloride so that I have 10 gallons of water with 100 ppm of Cl in it regardless of the fact that after grain absorption, tun losses and evaporation my finished volume may only be 5 gallons? I know the absorption and tun losses won't change the concentration of the Cl ions, but evaporation would. Is that to be ignored?

 

[afr0byte]

Just to be sure I'm understanding what's being said - If I desire 100 ppm of Cl in my beer and my total water volume is 10 gallons, I add the appropriate amount of, say, calcium chloride so that I have 10 gallons of water with 100 ppm of Cl in it regardless of the fact that after grain absorption, tun losses and evaporation my finished volume may only be 5 gallons? I know the absorption and tun losses won't change the concentration of the Cl ions, but evaporation would. Is that to be ignored?

Yes, evaporation is ignored.

 

[peterj]

Just to be sure I'm understanding what's being said - If I desire 100 ppm of Cl in my beer and my total water volume is 10 gallons, I add the appropriate amount of, say, calcium chloride so that I have 10 gallons of water with 100 ppm of Cl in it regardless of the fact that after grain absorption, tun losses and evaporation my finished volume may only be 5 gallons? I know the absorption and tun losses won't change the concentration of the Cl ions, but evaporation would. Is that to be ignored?

The recommended ion levels for brewing water take into account the fact that the wort will be boiled and those ions will be concentrated in the final product.

 

[BrewKnurd]

So I guess if you really specifically wanted 100 ppm Cl in your beer, you would need to base your additions on 5 gallons (with some adjustment for the absorption and tun losses). However, when people talk about ion levels, they are typically talking about the levels in the brewing water as a whole.

 

[smizak]

The recommended ion levels for brewing water take into account the fact that the wort will be boiled and those ions will be concentrated in the final product.

I plan on an RIS soon and my volume will be boiled down by a factor 2.5. It can matter. I account for boil-off with my water chemistry. I scale the salt additions in my sparge water by the final post-boil volume difference, not the total amount of water used.

 

[peterj]

I plan on an RIS soon and my volume will be boiled down by a factor 2.5. It can matter. I account for boil-off with my water chemistry. I scale the salt additions in my sparge water by the final post-boil volume difference, not the total amount of water used.

Wow! That's A LOT of boiling! So you would be doing something like boiling 7.5 gallons down to 3 gallons? What OG are you shooting for? I guess a case like that is why it's good to be aware of what's happening with ions in the boil, but for most normal beers you can just worry about ion levels in the water.

 

[peterj]

I guess in the end it doesn't matter which way you calculate it (based on final volume or water used) as long as you know what ion levels you like and which way they are calculated. I suppose it would actually be more accurate to use post boil ion levels, but for the purposes of comparing it to other people's work and experiences most of the literature and discussions talk about ion levels in brewing water.

 

[smizak]

Wow! That's A LOT of boiling! So you would be doing something like boiling 7.5 gallons down to 3 gallons? What OG are you shooting for? I guess a case like that is why it's good to be aware of what's happening with ions in the boil, but for most normal beers you can just worry about ion levels in the water.

Precisely. I can only fit 12.5lbs of grain in my tun, that maxes me out to 1.060 @ 80% efficiency for a 6 gallon batch. So for an all-grain RIS @ ~11%ABV, I need to boil down to around half that volume. Surprisingly, I've taken it down to about 5 gallons with only a 90min boil, so I'm guessing around 2-2.5hrs for 3 gallons. I could cheat and add extract but that would be lame.

 

[peterj]

Haha, yeah you don't want to be lame! I bet you'll get a TON of caramelly, melanoidin flavors from all that boiling too which will probably work really well in an RIS.

 

[BigHead33]

My logic is that if you wanted to brew a pilsner for example, you would want to achieve the same water chemistry of that region so you would take your given local water chemistry and alter it to reach that. I have fairly soft water here so I add the minerals to my raw water for before mashing and sparging for their respective volumes. I only alter for IPA's but that is what I mostly brew. I also filter out the chlorine first with a carbon filter.