EZwater vs BruN water (HELP!)

[kingschiff]

I've been using EZwater, after missing some PHs, I did some research and found BruN water. Long story short, same specs added into both sheets. 100% distilled water, no lactic acid. EZ is giving me 5.4 mash PH, BruN water is giving me 4.18.

I have double checked #s and additions in both programs numerous times.

What gives?

 

[kingschiff]

@mabrungard It'd be a honor to get your help! I like your program so much more, but not sure if I'm missing something. I watched a 20 min setup video, so feel I have a pretty good feel for it.

 

[kingschiff]

Just did the same specs in brewers friend online calculator, got 5.30. so something has to be off in the BruN water sheet.

 

[thehaze]

You need to provide complete recipe, in order to get an answer. What's your Mash, Sparge and Total Batch volume?

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Yep, show us some screenshots and we can help.

 

[kingschiff]

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1frCvpRp46ZUJhjo3ZlyysE6lDz958Tuz

i've uploaded both spreadsheets here if someone is kind enough to check it out

 

[thehaze]

So your water has a pH of 7? Is this something you have measured with a pH meter?

I can see you have quite a few roasted malts, but you also upped the Chloride and sulfate a fair bit. I wouldn't go more than 50 ppm each, as well as 40-50 ppm Ca. Recipes with lots of roasted malts, will need some bakng soda or anything to bring the pH in range.

Regarding the 2 spreadsheets: I've used both and most reliable is Bru'nWater, but I do have a pH meter which I use for mash, start and end of boil.

When I used EZWater, my beers were not good. The spreadsheet is easy to use and most times it will appear as if the pH for most recipes will not dive under 5.2-5.3, which is weird, as I brewed some where it went under 5.2 and EZwater predicted somewhere around 5.4.

In the end, if you measure mash pH, once you do, you will know what you need to do. I usually take a ph measurements in the first 10-15 minutes of the mash and I adjust from there.

 

[kingschiff]

Well just mashed in, after 10 min, 4.2-4.3 ph.
blows my mind that 2 programs were wrong...

sorry for doubting bruN water!

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

If you were mashing a grist comprised of nothing but 100% Black Patent malt, and your mineralization level was high, and your mash water was relatively neutral in pH and free of alkalinity, you could legitimately mash at pH 4.2. But any other (as in more normal) grist conditions, and it simply can't happen.

The lowest dark roasted malt DIpH in the data Briess provided to me shows a single particularly dark (particularly low Lovibond) lot of Black malt (Black Patent to most) mashing all by itself at pH 4.24 in DI water. And it appears to be an outlier with strangely high acidity when compared to most other dark roasted malts.

Stable mash pH is only achieved at 30 (to better in my opinion 60) minutes into the mash. Was it still reading 4.2 pH at the 30 and 60 minute marks of the mash?

 

[kingschiff]

My PH meter was calibrated at 4 and 7 right before this. confirmed mash PH at 4.2-4.3.
I added 1G of baking soda and it brough it to 4.5 at the 30min mark. Yes the distilled water I have jumps betwen 6.8-7

 

[kingschiff]

Final beer ph into fermenter is 4.5, so we’ll see. From what i read some stouts are around there.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

If the 2-Row is along the lines of Brewers malt I get a calculated mash pH of 5.27 prior to any addition of baking soda for your recipe.

If I mash 14.5 lbs. of nothing but your Black malt I get 4.49 pH. This sets the pH floor below which you can't go without adding acid or additional calcium or magnesium. But you don't have 14.5 lbs. of this malt, as you are only adding 1 lb.

There simply isn't enough acidity within your recipes combined malts to drop your pH as low as you have measured (4.2 to 4.3 pH). The 1 lb. of Flaked Oats you added are rated at a whopping 6.2 pH and would alone counter and balance your 1 lb. of black malt to within a decent mash pH range. Then you also have 10 lbs. of base malt that is going to be noticeably basic with respect to any typical mash pH target, and if this malt was alone it would require acidification. And against this base malt you only have 2 additional lbs. of acidic roasted malts, and also 1/2 lb. of dark crystal to counter the base malts deficiency of acidity with their own acidity.

I don't know what happened here, but Brewers Friend at 5.30 and Mash Made Easy at 5.27 and EZ Water at 5.4 seem to be confirming each other fairly well. And 4.2 pH is simply not possible.

You also have likely tens of thousands of people who have made recipes along the lines of yours and not hit 4.2 pH in the mash. If all of your grist components were well on the low side of their nominal midrange of DI mash pH values, you might hit 5.0 pH. But chaos theory would place the likelihood of all of your components being oddly low in DI_pH at rather thin odds.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Final beer ph into fermenter is 4.5, so we’ll see. From what i read some stouts are around there.

Boiling drops wort pH by typically about 0.2 points, so if you mashed at 4.2 pH your kettle knock-out pH should be on the order of 4.0. Nothing adds up here.

Were your calibration buffers fresh, or reused?

 

[kingschiff]

If the 2-Row is along the lines of Brewers malt I get a calculated mash pH of 5.27 prior to any addition of baking soda for your recipe.

If I mash 14.5 lbs. of nothing but your Black malt I get 4.49 pH. This sets the pH floor below which you can't go without adding acid or additional calcium or magnesium. But you don't have 14.5 lbs. of this malt, as you are only adding 1 lb.

There simply isn't enough acidity within your recipes combined malts to drop your pH as low as you have measured (4.2 to 4.3 pH). The 1 lb. of Flaked Oats you added are rated at a whopping 6.2 pH and would alone counter and balance your 1 lb. of black malt to within a decent mash pH range. Then you also have 10 lbs. of base malt that is going to be noticeably basic with respect to any typical mash pH target, and if this malt was alone it would require acidification. And against this base malt you only have 2 additional lbs. of acidic roasted malts, and also 1/2 lb. of dark crystal to counter the base malts deficiency of acidity with their own acidity.

I don't know what happened here, but Brewers Friend at 5.30 and Mash Made Easy at 5.27 and EZ Water at 5.4 seem to be confirming each other fairly well. And 4.2 pH is simply not possible.

You also have likely tens of thousands of people who have made recipes along the lines of yours and not hit 4.2 pH in the mash. If all of your grist components were well on the low side of their nominal midrange of DI mash pH values, you might hit 5.0 pH. But chaos theory would place the likelihood of all of your components being oddly low in DI_pH at rather thin odds.

I don’t understand how i got that ph reading then... I calibrated my meter at 4.0 and 7.0... I get what you’re saying but I did get that PH. So idk the answer.

 

[kingschiff]

Boiling drops wort pH by typically about 0.2 points, so if you mashed at 4.2 pH your kettle knock-out pH should be on the order of 4.0. Nothing adds up here.

Were your calibration buffers fresh, or reused?

Batch sparged with treated water. Also this recipe has some DME in the boil to bump OG.

 

[kingschiff]

Fresh calibration solution.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Did you take pH readings at mash temperature or room temperature? If at mash temperature they would be about 0.3 points low vs. room temperature.

 

[kingschiff]

Did you take pH readings at mash temperature or room temperature? If at mash temperature they would be about 0.3 points low vs. room temperature.

I bought a ph meter that had temperature correction and assumed that would take care of it. With that aside, main question here is the massive difference in the programs readings.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I bought a ph meter that had temperature correction and assumed that would take care of it. With that aside, main question here is the massive difference in the programs readings.

Temperature control will not compensate for this. Add 0.3 to all of your readings. Still way low.

 

[kingschiff]

Temperature control will not compensate for this. Add 0.3 to all of your readings. Still way low.

So any ph reading not at about 68, add .3 to?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

So any ph reading not at about 68, add .3 to?

No, roughly 0.3 points for compensation only works for measurements taken at mash temperatures, and for which one is assuming room temperature equivalence.

Technically it is 0.35 points, but some meters may be off by only 0.25 points. Perhaps the latter is due to temperature compensation, but of this I'm not certain.

 

[kingschiff]

No, roughly 0.3 points for compensation only works for measurements taken at mash temperatures, and for which one is assuming room temperature equivalence.

Technically it is 0.35 points, but some meters may be off by only 0.25 points. Perhaps the latter is due to temperature compensation, but of this I'm not certain.

That’s weird, can’t believe I’ve never heard that before

 

[mabrungard]

I'm surprised by this thread. As mentioned, its unlikely that a typical stout or porter grist is going to drop as low as mentioned.

Yes, ATC pH meters DO NOT correct for the chemical and thermal effect of measuring wort pH at mashing temperatures. ATC only corrects the meter and probe's response to differing measurement temperature. The pH offset mentioned above is only approximate and it is not fixed. The offset is not always 0.3.

Only measure wort pH after cooling the sample to around room temperature.

 

[kingschiff]

I'm surprised by this thread. As mentioned, its unlikely that a typical stout or porter grist is going to drop as low as mentioned.

Yes, ATC pH meters DO NOT correct for the chemical and thermal effect of measuring wort pH at mashing temperatures. ATC only corrects the meter and probe's response to differing measurement temperature. The pH offset mentioned above is only approximate and it is not fixed. The offset is not always 0.3.

Only measure wort pH after cooling the sample to around room temperature.

I really can't fathom how the PH would get that low, or why BruN water said it was. But it was right...

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I really can't fathom how the PH would get that low, or why BruN water said it was. But it was right...

Or was it a case of two errors confirming each other, with a smattering of confirmation bias mixed in? Where is A.J. deLange when we need him? If you move this to the 'Brew Science' forum he will quite likely see it and respond. It would be great if D.M. Riffe would also lend comment, as well as RPIScotty.

A.J. deLange is presently developing the worlds first "Gen 2" mash pH software.
D.M. Riffe is the creator of the highly trusted MpH Water Calculator.
RPIScotty has his own advanced spreadsheet versions of both of the aboves work.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

As an aside, I can't see where EZ Water has been actively managed or updated/upgraded in a good number of years.

Ditto for the Kaiser Water Calculator, which is the first of such calculators that I became aware of and actively used. It would be great if Kai Troester (Braukaiser, or simply Kaiser on this forum would return to active participation on this forum).

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

The lowest "measured" mash pH's I had ever seen posted on this forum prior to this thread came in at 4.9.

4.2 pH is a tad greater than 5X more acidic than 4.9 pH

Proof:
10^−4.2÷10^−4.9 = 5.0119

 

[kingschiff]

The lowest "measured" mash pH's I had ever seen posted on this forum prior to this thread came in at 4.9.

4.2 pH is a tad greater than 5X more acidic than 4.9 pH

Proof:
10^−4.2÷10^−4.9 = 5.0119

I just don't understand how I got there then lol. I showed you guys everything I used.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Final beer ph into fermenter is 4.5, so we’ll see. From what i read some stouts are around there.

If you allow that the boil reduced your mash pH by 0.2 points, then your mash pH at room temperature (right or wrong) was 4.7. Unless your 4.5 pH as seen above was measured hot, and as for right at the end of the boil, in which case the cooled wort pH was perhaps ~4.8 at that juncture, and the cooled mash pH was ~5.0.

 

[kingschiff]

If you allow that the boil reduced your mash pH by 0.2 points, then your mash pH at room temperature (right or wrong) was 4.7. Unless your 4.5 pH as seen above was measured hot, and as for right at the end of the boil, in which case the cooled wort pH was perhaps ~4.8 at that juncture, and the cooled mash pH was ~5.0.

The weirdest thing is when I take all the grain and salts out of BruN it gives me 5.62 (shouldn't it be 7?) ph, and then if your point is correct. why is bruN water showing me a 4.2 estimated PH?