MASH PH (many members stunned, no answer yet)

[kingschiff]

See thread below for the whole convo, one member said this may be a good place to post to get answers.

Initial question: 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?

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/ezwater-vs-brun-water-help.657252/#post-8421976

 

[ajdelange]

I don't know if you will get answers but you will certainly get opinions. Here's mine.

When you mix acids (somethings that gives off protons = hydrogen ions) and bases (things that absorb protons) protons shuffle back and forth between them in order to adjust the electrical charges on the molecules such that they just balance i.e. that the number of charges given up just equals the number absorbed. In a mash the water is an acid, some of the malts are acidic, some of the malts are basic, the bicarbonate ion in the water is basic and, of course, you can (and do) add acids or bases to mash to set the pH where you want it to be. It is simple to calculate the proton shuffle between water, bicarbonate, added acids and added bases because we have solid models (their titration curves) for the way they behave. It it a trivial matter to compute the shuffle between malts and these other mash components too if you have the titration data for the malts.

To begin with many of the people who produce mash pH estimators do not fully understand the chemistry of acids and bases or understand it but find it too complex (it isn't) to program robustly. They handle these perceived complexities by various assumptions and approximations. Fortunately, the errors introduced by doing this are small but explain in part why different programs give different answers. The big swinger is in the modeling of the malt titration. Again we have the situation that some of the authors don't understand how titration curves play into all this. One of the most popular programs until recently reported a decrease in mash pH if additional distilled water was added to the mash! Authors at this level of sophistication have noticed (based on the work of those that do understand titration) that the darker a malt is the more acidic it is and have used this with anecdotal reports from users of their programs to fudge pH estimates out of malt color or type or a combination of the two. Those who understand how to use titration data don't have it! Only a handful of malts have been properly measured and their parameters published. Those authors can attempt to estimate malt parameters (the distilled water pH and three others two of which are often small enough that they can be called 0) from color or type.

This has been quite technical. To try to phrase it in less technical terms: the programs base their pH predictions based on models of malts, alkalinity and additions. The different programs use different models. None of the models is very good but they fail to reflect the malt you have sitting on your bench in different ways. Thus, the programs predict different pH's, sometimes dramatically so especially when dark malts, whose parameters show more variability than base malts, are involved.

There are experimental robust calculators out there (brewingfunctions.yolasite.com) but for tight predictions they require good titration data. About the only advantage they give you is that the imprecise calculations used by the popular spreadsheets and calculators have been removed.

 

[kingschiff]

I don't know if you will get answers but you will certainly get opinions. Here's mine.....readsheets and calculators have been removed.

Thanks for the response man!! I tried the link you sent, gives me around a 5.2 mash PH estimate.

I guess I don't expect any program to be 100% accurate, I'm just trying to figure out what program I should use. Also trying to figure out how the hell i ended up witha 4.2 (temp: hot, 4.5 per what other people say) Mash PH or so...

 

[ajdelange]

I'm pretty impressed that you were able to figure it out to the point of being able to get answers from it in 22 minutes!

 

[kingschiff]

I'm pretty impressed that you were able to figure it out to the point of being able to get answers from it in 22 minutes!

@ajdelange I'm pretty computer, excel, savvy especially. It looks really daunting, but from what I can see/did, only the light blue sections are to be edited.

Wish I could figure out what the hell to do moving forward, lmao.

 

[ajdelange]

Go back to yolasite and get the manual.

 

[Rob2010SS]

Mash made easy works pretty well too. Ive been using that one. Seems to get close

 

[kingschiff]

Mash made easy works pretty well too. Ive been using that one. Seems to get close

That one shows 5.56 as a pre acid/base addition MASH PH.

@ajdelange just read through it.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

That one shows 5.56 as a pre acid/base addition MASH PH.

@ajdelange just read through it.

Which one? With 2-Row selected to fall between 5.53 and 5.58 DI_pH (via the critically important drop-down cell in the lower right hand corner) I came up with 5.27 as the mash pH for your recipe by using Mash Made Easy. Mash Made Easy is not associated with A.J. deLange.

 

[kingschiff]

and i know AJ isn't associated, he said to go read the manual on yolasite, and I was responding I did.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Your 'Mash Made Easy' mistakes which I can initially see are:

1) No minerals added. For this beware that MME uses and presumes the dihydrate state for CaCl2, whereas BW 1.24 uses and presumes the anhydrite state. Dihydrate has roughly 75% of the Ca++ as does anhydrite. So to maintain apples to apples, add appropriately more when using MME. Also beware that MME adds minerals by the batch, whereas BW adds them by the gallon.

Calcium and magnesium depress (lower) mash pH. The more added, the more pH depression.

2) Incorrect DI_pH range selected for 2-Row Brewers base malt. Visit the 'drop-down' cell in lower right hand corner. Hover over it first with the cursor to read the instructions. Then click it and make your appropriate selection.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

and i know AJ isn't associated, he said to go read the manual on yolasite, and I was responding I did.

A.J. has his own yolasite.

 

[kingschiff]

A.J. has his own yolasite.

I know, i was referring to his. Sorry for confusion. I have 4 different programs open now, going crazy, lol. Going to check the PH of some of the items you mentioned and report back.

 

[kingschiff]

hey @Silver_Is_Money messing around with MME for a possible brew, not the final recipe. but just messing around. does this look right? I've also upped the CaCl2 by 25% per your advice/knowledge.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Why do you have the three otherwise blank Roasted Malt lines in it? Very odd that it displays that way, with the spurious returns of "FALSE". In LibreOffice Calc those 'FALSE" fields are properly blank, as they should be. But it's odd that what I'm presuming to be Windows Excel (year/version???) would corrupt things like that and taint the appearance. Either way, the calculations themselves are not corrupted, as the output precisely matches a quick mock-up I just did while duplicating this in LibreOffice Calc (where there are no Boolean "FALSE" statements visible).

I guess I'll need to find someone with Excel so I can derive different code so this Boolean defect of Excel doesn't occur.

When you select "None" in the drop-downs where Roasted Malt reside, do the "False" statements go away?

 

[kingschiff]

Why do you have the three otherwise blank Roasted Malt lines in it? Verry odd that it displays that way, with the spurious returns of "FALSE". I....."False" statements go away?

Yes they do, sorry I just left them, I did it quick on lunch break. I get a 5.52 in BruN.

obviously I know there are differences.

How come no spots to add the amount of acid, baking, etc to adjust ph?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

How come no spots to add the amount of acid, baking, etc to adjust ph?

The short answer is because 'Mash Made Easy' is easy. It tells you how much acid or baking soda to add to hit your selected mash pH target. You do not tell it. Why on earth should you have to tell a program this info? Why not let the program tell you what is required (presuming here of course that the program is in fact capable of telling you, and most are simply not capable). No frustrating hunting and pecking or highly confusing adding by the gallon (or Liter), etc... The acid or baking soda to be added (if any) is seen in MME directly below your selected mash pH target of choice.

BW (the free version at least) does not to my knowledge consider or have a means whereby to consider the whopping high pH of Flaked Oats or Corn and Flaked Wheat or Rye. It lumps them in with far more acidic "Base", and even there it offers no selectability with respect to what kind of base malt. Instead, I presume it has only one acidity for base malt, and then it alters it to some small degree by manipulating the Lovibond color. And since base malt is more acidic, and you are falsely associating less acidic flaked oats and wheat with more acidic base malt, given that you have no other choice in the matter for BW, you will inevitably get a lower mash pH output as an unfortunate consequence.

This leads me to the question: Where on this earth will you find 1.0 Lovibond Pilsner malt? Ditto Flaked Oats?

 

[kingschiff]

The short answer is because 'Mash Made Easy' is easy. It tells you how much acid or baking soda to add to hit your selected mash pH target. You do not tell it. No frustrating hunting and pecking or adding per the gallon, etc... The acid or baking soda to be added (if any) is seen directly below your selected mash pH target of your choice.

BW (the free version at least) does not to my knowledge consider or have a means whereby to consider the whopping high pH of Flaked Oats or Corn and Flaked Wheat or Rye. It lumps them in with far more acidic "Base", and even there it offers no selectability with respect to what kind of base malt. Instead, I presume it has only one acidity for base malt, and then it alters it to some small degree by manipulating the Lovibond color. And since base malt is more acidic, and you are falsely associating less acidic flaked oats and wheat with more acidic base malt, given that you have no other choice in the matter for BW, you will inevitably get a lower mash pH output as an unfortunate consequence.

This leads me to the question: Where on this earth will you find 1.0 Lovibond Pilsner malt? Ditto Flaked Oats?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Personally, I'm somewhat suspicious of Breiss claiming 1.2L. DI mash pH data they graciously sent me upon my request indicates 1.5L. Perhaps some lots hit 1.2L?

Briess indicates 2.5L for Flaked Oats. It makes no difference sans for output with respect to the final color of your beer, as MME does not use L color to alter the DI_pH of Flaked Oats.

http://www.brewingwithbriess.com/Assets/PDFs/Briess_PISB_BrewersOatFlakes.pdf

 

[kingschiff]

Personally, I'm highly suspicious of Breiss claiming 1.2L. DI mash pH data they graciously sent me upon my request indicates 1.5L. Perhaps some lots hit 1.2L?

Idk you're the pro! Is it always safer to cool down PH samples rather than trying to use the +.3 rule?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Idk you're the pro! Is it always safer to cool down PH samples rather than trying to use the +.3 rule?

0.3 points is not a rule, it is only an estimate which may work for some cases or meters, and not for other cases or meters. It is always better to read properly at room temperature, which is the temperature used for calibration.

I'm by no means a pro. I'm a homebrew amateur like the rest of us. Always trying to learn.

 

[ajdelange]

Why on earth should you have to tell a program this info? Why not let the program tell you what is required (presuming here of course that the program is in fact capable of telling you, and most are simply not capable)

Sometimes you want to know at what pH a mash of a particular mix of water, malts, acids and/or bases will arrive. Other times you want to know what you need to add to get to a particular mash pH. Or both, e.g. you tell the program you want pH 5.4 with a particular mix of grains including some sauermalz. You see that the sauermalz requirement is 2 Oz more than you have on hand so you ask "What would the pH be if I took out 2 Oz sauermalz?" And then you may want to explore approaches like trying to make up the loss of the sauermalz with some caramel/crystal malt etc. The ability to instantly see how much pH shift a change in a malt amount or type, a change in an acid or base amount, a change in water alkalinity a change in the Kolbach factor etc. is really very valuable. And both problems are the same. In predicting the pH we hold the mash composition fixed and find the pH that zeroes the total charge. In finding how much of something to add to hit a particular pH we hold the pH and the composition for all components except the one we want to vary to hit that pH and find the amount of that component we need to add to zero the net charge. If you are going to do one, why not the other?

 

[Rev2010]

Why on earth should you have to tell a program this info?

I too wondered why it didn't have an input for baking soda. I use a small amount to adjust my water to a more balanced profile, not to raise pH. Should still be an input option as well as other water treatments typically used to adjust the water profile as opposed to just mash pH.


Rev.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Sometimes you want to know at what pH a mash of a particular mix of water, malts, acids and/or bases will arrive. Other times you want to know what you need to add to get to a particular mash pH. Or both, e.g. you tell the program you want pH 5.4 with a particular mix of grains including some sauermalz. You see that the sauermalz requirement is 2 Oz more than you have on hand so you ask "What would the pH be if I took out 2 Oz sauermalz?" And then you may want to explore approaches like trying to make up the loss of the sauermalz with some caramel/crystal malt etc. The ability to instantly see how much pH shift a change in a malt amount or type, a change in an acid or base amount, a change in water alkalinity a change in the Kolbach factor etc. is really very valuable. And both problems are the same. In predicting the pH we hold the mash composition fixed and find the pH that zeroes the total charge. In finding how much of something to add to hit a particular pH we hold the pH and the composition for all components except the one we want to vary to hot that pH and find the amount of that component we need to add to zero the net charge. If you are going to do one, why not the other?

Mash Made Easy allows for Acid Malt to be added directly to the grist, just as for any other malt. Add as much as you like, then take it out or add more incrementally to observe the pH impact.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I too wondered why it didn't have an input for baking soda. I use a small amount to adjust my water to a more balanced profile, not to raise pH. Should still be an input option as well as other water treatments typically used to adjust the water profile as opposed to just mash pH.

You can't add baking soda without impacting (raising) the mash pH. It adds little to no real value to artificially contrived "balanced profiles". Believe in the magic of canned profiles if you must. I personally don't believe in such magic. And particularly more so for cases wherein they raise bicarbonate ion concentration.

In most cases (sans mainly for the case of darker beers, where MME will instruct you to add baking soda if/as needed) the only thing that happens when you add baking soda is that you subsequently must increase the acid addition in order to get rid of the bicarbonate ions introduced by the baking soda. The only advantage it might have is in introducing the sodium ion. That can generally be accomplished by adding a little salt.

For the vast majority of beer styles the object is to eliminate bicarbonate, not to introduce it.

 

[Rev2010]

You can't add baking soda without impacting (raising) the mash pH.

I know. Was stating that the reason I add it is other than to raise pH. And yes, it's just to add the sodium ions. I use very little, 0.2g/gal

It adds little to no real value to artificially contrived "balanced profiles". Believe in the magic of canned profiles if you must.

Perhaps I'll stop adding it then. I just adjust my water to be a bit more balanced. I don't at all try to match the numbers exactly in the balanced profile I'm going by.


Rev.

 

[kingschiff]

Well to add to my saga of confusing ass MASH PH problems, check this out. I just don't get it. @Silver_Is_Money @ajdelange @mabrungard

GRAINS: 10 LB pale malt, 1 lb flaked oats, 1 lb flaked red wheat

MASH SALTS (5.8g Cal chl, 2.4g gypsum, .4 table, .4 epsom) into 4.25 gallons distilled water

PH (temp of reading)
MASH WATER+SALTS PH- 5.7 (72.8*)
15 MIN AFTER DOUGH: 5.2 (69.6)
30 min after dough: 4.9 (72.3)
end of mash: 4.9 (71.5)

SPARGE WATER+ SALTS PH: 5.8 (71.1) (3.25 gal, 5g cal chl, 2.1g gypsum, .3 table, .3 epsom)
SPARGE RUNOFF PH: 5 (72)

FULL WORT PH: (4.6)


PH meter was checked last week with distilled/baking soda solution, milk, and PH solution. All worked. Checked prior to starting brewing with PH solutions. Now i did have a 73% efficiency which is better than what I've been getting. Also a IPA i was drinking this weeknd had a PH of 4.2 (as i just happened to check as I was brewing)

But this MASH PH thing is confusing the hell out of me. BruN had 5.32, MME 5.69 and Kaiser's sheet at 5.55 (with an avg of 5.52)


I am 100% sure (almost) I am not committing any errors or wrong doings.

What the heck do you guys think the issue is? Is there even an issue here? Thanks again for any comments

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

There is no way this side of massive mineralization and/or acidification to mash at pH 4.9 with a grist comprised of only base malt, red wheat, and white wheat.

Base malts DI pH span is from about 5.5 to 5.9
Wheat malts DI pH span is from about 5.8 to 6.1

Your mineralization alone would not budge the pH down nearly a full point. On first guess that might require Ca++ on the order of about 750 ppm or more.

I would suggest that you do mini-mashes of each grist component in good quality (less than 6 TDS) distilled water and see what the actual DI pH values of each malt really are. But use a different pH meter than the one giving you 4.9 as mash pH.

 

[kingschiff]

There is no way this side of massive mineralization and/or acidification to mash at pH 4.9 with a grist comprised of only base malt, red wheat, and white wheat.

Base malts DI pH span is from about 5.5 to 5.9
Wheat malts DI pH span is from about 5.8 to 6.1

Your mineralization alone would not budge the pH down nearly a full point. On first guess that might require Ca++ on the order of about 750 ppm or more.

I would suggest that you do mini-mashes of each grist component in good quality (less than 6 TDS) distilled water and see what the actual DI pH values of each malt really are. But use a different pH meter than the one giving you 4.9 as mash pH.

I was thinking it could have something to do with the grain. Although, if that's the case. I feel there's a higher chance its the PH meter?

1) is there anyway sugars could effect the ph reading? (being a cheap meter)
2) is there any way a stainless pot I'm heating water in can be the issue? ( i use a ssbrewtech mash tun, so i'm guessing, that's not it)
3) will PBW kill lactobacillus? the only new variable i thought of is that we do kettle sours in our mash tun. following a nice soak of pbw, then a star san rinse. however i quickly ruled this out, as none of our beers have been "sour" that weren't suppose to be.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I can only vouch that induction burners can throw off electrical measurements rather effectively.