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A lot of rude and unnecessary negativity, insults and angst surrounding these questions. Imagine what could be accomplished if you changed your attitudes and helped establish a procedure to test the calculators. Say by following the procedures we began to collect data and discovered that...

1.) Water/Mash calculators attempt to calculate the mash pH at chemical equilibrium. 2.) Homebrewers are incorrectly measuring the pH before chemical equilibrium. 3.) Homebrewers are incorrectly using their pH meters. 4.) Homebrewers do not measure the chemical equilibrium pH they simply "trust"...

Just one more question that perhaps someone can answer - Is this subject broached in professional brewing texts by the likes of Kunze, De Clerk, etc... ?

What percentage of brewers are using their pH meters properly such that they gather accurate data from a well calibrated instrument? An asinine and rhetorical question but one that needs to be addressed. Foregoing the crowd that "trusts" their water calculator and doesn't measure anymore.

Can a standard be established for mash pH measurement time? 10 min. from dough in, 15 min. from dough in, when recirculating, when not recirculating, dark grist, light grist, decoction, etc... all kinds of variables. (Not talking an individual standard "I always measure at 15 min..." but a...

.1 or .2 doesn't make much difference but that's the point, that level can be achieved without the use of calculators.

Fortunately, I do not make use of any calculators.

In general I agree with your method Mr. Delange. I'm implying (as you seem to be) that because Brunwater has a limited selection of 3 groups (Base, Crystal, Roast) that accuracy is hindered. Perhaps your last two statements sum it up.

Would you elaborate further as to how your base, crystal and roast selections along with their Lovibond values are incorporated into a proton surfeit/deficit model?

Both Lovibond and proton surfeit/deficit based calculators are bunk. Lovibond algorithms are flawed for not being an exact fit for all malts in that "class", and proton models fall short by requiring malt parameters that simply are not available, thus forcing them into an estimating model based...

When brewing extract (5 gallon batches) with distilled I would treat the water with a half teaspoon of Calcium Chloride and/or perhaps the same Calcium Sulfate (Gypsum). You can get fancier than that but that's about all there is to it. Using Magnesium Sulfate (Epson Salts), Sodium Chloride...

History, recipe calculators, etc... have used the batch size/ingredient weight method. Recipe calculators use this as it eliminates the ever present remainder when specifying percentages (i.e. specify first grain 75%, how is the remaining 25% calculated until it is specified, chicken/egg...

Unfortunately malt substitutions are based not only on Lovibond but also on the malting process. 70L Brown Malt vs 70L Crystal Malt are produced through different processes. The kilning profiles are different as are the stage at when the kilning starts. For example, crystal Malt is "mashed in...

I guess I could contribute to a spec and of course coding but off the top of my head: Base Classes/Interfaces: Salt, Acid, Grain, Water, Mash Salt: Properties: Molecular weight, Salt Name, Proton Contribution Functions: Operators: Acid: Properties: pH, pK1, pK2, pK3, pK4, Acid Name...

Such a software library would allow for very elegant solutions. For example, a class "Water" could be developed with a "+" operator which would allow one to combine waters: Water w1 = new Water(8.3pH, 40ppm Ca, 0ppm Mg, 5ppm Na, 120ppm Cl, 47ppm SO4, 45ppm HCO3); Water w2 = new Water(7.6pH...

Newton-Raphson is an algorithm that can be used in place of solver. The book "Numerical Recipes in C" contains implementations useful in the context given in this thread. (or Fortran) Spreadsheets proper (Excel, OpenOffice, LibreOffice) are software, but the individual spreadsheets within them...

A 100% Munich (dark 10-15L) mash would also be my guess.

Absolutely, as I surmise in my post, but what flavors have *you* gotten? I've submitted this to Brulosophy as an exbeeriment.

Mash pH is the general focus because it's the starting point in the process, but pH adjustment beyond the mash rarely gets attention. The mash pH is (mostly unknowingly) adjusted such that the subsequent boil pH is appropriate thus carrying over to fermentation. The natural pH (DI pH) of the...