Search results

I think you misread your report. Your Alkaliniy is 240 and your Hardness is 360. I'm using this: http://www.lafayette.in.gov/egov/docs/1327947382_174560.pdf I took that hardness number and with the assumption that 75% of that hardness is from calcium and 25% is from magnesium I entered it into...

On a side note and not necessarily directed at AJ or hog2up: It's funny how most home brewers scoff at the brewing practices of industrial brewers like InBev or MillerSAB yet many are readily embracing additives like Fermcap, 5.2 buffer, this maturation enzyme, PVPP, Biofine, Silicagel, ... I'm...

Good questions and I don’t mind answering them. Mostly because they force me to think about this again and justify my advice. The magic number for mash pH is not 5.2. A better target range is 5.3 – 5.6. I prefer closer to 5.3 for lighter beers and closer to 5.6 for darker beers. 5.6 gets you...

You don’t need to add any acid to the mash for this beer since the main concern with this grist would be lower than desired mash pH. Regarding your water treatment, I think 3 g of chalk in the mash water should do the trick. You could also start out with 1.5g, test pH and check if you...

That is a comment we are hearing a lot and I think we’ll change the order in which the fields are presented. The current order is heavily influenced by my approach to water treatment. I don’t care all that much about target water comparison since I can easily eyeball the results. However, this...

That might be true for Gypsum and calcium chloride but chalk is generally added to correct the mash pH and should be added to the mash. Further more, a proper mash pH generally leads to an appropriate wort pH in the kettle. As a result you don't want to add stuff to the kettle that changes...

That tests only Alkalinity. I suggest that you get a test for GH&KH: Google shopping link for GH KH Test. I use this one: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=At_home_water_testing I also suggest that you read your town's Water Quality report to your town's different sources of water...

From what I know about Bru'n Water, it does not handle chalk correctly. You may want to try this: http://www.brewersfriend.com/mash-chemistry-and-brewing-water-calculator/ There the chalk is assumed to be only 50% effective. If you post your profile and grist I could help. Kai

We just released a new version that has a few bug fixes but also adds the capability to save the current input values into a record that can be accessed trough an encoded link. Kai

I'm glad to hear that. Thanks.

Yes, it’s easy to create rather mineral rich water with this product but that’s also the case with lactic acid. I think it’s part of brewer education to tell brewers that it will not remove minerals and if low mineral and low alkalinity water is desired other methods should be used.

On a first level of appoximation I would say no. You are adding the same amount of acid and minerals. There might be some minor 2nd order differences. I like the idea of mashing with tap water and sparging with R/O water when suitable. That saves you the mixing steps. Kai

I don't believe in anti foam agents, so I do like the head space that the 5 L flask gives me. Mine was only $40 at MoreBeer. The 2 L ones cost about $20 each. Kai

I'd say that is correct for ales. I brew 5 gal batches and have been fine with just a 2 L flask for most of my lager yeast propagations as well. A 5L flask is nicer b/c a 2 l starter gets a nicer vortex in the larger flask. Kai

As you can tell, this is a discussion I wanted to have for a while now but it takes other home brewers that also question the results of the existing pitching rate calculators. I think these calculators, or any calculator for that matter, do a good job in illustrating the need for a starter...

yes. They happen to talk about me b/c I went to the ANHC with John Palmer. This is before they get into the meat of the show. Kai Correction: I listened to the show again, this time a little more careful, and Jamil is not as dismissive of my work as I perceived it earlier. He considers my...

That's a growth of about (750-80)B/380g = 1.8 B/g. Yes it's higher than the 1.4-1.6 B/g that I commonly observe but not too much out of line. Note that there is a pretty large error bar on the actual yeast count. I would not be surprised if that error bar is +/- 20%. Here is a blog post that...

Thanks for the mention Steve. Yes, Mr Malty can be off quite a bit and Jamil and I seem to be getting into a fight over this (check out the beginning of Brew Strong from 12/24/12) I have the strong suspicion that Jamil did not use a series of stirred starters to come up with the growth curve...

I'm looking to add CRS support to the Brewer's Friend water calculator. Based on some numbers online I found that CRS is a mix of 6.75% HCl and 9% H2SO4. Does this sound correct? CRS (carbonate reduction solution) is apparently used in the UK a lot and it makes sense to support it...