A Brewing Water Chemistry Primer

[thatjonguy]

Mine is in transit; don't spoil the ending!

Too bad.

The ending: Your beers get (presumably) better if you apply what you have learned.

 

[harebearva]

I have a question about water PH. I understand that the mash will most likely help to bring my mash PH into the 5.2 -5.5 range. I am using the water calculator on brewers friend to figure out my water for a Kolsch. I'm looking good on most all of my levels and my Chloride /Sulfate ratio is balanced. I am diluting my water to a ratio of 2/1 with distilled because my water's bicarbonate level is 210 mg/l. Great for a darker amber, not so good for a kolsch. My question is what does the dilution do to the PH? My water PH before dilution is 7.8 . I assume it will change when adding 2 parts distilled water to it and I'm also assuming a PH change will affect my RA. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[dmr]

I have a question about water PH. I understand that the mash will most likely help to bring my mash PH into the 5.2 -5.5 range. I am using the water calculator on brewers friend to figure out my water for a Kolsch. I'm looking good on most all of my levels and my Chloride /Sulfate ratio is balanced. I am diluting my water to a ratio of 2/1 with distilled because my water's bicarbonate level is 210 mg/l. Great for a darker amber, not so good for a kolsch. My question is what does the dilution do to the PH? My water PH before dilution is 7.8 . I assume it will change when adding 2 parts distilled water to it and I'm also assuming a PH change will affect my RA. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Strike water pH before mixing with the grist is irrelevant. What is relevant is the ion content of the strike water. I know there is a place to enter strike-water pH, but in playing around with this, it doesn't seems to matter as far as mash pH is concerned. RA is (usually) based on the concentrations of three ions: Ca, Mg, and bicarbonate. So when you dilute with distilled, the levels of these will decrease, bringing your RA closer to zero.

 

[ajdelange]

I have a question about water PH. I understand that the mash will most likely help to bring my mash PH into the 5.2 -5.5 range.

That depends on what you put into the mash. A typical Kölsch grist will not do that unless it includes some acidulated malt. And that's with low alkalinity water. If your water is alkaline you will need even more sauermalz.

I am using the water calculator on brewers friend to figure out my water for a Kölsch. I'm looking good on most all of my levels and my Chloride /Sulfate ratio is balanced.

Forget about chloride sulfate ratio and learn how much chloride and how much sulfate you need for this style. Kölsch is a delicate beer and usually doesn't do well with lots of sulfate present but some examples do have appreciable hop bite. I'd start low on the sulfate and work up to the level that gives the best tasting result.

I am diluting my water to a ratio of 2/1 with distilled because my water's bicarbonate level is 210 mg/l. Great for a darker amber, not so good for a kolsch. My question is what does the dilution do to the PH? My water PH before dilution is 7.8 .

You have water with alkalinity of 174. That represents a fair amount of buffering capacity. Diluting with something (DI water) that has none guess who wins. Your water pH will not change noticeably. But that isn't what matters. What matters is that your alkalinity will be reduced to approximately 1/3 of what it was before i.e. to 60. Things would be even better if you diluted 3:1 (alkalinity 45) or 4:1 (alkalinity 37). Then all you'd need to do is add a little CaCl2 and you'd be on your way to a good Kölsch. In a subsequent brew, after taste testing in the glass with some gypsum, you could add a bit of that if you liked the result.

I assume it will change when adding 2 parts distilled water to it...

No,it doesn't as explained above

...and I'm also assuming a PH change will affect my RA.

RA will change but that is primarily because of the alkalinity reduction (which reduces RA) and secondarily because the calcium concentration is decreased thus raising the RA. The former effect is much more potent than the latter so the net effect is a decrease in RA.

 

[harebearva]

Thanks for the info AJ. If I dilute 3:1 it puts my profile at:
Ca-11.2
Mg-6
Cl-2.2
SO4-2.8
Alk-45

Adding 2 grams of CaCl and 2% acid malt brings it to:
Ca - 60
Cl - 87
SO4 - 3
alkalinity -4 (this seems to put the RA in the mid 40's which is good)


This seems to be pretty darn close to style and strangely enough is almost exactly what you recommend for this style in the first post of this thread, imagine that LOL. Essentially what I'm doing is brewing Jamil's JZ Fruh recipe. It doesn't call for any acidulated malt but am I correct in assuming that he didn't use my water and adjustment is the nature of brewing? Anyway, thanks for your help.

 

[ajdelange]

There are lots of ways to skin this cat. Home brewers went through a phase in which they relied on control of RA and that through calcium addition to set mash pH. We are wiser now and RA is reverting to its intended purpose: a means of comparing water supplies. I'd say recommendations for the use of sauermalz in normal brewing didn't become commonplace until perhaps 3 years ago. At least I don't recall seeing them before then. Strange, as the use of sauermalz (or, probably more frequently, sauergut) is apparently common practice in German brewing and has been for years.

 

[TrickyDick]

Learning to use my water testing results to improve my beer is challenging.
I've read the entire thread, though was several months ago, and thought I'd post up a question.
Brewing this Sunday, AG Trippel. Here is the grist.
24# Pilsner Malt (1.7SRM)
0.5# Aromatic (19 SRM)
0.25# White Wheat (1.6 SRM)

Water options are either right from the tap (TAP) or R.O. (RO)

TAP Water
TDS 220
Na 7
Ca 49
Mg 12
Total Hardness as CaCO3 173
SO4-S 17
Cl 13
HCO3 144
Total Alkalinity as CaCO3 118

RO Water
TDS 29
Na 3
Ca 4
Mg 1
Total Hardness as CaCO3 14
SO4-S <1
Cl 1
HCO3 15
Total Alkalinity as CaCO3 12

So I'm trying to fiddle with the SS by Kai to figure out what additions I might need to bring my pH to 5.2-5.4 range. If I use 100% Tap Water the SS predicts 5.62pH and if I use 100% RO it predicts 5.53pH. I have a pH meter to use ( this would be the first time I've used one since high school chemistry, and college chem lab, many years ago). Kai's sheet looks like you can add in salts, pure acids (lactic or Phosphoric) and acid malt.
I have all the basic salts on hand and some phosphoric acid on hand.

Not really knowing what the best water formulation for this style is somewhat of a limitation for me to proceed. I think I should probably use the RO water entirely, because I will need some acidification to bring my pH down, and the tap water has far more Bicarbonate than the RO, which would obviously require more acid to overcome the buffering ability of the bicarbonate.

I am not sure if the RO water without some salt additions will result in a pleasing beer, but I am not sure what additions would help lower the pH AND also result in an appropriate tasting beer. It seems I should need to add some CaCl2 to the water, and probably either some acid malt or phosphoric acid.

my strike water is 9.47 gallons. In fiddling with the spreadsheet, adding 40 grams of CaCl will lower my predicted pH to 5.25, but the Cl level is just over 300 and the Ca level is nearing 180. Seems like I will require a blend of several factors, not just one alone, to achieve proper pH.

In case I don't get any specific suggestions, and in using the SS predictions, it seems that the following additions to the strike water will be balanced and achieve a fair pH.

10g MgS04 (Epsom Salt)
15g CaCl2
10ml 10% Phosphoric acid
0.5# Acid Malt
the predicted resultant values of the mash water are
68.8 Calcium (mg/l)
16.6 Magnesium (mg/l)
3.0 Sodium (mg/l)
61.8 Sulfate (mg/l)
115.7 Chloride (mg/l)
6.5 Bicarbonate (mg/l) *
-107.5 Alkalinity ppm as CaCO3

Predicted mash pH 5.26

One vexing question I have is the Aromatic malt (maltster unknown) says its kilned (115ºC) I believe this is different than roasting, or should I specify this as being roasted in the SS?

Any advice, suggestions, etc are much appreciated!

Thanks!

TD

 

[afr0byte]

Learning to use my water testing results to improve my beer is challenging.
I've read the entire thread, though was several months ago, and thought I'd post up a question.
Brewing this Sunday, AG Trippel. Here is the grist.
24# Pilsner Malt (1.7SRM)
0.5# Aromatic (19 SRM)
0.25# White Wheat (1.6 SRM)

Water options are either right from the tap (TAP) or R.O. (RO)

TAP Water
TDS 220
Na 7
Ca 49
Mg 12
Total Hardness as CaCO3 173
SO4-S 17
Cl 13
HCO3 144
Total Alkalinity as CaCO3 118

RO Water
TDS 29
Na 3
Ca 4
Mg 1
Total Hardness as CaCO3 14
SO4-S <1
Cl 1
HCO3 15
Total Alkalinity as CaCO3 12

So I'm trying to fiddle with the SS by Kai to figure out what additions I might need to bring my pH to 5.2-5.4 range. If I use 100% Tap Water the SS predicts 5.62pH and if I use 100% RO it predicts 5.53pH. I have a pH meter to use ( this would be the first time I've used one since high school chemistry, and college chem lab, many years ago). Kai's sheet looks like you can add in salts, pure acids (lactic or Phosphoric) and acid malt.
I have all the basic salts on hand and some phosphoric acid on hand.

Not really knowing what the best water formulation for this style is somewhat of a limitation for me to proceed. I think I should probably use the RO water entirely, because I will need some acidification to bring my pH down, and the tap water has far more Bicarbonate than the RO, which would obviously require more acid to overcome the buffering ability of the bicarbonate.

I am not sure if the RO water without some salt additions will result in a pleasing beer, but I am not sure what additions would help lower the pH AND also result in an appropriate tasting beer. It seems I should need to add some CaCl2 to the water, and probably either some acid malt or phosphoric acid.

my strike water is 9.47 gallons. In fiddling with the spreadsheet, adding 40 grams of CaCl will lower my predicted pH to 5.25, but the Cl level is just over 300 and the Ca level is nearing 180. Seems like I will require a blend of several factors, not just one alone, to achieve proper pH.

In case I don't get any specific suggestions, and in using the SS predictions, it seems that the following additions to the strike water will be balanced and achieve a fair pH.

10g MgS04 (Epsom Salt)
15g CaCl2
10ml 10% Phosphoric acid
0.5# Acid Malt
the predicted resultant values of the mash water are
68.8 Calcium (mg/l)
16.6 Magnesium (mg/l)
3.0 Sodium (mg/l)
61.8 Sulfate (mg/l)
115.7 Chloride (mg/l)
6.5 Bicarbonate (mg/l) *
-107.5 Alkalinity ppm as CaCO3

Predicted mash pH 5.26

One vexing question I have is the Aromatic malt (maltster unknown) says its kilned (115ºC) I believe this is different than roasting, or should I specify this as being roasted in the SS?

Any advice, suggestions, etc are much appreciated!

Thanks!

TD

I recommend using Bru'n Water and treating aromatic as crystal malt for the purpose of the spreadsheet.

 

[TrickyDick]

I recommend using Bru'n Water and treating aromatic as crystal malt for the purpose of the spreadsheet.

OK. Thanks.

I'm working through the Bru'N Water SS now.

Question #1 about Bru'n Water. What is a good water profile to select for a Trippel? I didn't see Westmalle on the list. Yellow balanced? Not sure.

Thanks again.
If I have further quesitons, I will add them below.

TD

edit-
so in choosing the yellow balanced profile and matching my water as closely as possible (I cheated and used beersmith to obtain calculations), here is what I end up with. Using Bru'n Water.

Mash Parameters
Batch Volume (gal) 11.00 Hardness (ppm as CaCO3) 164 RA (ppm as CaCO3) -41
Estimated Mash pH 5.3 Alkalinity (ppm as CaCO3) 1 SO4/Cl Ratio 1.36

Additions Total Mash Water Vol (gal) 9.47 Total Sparge Water Vol (gal) 7.17
Mash Dilution Vol (gal) 0.00 Sparge Dilution Vol (gal) 0.00
Mash Water Additions Sparge Water Additions
Mineral (grams) (grams)
Gypsum (CaSO4) 2.8 2.2
Epsom Salt (MgSO4) 2.8 2.2
Canning Salt (NaCl) 0.2 0.1
Baking Soda (NaHCO3) 0.0 Not Recommended
Calcium Chloride (CaCl2) 3.8 2.9
Chalk (CaCO3) 0.0 Not Recommended
Pickling Lime (Ca(OH)2) 0.0 Not Recommended
Magnesium Chloride (MgCl2) 0.0 0.0
Acid (mL) (mL)
Phosphoric 10.00 % 7.6 3.6

I also added 0.5# acid malt to the grist to get the mash pH to 5.3 without the acid malt its up at 5.5

So, aside from the additions to target my RO water to the "yellow balanced" profile, are there any parameters out of whack? RA -41 seems to be an outlier.

Thanks for any recommendations/suggestions.

I guess my biggest question at this point is, is the yellow balanced a good profile for a Trippel, or is there another I should attempt to match? Also, any need to be concerned about the -41 RA value (methinks not).

TD

 

[afr0byte]

OK. Thanks.

I'm working through the Bru'N Water SS now.

Question #1 about Bru'n Water. What is a good water profile to select for a Trippel? I didn't see Westmalle on the list. Yellow balanced? Not sure.

Thanks again.
If I have further quesitons, I will add them below.

TD

I don't generally bother with the profiles, but you want one that has as little alkalinity as possible, some chloride, low (or no) sulfate, and calcium at 50+. You'll also likely need some acid/acid malt. Basically a tripel is just about ideal for the primer's recommendations.

 

[ajdelange]

As this is the Primer thread you should expect the guidance: follow the Primer. That would say use RO water with some calcium chloride and or calcium sulfate (total of 5 grams, 1 tsp, or less per gallon e.g. 2.5 g of each or 5 grams of one or the other.) You don't rely on minerals to set mash pH (you note that they have an effect and account for that, however). Acid is used to set the pH. Following the Primer's advice you would use 2-3% sauermalz to to that. The idea behind the Primer is simplicity. You can make it much more complicated if you want to by using one or another of the spreadsheets and calculators which are available.

Your brew day is not a good time to learn how to use a pH meter. If you have time before brew day the best approach is to familiarize yourself with the operation of the meter. We hope it will be like riding a bicycle. There are some tips at https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/ph-meter-calibration-302256/. When comfortable that you can make a valid, stable, calibrated reading (just reading back the calibrating buffers will do) then make a small test mash with the grist you plan to use and some of the prepared water at the planned strike temperature. Adjust your sauermalz or acid additions according to the pH of the test mash.

 

[TrickyDick]

Thanks!

Yeah, it had been awhile since I read through the primer, so I guess I should've done that first.
Thanks also for the links on pH probes. I'll read those through.

Right now I think I'm pretty close to the primer guidelines, but I think my Ca additions may be off based on primer recommendations vs those complicated spreadsheets.

TD

 

[ajdelange]

You can't really be that far 'off' the Primer recommendations as the Primer doesn't specify a tight calcium requirement. The Primer is based on the philosophies
1) KISS
2) We don't really care that much about calcium (no, we don't believe your beer will be wombat pee if you don't have at least 50 mg/L) but we do want a minimum level of chloride
3) Nobody complains about chloride until it gets pretty high but lots of people don't like the effects of sulfate (but lots do) so start with calcium chloride and work up the sulfate
4) Less is better
5) If we posted what we really think (about half the levels in the Primer), we'd have no credibility.

 

[TrickyDick]

You can't really be that far 'off' the Primer recommendations as the Primer doesn't specify a tight calcium requirement. The Primer is based on the philosophies 1) KISS 2) We don't really care that much about calcium (no, we don't believe your beer will be wombat pee if you don't have at least 50 mg/L) but we do want a minimum level of chloride 3) Nobody complains about chloride until it gets pretty high but lots of people don't like the effects of sulfate (but lots do) so start with calcium chloride and work up the sulfate 4) Less is better 5) If we posted what we really think (about half the levels in the Primer), we'd have no credibility.

Thanks!

I ended up using that bru'n water spread sheet. I found the water profile for the beer in a book, and matched my water as closely as I could. I couldn't figure a way to conduct a sample mini mash because I could not be sure the acid malt would be evenly distributed. In retrospect I suppose I could've gone with the percentages and crushed a smaller grist for testing. However, I didn't. I used the pH meter for first time, and was easy to figure out. measured pH was exactly as predicted by the spreadsheet, even including the acid additions to the water. Added some CaCl to the boil kettle.

Thanks for the help and info!

TD

 

[Frazeart]

Hi Everybody. I am a newish brewer (4 months) and just did my 10th 6 gallon all grain batch on Saturday. I was brewing a hoppy blonde. This was my first batch where I was going to measure PH and try to use a water "recipe". Previously, all I have done is use bottled spring water and added a TB of the PH 5.2 product.

I used the water chemistry calculator at brewer's friend targeting the profile "light and hoppy" which instructed me to use 8.75 gallons of distilled water and to add 2.75 tsp of gypsum and 1 tsp of calcium chloride. I did this to the letter and then added my grains to mash. I used Precision Labs test strips which indicated my PH was very low... under 4.6. I slowly added chalk (5tsp) and kept testing with no change. I then moved to baking soda and added 2 tsp. This finally got my test strips to register a PH of 5.

When I enter those additions into the brewer's friend calculator, it reports that my water profile is crazy unbalanced.

Should I have left the PH alone? Is there a best process that differs from what I did? Did I destroy my beer? I hit my numbers just fine and it is fermenting like crazy.

Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all.

 

[ajdelange]

I used Precision Labs test strips which indicated my PH was very low... under 4.6.

This was your first mistake. Test strips just don't seem to work with mash - perhaps it is the coloration of the mash/wort itself. It is very unlikely that your mash pH was as low as 4.6 with what I presume is a grain bill of light malts. In fact it was probably around 5.6.

I slowly added chalk (5tsp) and kept testing with no change.

This was your second mistake. Chalk is ineffective at raising mash pH because it takes a long, long time to react. In fact it takes so long that you are likely to make another mistake like...

I then moved to baking soda and added 2 tsp. This finally got my test strips to register a PH of 5.

What happens here is that the carbonate, which doesn't react very fast doesn't raise pH but the bicarbonate does. Since you would most probably need acid rather than alkali for this beer the bicarb will push the pH too high. Then, after you have sailed on under the assumption that all is OK because of the erroneous pH strip reading the carbonate will begin to react raising it still higher. This won't happen fast enough to damage things further in the mash but will raise the kettle and fermenter pH (unless the chalk particles are large enough that they get trapped in the grain bed during sparge in which case the additional damage is limited to the vorlauf/sparge phase). Thus your beer will have mashed, boiled and fermented at too high a pH. It may be drinkable but don't expect it to be the best beer you have ever made.

When I enter those additions into the brewer's friend calculator, it reports that my water profile is crazy unbalanced.

If you tell a spreadsheet that you are adding chalk and baking soda to DI water and it comes back and says there is an ionic imbalance there is a problem with the spreadsheet. What it should tell you is that the mash pH was way too high as indeed it most probably was. In the early days many of the spreadsheets did not handle the stoichimetry of chalk properly. Most have, AFAIK, been corrected to recognize that carbonate ion is divalent but most don't, again AFAIK, account for the reaction of the calcium in chalk with malt derived phosphate.

Should I have left the PH alone?

Yes.

Is there a best process that differs from what I did?

As this is the Primer thread we would presume that you would have followed the recommendations of the Primer though there is no claim that that is the best way to procede. These would have had you add some calcium chloride and some gypsum with some sauermalz (acid).

Did I destroy my beer?

Probably not but you doubtless diminished it.

I used the water chemistry calculator at brewer's friend targeting the profile "light and hoppy" which instructed me to use 8.75 gallons of distilled water and to add 2.75 tsp of gypsum and 1 tsp of calcium chloride. I did this to the letter and then added my grains to mash.
Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.

The difference between the Primer and the Brewer's Friend approaches (which are clearly similar) is that the latter tells you what is best for "light and hoppy" whereas the Primer gives you recommendations that are intended to serve as a starting point and encourages you to adjust additions until you find out what is indeed best for you in this style.

 

[Frazeart]

This was your first mistake. Test strips just don't seem to work with mash - perhaps it is the coloration of the mash/wort itself. It is very unlikely that your mash pH was as low as 4.6 with what I presume is a grain bill of light malts. In fact it was probably around 5.6.



This was your second mistake. Chalk is ineffective at raising mash pH because it takes a long, long time to react. In fact it takes so long that you are likely to make another mistake like...


What happens here is that the carbonate, which doesn't react very fast doesn't raise pH but the bicarbonate does. Since you would most probably need acid rather than alkali for this beer the bicarb will push the pH too high. Then, after you have sailed on under the assumption that all is OK because of the erroneous pH strip reading the carbonate will begin to react raising it still higher. This won't happen fast enough to damage things further in the mash but will raise the kettle and fermenter pH (unless the chalk particles are large enough that they get trapped in the grain bed during sparge in which case the additional damage is limited to the vorlauf/sparge phase). Thus your beer will have mashed, boiled and fermented at too high a pH. It may be drinkable but don't expect it to be the best beer you have ever made.





If you tell a spreadsheet that you are adding chalk and baking soda to DI water and it comes back and says there is an ionic imbalance there is a problem with the spreadsheet. What it should tell you is that the mash pH was way too high as indeed it most probably was. In the early days many of the spreadsheets did not handle the stoichimetry of chalk properly. Most have, AFAIK, been corrected to recognize that carbonate ion is divalent but most don't, again AFAIK, account for the reaction of the calcium in chalk with malt derived phosphate.


Yes.


As this is the Primer thread we would presume that you would have followed the recommendations of the Primer though there is no claim that that is the best way to procede. These would have had you add some calcium chloride and some gypsum with some sauermalz (acid).



Probably not but you doubtless diminished it.



The difference between the Primer and the Brewer's Friend approaches (which are clearly similar) is that the latter tells you what is best for "light and hoppy" whereas the Primer gives you recommendations that are intended to serve as a starting point and encourages you to adjust additions until you find out what is indeed best for you in this style.

Thank you so much for taking the time to so clearly answer my questions. In this age of message boards full of snarky, no account gremlins, it is so refreshing to get a genuine, helpful mentor.

Many thanks!!!! I will start with your primer and continue the journey.

PS. One last note... I don't know if it helped or not, but I did also use a tablespoon of the "5.2 ph buffer" product in this brew. If I did indeed raise my PH too high with the additions, hopefully that product mitigated the damage.

 

[ajdelange]

.
PS. One last note... I don't know if it helped or not, but I did also use a tablespoon of the "5.2 ph buffer" product in this brew. If I did indeed raise my PH too high with the additions, hopefully that product mitigated the damage.

In this case the 5.2 would help. The monobasic phosphate ion in 5.2 is acidic relative to chalk and bicarbonate and would mitigate their effects somewhat but see https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/5-2-ph-stabilizer-whats-436563/ before ordering a drum of this stuff.

 

[opiate82]

Go to the canning section of your supermarket and buy some 'pickle crisp'. That is calcium chloride.

Just wanted you to know that this post may have just saved my weekend of brewing.

LHBS didn't have any Calcium Chloride, they gave some 'Burton Salts' used to reproduce the famous Burton water, but I was dubious about using them for my IIPA I wanted to brew since following the primer has worked so well for me so far.

*edit: So three different grocery stores did not have this and tried to sell me pickling salt. Finally found some at Walmart. Let me tell you, going to Walmart during holiday shopping season on a Saturday was almost enough to get me to drown myself in my own homebrew. But at least I found what I needed!

 

[Surly]

By Ajdelange


...

The following recommendations apply to “soft” water. Here we will define soft as meaning RO or distilled water or any water whose lab report indicates alkalinity less than 35 (ppm as CaCO3 – all other numbers to follow mg/L), sulfate less than 20 (as sulfate – Ward Labs reports as sulfur so multiply the SO4-S number by 3 to get as sulfate), chloride less than 20, sodium less than 20, calcium less than 20 and magnesium less than 20. If your water has numbers higher than these, dilute it with RO or DI water. A 1:1 dilution reduces each ion concentration to 1/2, a 2:1 dilution to 1/3 and so on. If your water contains chloramines add 1 campden tablet per 20 gallons (before any dilution)

Baseline: Add 1 tsp of calcium chloride dihydrate (what your LHBS sells) to each 5 gallons of water treated. Add 2% sauermalz to the grist.

Deviate from the baseline as follows:

For soft water beers (i.e Pils, Helles). Use half the baseline amount of calcium chloride and increase the sauermalz to 3%

For beers that use roast malt (Stout, porter): Skip the sauermalz.

For British beers: Add 1 tsp gypsum as well as 1 tsp calcium chloride

For very minerally beers (Export, Burton ale): Double the calcium chloride and the gypsum.

...

Maybe I am being too picky here. If I am, please let me know and I will release my ADD.

I am going to brew a classic Amber Ale. How do I figure out what additions based upon the above info I need? I have sought to find the water style I need but am unable to find it.

 

[ajdelange]

The object here is to keep things very simple by freeing one from style considerations to the extent possible. Use the baseline and then adjust from there in successive trial brews. If you are quite sure you want lots of emphasis on hops then add some gypsum as well as the calcium chloride (British Beers).

 

[ResumeMan]

Since it doesn't meet any of the deviations, go with the baseline. Since there will presumably be quite a bit of crystal, you might back off the acidulated malt just a smidge compared to the default recommendation, but overall an amber fits within the "typical beer" profile.

As AJ says in the primer, this recommendation isn't intended to dial your water in perfectly, just to get it over the net. If you really want a detailed profile you'll need to look elsewhere.

 

[danimalt]

It would seem to me that I could make mash ph calcs far simpler if I start steeping instead of mashing all crystal/dark grains. My thought is, so long as I stick with the same base malt (typically maris otter for me), I can determine what additions I need to bring my mash water ph to 5.2-5.3 and from then on I can just use those same additions every time. Unless of course I add some other grain that needs to be mashed. Am I missing something with this logic?

 

[ajdelange]

Many brewers, home and professional, reserve dark grains until sparge or kettle but most seem to do it to keep the harsher flavor elements from these grains out of their beers rather than to simplify pH management though it does do that through the mechanism that you suggest. There are a couple of things to consider if you do this.
1. The beer won't taste the same. Roast barley steeped in the kettle or sparge water won't impart the flavor the roast barley included in the mash does. This is exactly why Gordon Strong and one of the head brewers at a local Gordon Biersch keep it out of the mash. But you may (note that this is in italics) lose some flavor components you want by doing this. Less extraction of acrid flavors, sharp flavors but less extraction of coffee flavor too.
2. You keep the acid of those colored malts out of the mash thus making the pH of the base malt the main determinant of the malt component of mash pH proton deficit. But that acid still goes into the kettle and its effect on kettle pH needs to be considered or at least kettle pH needs to be determined. This would especially be the case if, as would be typical for an Irish stout brewed with water of typical municipal supply alkalinity the proton surfeit of the roast barely were barely sufficient or even somewhat insufficient to bring the mash pH into the desired range necessitating the use of another acid source for that purpose (we'll look at that example in a minute)
3. It is no harder to determine the proton deficit (or surfeit) of a specialty malt than it is of a base malt. If we ever get to the point where maltsters supply that information then all you have to do is punch that data into a spread sheet or calculator.

In a recent post, https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/mash-ph-prediction-control-442357/, in which thread this discussion should probably be taking place, I describe a spreadsheet which can be used for pH prediction. It is, perhaps, as valuable for the insight it lends into problems like this one as it might be for pH prediction. When I make Irish Stout I mash 60 pounds of MO with 8 lbs roast barley and 13 of flaked barley in 25 gal of water with about 1.5 mVal alkalinity (75 ppm as CaCO3) and a like amount of total hardness more or less evenly split between calcium and magnesium. Sticking those numbers in with some assumed parameters for the malts/barley derived from my own measurements on Weyermann Pils and Kai Troester's measurments on the others (with a WAG on the flaked barley) I get a predicted mash tun pH of 5.60 and a measured mash pH of 5.57 with the roast barley in the main mash. The spreadsheet reveals that the roast barley is contributing 129 mEq of protons and that it takes 114 of those to move the water to 5.6. Were I to hold out the barley I would need to get that 129 mEq of acid from elsewhere (129 mL of 1 N acid) so that when I added the barley later I would have 129 mEq more acid than I would otherwise.

In another recent example I looked at based on a question here where RO water was involved (0 alkalinity) that the colored malts' proton surfeits were insignificant compared to the base malt's deficit which had to be made up largely with lactic or other acid. This would be the case with most lighter colored beers.

You may wish to play around with this spreadsheet a bit yourself to try to gain similar insight. The thread referenced above contains links to it and to a set of power point slides which sort of describe it but are not really a user's manual.

 

[LakesideBrewing]

Hi,

I have read about 40 pages of this thread and have gained a lot of info from it. It is a great way to get my feet wet about water chemistry and the importance of it as it pertains to brewing.

Sorry if this has been asked already: I see a lot of talk about IPA's and it is clearly addressed in the baseline by the OP. But say I wanted to brew an aggressively hopped DIPA but I want it to have a nice clean 'soft palate'. Like Hill Farmstead's beers. Would I still follow the baseline for an IPA? Or more like the baseline for 'soft' beers? Or something different all together?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[ajdelange]

I'm guessing that you will get what you want by keeping the chloride up and the sulfate low so I'd start with about 2.5 grams CaCl2/5 gal and no gypsum. See how that works and be sure to taste it with supplemented CaCl2 and gypsum in the glass to arrive at the best combination for use in subsequent brews.

 

[LakesideBrewing]

I'm guessing that you will get what you want by keeping the chloride up and the sulfate low so I'd start with about 2.5 grams CaCl2/5 gal and no gypsum. See how that works and be sure to taste it with supplemented CaCl2 and gypsum in the glass to arrive at the best combination for use in subsequent brews.

Thanks! Should I also keep the acid malt at 2%?

 

[ajdelange]

Yes, especially if that has been working for you in the past.

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

OK. First post here. I am loving the primer. It is saving me a lot of water adjustment angst. One question I don't think I've seen yet is what effect, if any, does bicarbonate have on flavor. I know different mash pHs lend different characteristics but, aside from pH, does bicarbonate itself lend anything to flavor. There is often a lot of focus on duplicating specific regional water profiles, including some with crazy high bicarb. But if you have to add a bunch of acid (through dark malts, acid malt or direct acid additions) to bring the pH down to a functional range, why bother duplicating HCO3? Maybe that's the whole point of the primer. You can play with levels for Ca, Cl, SO4 and Na to tweak flavor characteristics. Is there ever a time when you want the bicarb there other than for pH adjustment. I have pretty soft water so I would just as soon not add any bicarb since my pH works out well without it.

 

[ajdelange]

OK. First post here. I am loving the primer. It is saving me a lot of water adjustment angst. One question I don't think I've seen yet is what effect, if any, does bicarbonate have on flavor. I know different mash pHs lend different characteristics but, aside from pH, does bicarbonate itself lend anything to flavor.

Bicarbonate does have flavor and not a very good one as you would readily agree if you drank the water from my well in Quebec or as you can easily demonstrate by dissolving some baking soda in a glass of water but when you bring brewing water to mash pH you must overcome its alkalinity and in doing so you convert almost all the bicarbonate to carbonic which, under the hot conditions of the brewing process, breaks down into water and CO2 which escapes. Despite this I have seen, in professional brewing texts, comments to the effect that 'even neutralized bicarbonate is flavor negative'. I don't see how that could be as neutralized bicarbonate is gone so I mention this only because you may see similar comments elsewhere.

But there is some residual bicarbonate is beer (whose pH is even lower and in which, therefore, even more bicarbonate has been converted to carbonic) and I used to warn people to control bicarbonate for that reason until Kai Troester pointed out that when beer is carbonated some of the CO2 converts to carbonic acid and some of that, in turn, into bicarbonate. The level of bicarbonate is beer from the impressed CO2 is higher than the residual from the original water. One doesn't notice the taste - perhaps because of the biting effect of the CO2. When the beer goes flat that effect is gone but so then is the bicarbonate. So one does not say 'I want more of that Alka-Selzer effect, I'm going to add more bicarbonate' because the bicarbonate won't stay in the beer. If someone did dose his beer with bicarbonate to the extent that the pH didn't drop to an appropriately low level he would get the double whammy of poor starch conversion and high residual bicarbonate. Such a beer would not be very good but if carbonated to a high enough level even in such a beer the extra bicarbonate would convert to carbonic.

There is often a lot of focus on duplicating specific regional water profiles, including some with crazy high bicarb. But if you have to add a bunch of acid (through dark malts, acid malt or direct acid additions) to bring the pH down to a functional range, why bother duplicating HCO3?

Many brewers are engineers and engineers love to do things like generate elaborate spreadsheets that take things like ionic strength into account and incorporate algorithms that calculate salt additions which mimimize the weighted rms differences on log concentration between a profile they got from a brewing book and water synthesized with the calculated salt additions. I went through that phase and I'm not the only one. I would venture to say that 20 years ago it was thought among home brewers at least that to brew a good beer in a style that originated in Munich you had to reproduce Munich water. Having done that a few times, and having gone to considerable trouble to do it with that trouble related to getting the bicarbonate right and having noted that upon heating int the HLT much of that bicarbonate dropped back out I realized that this is what would happen in a Munich brewery too and there was no point in going to all the trouble to get 'authentic' water if your work was to be undone automatically in the HLT.

Maybe that's the whole point of the primer. You can play with levels for Ca, Cl, SO4 and Na to tweak flavor characteristics.

Perhaps not the whole point of the Primer (which is KISS) but certainly a large part of it.

Is there ever a time when you want the bicarb there other than for pH adjustment. I have pretty soft water so I would just as soon not add any bicarb since my pH works out well without it.

If one wants to closely match the profile of a natural water from pure water then he has to, WRT bicarbonate, get that into the water the way nature did and that is by dissolving limestone with CO2 as one cannot send off to Spectrum for a kilogram of calcium bicarbonate. If the brewer is lucky (in this regard) he will have an alkaline supply which he can dilute with RO (adding the 'salt' H2O in order to minimize ion content error) to which he can add some salts to come up with an 'authentic' Munich supply. Other wise hours of bubbling CO2 (as the wastage of a lot of it) are required. The only time I ever do this anymore is for teaching purposes and that's pretty rare.