A quick survey on Water Profiles

[Silver_Is_Money]

Some very quick takeaways from what was on my part a cursory read through of the above linked 1939 published study.

1) Calcium reactions are generally said at several junctures to be stoichiometric in nature, meaning that Calcium's reactions on an mEq to mEq basis generally ring true. But due to various unknowns and complexities, the cut and dried (I.E., highly settled) nature of the work of Kolbach is seriously brought into question, and should never have been elevated to the unfalsifiable status of "settled science" in the first place. But at long last modern efforts of chemical research (science) are finally rediscovering this flaw in Kolbach's work on the impact of Calcium and Magnesium upon pH.

2) The impact of Magnesium as regards its hindrance of Calcium's downward effect upon pH during the mash is a good reason to either outright avoid, or otherwise attempt to minimize the use of Magnesium as regards mineral additions. We have to our favor that the negative impact of Magnesium upon flavor has long been known, and good practice has long called for it's minimization on a minerals added basis. We have also to our favor that various of acids (and sometimes bases) are generally favored over the use of Calcium as a means to pH adjustment.

3) During the boil Magnesium ceases to act as a hindrance to the dropping of pH, and it's presence accelerates and magnifies pH drop across the boil.

4A) A lot of compounding factors are at play whereby to introduce roadblocks, and calculators at any level of internal math modeling sophistication and logical stoichiometric (I.E., mEq for mEq) accuracy and consistency clearly are not capable of properly juggling all of them.

4B) Short version: Some level of empiricism (mainly in the nature of educated guessing) must inevitably be tolerated, even when the presence of such is not generally desired, and the "ideal" is always upheld to be one whereby to strive in the direction of eliminating as much of it as is possible.

 

[mabrungard]

I’m hoping that the intelligent readers realize that ppm is a mass of material divided by a volume of solute. mEq or Eq is just a mass (okay, it also involves the ionic charge, but that disappears since we’re comparing the same salt in either comparison).

The reason that typical brewing software employs ppm (aka mg/L) is because water companies and labs report that way and it removes the volume of water from the calculation. The use of mEq or Eq isn’t easier, more correct, or better. It’s just different. It’s just another way of performing the same calculation.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I’m hoping that the intelligent readers realize that ppm is a mass of material divided by a volume of solute. mEq or Eq is just a mass (okay, it also involves the ionic charge, but that disappears since we’re comparing the same salt in either comparison).

The reason that typical brewing software employs ppm (aka mg/L) is because water companies and labs report that way and it removes the volume of water from the calculation. The use of mEq or Eq isn’t easier, more correct, or better. It’s just different. It’s just another way of performing the same calculation.

ppm means parts per million parts on a unit weight for unit weight basis. It is not a mass of material divided by a volume of solute at all. The concern for charges and charge balance looms large in chemistry, and it forms the very core of the science of chemical reactions (in conjunction with dissociation considerations). The charges do not simply magically vanish. They (in the form of electron orbital clouds) are critical to an understanding of chemistry at any level. And ppm does not speak to charges at all.

And worse, ppm and mg/L are not the same measure at all. We have traveled this path before.

Here's the deal. Eliminate Eq's and/or mEq's from your software completely and then detail to us as to how well it will function without considering them, or the charges they address. After all, ionic charge disappears.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

When CaCl2 is added to water the density of the subsequent solution is altered from that of water. The density of the solution does not remain a nominal ~1.00000... g/CC, and as such ppm and mg/L are not equivalent (albeit that at very minute levels of CaCl2 dissociated within a large volume of water, it may seemingly appear that there is equivalence, particularly if you have heard a zillion times that they are equivalent). But continue adding ever more CaCl2 to water, and the disparity between ppm and mg/L soon looms large and becomes significant.

 

[Protos]

I've made beer recipes that were CaCl2 forward, and then brewed essentially the same recipes in CaSO4 forward water and not truly noticed any difference.

I started treating my water not so long ago, some 40 to 50 batches back. Having built and tried multiple water profiles, I've come to the same surprising conclusion: Very little difference if any.
What did really matter was controlling Bicarbonate and Alkalinity: better efficiency, harsh hop flavours gone. Changing various salt combinations though never resulted to me in a detectable difference. IDK, maybe I'm not sensitive enough to water salts. It's just all the same to me, whatever is the Cl:SO ration.

So now I just boil my overbicarbonated water and don't fiddle with salts anymore.
Except when I recreate a certain recipe to a tee, including its specific water.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I started treating my water not so long ago, some 40 to 50 batches back. Having built and tried multiple water profiles, I've come to the same surprising conclusion: Very little difference if any.
What did really matter was controlling Bicarbonate and Alkalinity: better efficiency, harsh hop flavours gone. Changing various salt combinations though never resulted to me in a detectable difference. IDK, maybe I'm not sensitive enough to water salts. It's just all the same to me, whatever is the Cl:SO ration.

So now I just boil my overbicarbonated water and don't fiddle with salts anymore.
Except when I recreate a certain recipe to a tee, including its specific water.

Such forthright honesty in the face of potential ridicule is to be commended.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

background: There's a new (to me) 'start page' for water over at the AHA web site (link). Following the links gets one to ...

There is a HomeBrew Con 2018 presentation (Putting Brewing Water in Perspective; link) where a pale ale was brewed with two different water profiles. The evaluations are worth a read. For those interested, there appears to be sufficient information in the PDF to reproduce the experiment. There's also an video (which I didn't look at while previewing links / content).