Adding salts to mash only... this process OK?

[BrunDog]

Hi,

I use Bru'n Water and only add salts to my mash water and would like to know if what I am doing is acceptable?

I collect RO water into tanks, which I then pump into my MT for mashing and then for sparging. This makes it impractical to salt/acidify the mash water and sparge water separately. Therefore, using the "Add Sparging Water mineral additions to the Mash?" switch seems to be correct. Here are my questions:

1. Using 100% RO dilution, can I set this switch, then try to match the "Overall Finished Water Profile" with the "Desired Water Profile"? Doing this, of course the "Mashing Water Profile" concentrations are very high, but I do not care, as long as my additions yield the correct pH of 5.2-5.5 for the beer style. Is that correct?

2. I find that for a typical, balanced profile, to hit the desired numbers, I need to add Gypsum, Calcium Chloride, Epsom Salt, Baking Soda, and Pickling Lime. No acid is needed. What I typically do is heat the mash water, measure out the salts, pull a pint or so of hot mash water out, mix the salts into it, then pour that mixture back into the mash water. Is it OK to add all the salts together? Or should I be adding the lime to the mash with the grains (i.e. separate from the other salts).

3. In the calculator, with the above adjustments, the first three turn RED, though I really dont know if this matters as my Overall Finished Water Profile is as I want it. I understand this happens when the Target and the Actual are grossly different. What really is the difference between the Overall Finished Water Profile and the Actual Finished Water Adjustment? Which one should I be looking at?

Here is an example:

 

[JonM]

I usually don't add anything to the sparge water.

Sometimes it's desirable to have additional salts (beyond the mash salts) for flavor. If I want additions for flavor, I just add them to the kettle rather than to the sparge water.

Are you making something with a lot of roasted grains? The baking soda/pickling lime are used to raise the mash pH. Unless you have a lot of dark grains, you probably don't need the baking soda or lime.

 

[BrunDog]

Thanks. I understand how the first three acidity the mash and the latter two make it more basic. I use them to hit the numbers and get the mash pH where it should be. I would like to know if my above process is acceptable. For example, I understand that lime added to water can precipitate calcium carbonate, which will stay out of solution, so maybe I need to avoid doing that?

 

[Rhumbline]

I don't have access to my Bru'n water right now, but some of the adjuncts do absorb well in hot water, some don't absorb in cold water.

Check the knowledge page in Bru'n to see if any of these are ones you use.

 

[Iseneye]

Man i wouldnt be adding all of those salts. Get rid of everything except for cacl and caso4. Brunwater is a prediction spreadsheet. If youre not measuring your pH you dont know whats actually happening in the mash. I would be surprised if your pH was dropping below desirable range to justify the addition of the other salts. Have you read ajs sticky in the brew science forum? His is perfect for RO water.

If you want to get pH in the right range you can adjust with acid rather than salts.

 

[Rhumbline]

Man i wouldnt be adding all of those salts. Get rid of everything except for cacl and caso4. Brunwater is a prediction spreadsheet. If youre not measuring your pH you dont know whats actually happening in the mash...

If you want to get pH in the right range you can adjust with acid rather than salts.

The adjuncts are for much more than just ph. If you look at his adjusted water profile he is right on target.

 

[whovous]

A few things from someone who still has a long way to go on the Bru'n Water learning curve:

1. Your sheet shows 4.9 gallons of water in the mash and 4.2 in the sparge, or 9.1 gallons total. Meanwhile, your total batch volume is 6.0 gallons. Now, I don't sparge, so I don't have a real good feel for this, but are you really losing 3.1 gallons in your process, or is this an example of the spreadsheet having its way with you? I know I have some trouble getting the numbers to come out right sometimes in the spreadsheet.
2. One of my main takeaways from reading what Brungard and DeLange (sp?) say about brewing with RO water on this forum is that there is only rarely a good reason to add bicarbonate to your water, as you are only going to neutralize it later on anyway. Once I decided I did not need a bicarbonate target in my water profile, it made getting rid of those red squares a lot easier.
3. The meaning of those red squares is not always intuitively obvious, at least not for me. They seem to have different implications in different places, but they mostly seem (to me at least) to tell me I need to figure something out.
4. That mash pH is gorgeous, but how did you determine the pH of your RO water? If you have that number wrong, the remaining numbers will be wrong as well. While there seems to be some difference of opinion on this, my understanding is the pH of your RO water is likely to be pretty much the same as the pH of the tap water you started with. I think this is worth keeping in mind given the problems there are in measuring pH at all. Strips are unreliable, and calibration of pH testers can be trouble, too. This led me to use the pH number my local water company uses in its water profile as my RO pH profile as well.
5. Did I mention I am still low on the learning curve on this? Let me say it again, because I am. I am least confident about pH in all of this.

 

[BrunDog]

Man i wouldnt be adding all of those salts. Get rid of everything except for cacl and caso4. Brunwater is a prediction spreadsheet. If youre not measuring your pH you dont know whats actually happening in the mash. I would be surprised if your pH was dropping below desirable range to justify the addition of the other salts. Have you read ajs sticky in the brew science forum? His is perfect for RO water.

If you want to get pH in the right range you can adjust with acid rather than salts.

Thanks for the feedback. I do measure my pH with a Milwaukee 102 and find that the spreadsheet is usually accurate to with 5 hundredths. My question/concern is not really about pH though.

 

[BrunDog]

The adjuncts are for much more than just ph. If you look at his adjusted water profile he is right on target.

Correct. The array of salts is to hit a specific water profile which not only affects mash pH, but flavor and some other performance characteristics.

 

[Iseneye]

Correct. The array of salts is to hit a specific water profile which not only affects mash pH, but flavor and some other performance characteristics.

Ah ok. Im browsing on mobile so didnt open the spreadsheet. Jumped the gun on that one. I assumed you were new to brew science and was using the salts to raise the pH.

 

[BrunDog]

A few things from someone who still has a long way to go on the Bru'n Water learning curve:

1. Your sheet shows 4.9 gallons of water in the mash and 4.2 in the sparge, or 9.1 gallons total. Meanwhile, your total batch volume is 6.0 gallons. Now, I don't sparge, so I don't have a real good feel for this, but are you really losing 3.1 gallons in your process, or is this an example of the spreadsheet having its way with you? I know I have some trouble getting the numbers to come out right sometimes in the spreadsheet.
2. One of my main takeaways from reading what Brungard and DeLange (sp?) say about brewing with RO water on this forum is that there is only rarely a good reason to add bicarbonate to your water, as you are only going to neutralize it later on anyway. Once I decided I did not need a bicarbonate target in my water profile, it made getting rid of those red squares a lot easier.
3. The meaning of those red squares is not always intuitively obvious, at least not for me. They seem to have different implications in different places, but they mostly seem (to me at least) to tell me I need to figure something out.
4. That mash pH is gorgeous, but how did you determine the pH of your RO water? If you have that number wrong, the remaining numbers will be wrong as well. While there seems to be some difference of opinion on this, my understanding is the pH of your RO water is likely to be pretty much the same as the pH of the tap water you started with. I think this is worth keeping in mind given the problems there are in measuring pH at all. Strips are unreliable, and calibration of pH testers can be trouble, too. This led me to use the pH number my local water company uses in its water profile as my RO pH profile as well.
5. Did I mention I am still low on the learning curve on this? Let me say it again, because I am. I am least confident about pH in all of this.

Thanks for your comments.

Regarding #1, between the water absorbed in the grain, that which is left behind in the mash/lauter run, and that which is booked off, yes this is about correct.

Regarding #2, this sounds like a good point. I would say bicarbonate is the one item I am not looking to purposely add. I selected the salt amounts to achieve the profile. And since I am not adding acid, there is no nullification. I think!

Regarding #3, I agree! That's one of my questions.

Regarding #4, I use the default pH. I don't think it's critical in RO because it has no buffering ability anyway. Again, I think!

Regarding #5. Agreed - me too!

 

[madcowbrewing]

A few things from someone who still has a long way to go on the Bru'n Water learning curve:

1. Your sheet shows 4.9 gallons of water in the mash and 4.2 in the sparge, or 9.1 gallons total. Meanwhile, your total batch volume is 6.0 gallons. Now, I don't sparge, so I don't have a real good feel for this, but are you really losing 3.1 gallons in your process, or is this an example of the spreadsheet having its way with you? I know I have some trouble getting the numbers to come out right sometimes in the spreadsheet.
.

It seems about right.... figuring about a pint lost to each pound of grain, then any mash tun dead space, then kettle dead space or losses to trub, and finally any cooling shrinkage.

 

[Qhrumphf]

If you're sparging with RO water with no alkalinity and almost no buffering, my understanding is that the pH shift it would cause is negligible, and as long as you're adding enough salts to the mash alone that you're ending up at your desired finished profile, and your pH is coming in on target (are you measuring mash temp or room temp, I'd assuming room temp as that's what the spreadsheet goes by, but if not your readings are off), then you should be in good shape.

As these guys have said, adding bicarbonate is usually not needed, but if you're getting the right pH with bicarbonate and without acid, then you probably do need some alkalinity (I need a little bicarbonate with some of my darker beers), so baking soda is perfect for that (I haven't used pickling lime personally but that too).

As far as your method for adding the salts, that I can't comment on. I know that gypsum dissolves better when cold and doesn't dissolve as easily, baking soda also is a little tougher to dissolve (but a FAR cry better than calcium carbonate), but calcium chloride and epsom salts dissolve very easily at whatever temp. Me personally, I treat both mash and sparge, and I add my salts to the mash water and dissolve prior to mashing in (except for baking soda which I add to the mash ONLY if I need it), and add acid to the mash directly.

 

[mabrungard]

While adding alkalinity is rarely needed for most brewing, there are cases when either the grist has higher acidity (typically darker grists) or there has been a lot of calcium and magnesium salts added to the water (like for a pale ale water). When starting with very low alkalinity water like RO or distilled, that alkalinity has to be added via some sort of mineral addition such as lime or baking soda. Overly low mash pH echos into the kettle wort pH and that can affect body and flavor. Don't be afraid of adding alkalinity, just be sure its really needed.

Don't pay too much attention to the cells that turn red when toggling on the 'add all minerals to the mash' function. I've apparently made a mistake in which values I'm assessing and comparing to let the brewer know that they were overdoing their mineral adjustments. If the cells were not red before toggling that function, don't worry about the warning. A fix for this will be issued in the next release.

 

[whovous]

Regarding #4, I use the default pH. I don't think it's critical in RO because it has no buffering ability anyway. Again, I think!

Ahh, you've moved me a little further along the learning curve, I hope. Forgive the threadjacking. What does "buffering ability" mean, and how does it affect the pH?

I've only done two brews with Martin's spreadsheet, and for the first I discovered my new 0.1g scale didn't work very well, so I guess the one in the fermenter now is the first one with accurate measurements. I wonder if my use of the city's pH number threw things off, or if telling the spreadsheet I used RO water sufficed for it to ignore the fact that I did not know what I was doing.

If someone could explaining what buffering is and why it does not matter with RO water, I'd appreciate it.

 

[BrunDog]

Thanks Martin. Is it OK to add all of those salts (CaSO4, CaCl2, MgSO4, NaHCO3, and Ca(OH2)2) to the mash water all at once, when it is heated to dough-in temp? Or should the lime be added separately?

I noticed when mixing into a pint of hot water that something doesn't dissove that much - this is what is making me think the process might not be OK. I also see in your sheet you recommend adding the lime to the mash (but I am not exactly sure what this means).

Thanks in advance.

 

[Gavin C]

With RO water as 100% all I have done is to adjust my NaCl CaCl2 and CaSO4 additions to reach the target levels of Ca Cl Na and SO4

I make no effort to add Mg as the malt seemingly contains adequate quantities. I ignore HCO3 as I have only done this for light beers.

Once I have my target water built I input my grain-bill mash and sparge volumes into the mash acidification calculator and adjust the grain-bill till the mash pH is 0.1 to 0.05 above where I want it.

I adjust the grain-bill by subbing acidulated malt for small amounts of the lightest base grain (pils or 2-row usually). The predicted pH is typically 0.05 to 0.1 above what I measure as actual pH.

In place of adding alkali for grain-bills containing alot of roast/crystal malts one can consider mashing thinner to raise the pH this way if desired.

I mash at full volume so invariably need to incorporate some acid malt. The exception thus far has been stouts.

One other idea that I have read here on HBT (if you have a water report) is to include 10% tapwater (treated for chloramines) in your water recipe. In my case, this adds a little Mg and HCO3 allowing one to exactly match target water with actual water.