Adjust pH for Strike water of in Mash?

[MTBbrewer]

Just qurious what most people do. Should I adjust the pH of my water before I start so I will have it for my strike and sparge? Or shold I adjust it in the mash?

I have been having some water issues with my tap water, so I am going to try 100% RO water next.

 

[ajdelange]

There is only one real advantage to treating the water as opposed to the mash an that is that the minerals are dissolved in the water when it meets the malt and thus as uniformly mixed with the malt as the water is and ready to go to work as soon as the malt is wet. If you have ever added powder to a mash and stirred it in you know that this does not happen quickly.

I suppose another aspect of this is that you are emulating what happens at a brewery that has the water you want for your beer. The minerals are in the water in such a scenario.

In the (now receding into history) days when brewers thought they should be adding teaspoonfuls of chalk to their brews it was well known that chalk didn't dissolve in the amounts of water that is typical of brewing and that, therefore, the chalk should be added to the mash where the malts' acids could be relied on to dissolve them. Now that we know better that POV is no longer relevant.

 

[MTBbrewer]

I saw some calculators on here that help you adjust you water profile, but the water report I get from my water company does not have enough information for me to fill out the form. Is there a calculator out there that will let me know what the strike water pH should be based on the grain bill without having to know my complete water profile.

 

[Yooper]

I saw some calculators on here that help you adjust you water profile, but the water report I get from my water company does not have enough information for me to fill out the form. Is there a calculator out there that will let me know what the strike water pH should be based on the grain bill without having to know my complete water profile.

No, because the alkalinity is what affects the mash pH, not the water pH.

If you're using RO water, your alkalinity is low.

If you're using tap water, you really need to know the bicarbonate level in order to guess what might happen to the mash pH.

 

[billl]

I guess it depends on what you mean by "adjust the pH of my water".

If you know your water profile and are using some software to recommend adjustments for various minerals and acid, then go ahead and add it to the strike water while you are heating it. You still might need to tweak the ph in the mash, but you should be pretty close.

If you mean that you intend to adjust your strike water to a ph of 5.2 before adding it, then no, you shouldn't do that. The ph of your strike water doesn't predict the ph of the mash.

 

[mabrungard]

I saw some calculators on here that help you adjust you water profile, but the water report I get from my water company does not have enough information for me to fill out the form. Is there a calculator out there that will let me know what the strike water pH should be based on the grain bill without having to know my complete water profile.

Well, sort of. If you have the calcium, magnesium, and alkalinity (aka: bicarbonate) concentrations, then you do have enough information to estimate mash pH and any acidification of your sparging water.

 

[ajdelange]

You can use any of them. Your main concern is alkalinity but you can remove it from consideration by setting the water pH to the desired mash pH. This sets the water's proton deficit to 0. Use any of the calculators with DI water specified and play with grain and acid additions to get the mash pH you want. If the water is hard that will lower pH a bit so if you don't know hardness tune for pH 0.05 - 0.10 high say 5.45 - 5.50. If you do have hardness info plug it in.

Keep in mind that no calculator can predict pH exactly. If you have a pH meter available to check water pH why not use it to check some test mashes?

 

[MTBbrewer]

No, because the alkalinity is what affects the mash pH, not the water pH.

If you're using RO water, your alkalinity is low.

Ok I think I am starting to get it. I will be using all RO water, so I will try to test the mash after 15min to see where I am at.

 

[MTBbrewer]

Well, sort of. If you have the calcium, magnesium, and alkalinity (aka: bicarbonate) concentrations, then you do have enough information to estimate mash pH and any acidification of your sparging water.

Unfortunately the report I get from my water service doesn’t give me any of that. I have been having problems, so I have decided to with RO water.