All Pils malt bill, mash pH 5.7, how bad is this?

[gifty74]

So for xmas I got a Hanna submersible pH pen to start to get into monitoring pH as a way to elevate my brewing practice. I bought the calibration solutions and it was dead on (only accurate to the tenth of a decimal, 0.1). I used it for the first time on an all Pils malt bill Belgian Golden Strong. I know from reading that with RO water the malt bill should've been around 5.7-5.8. Well, I know my water is hard, and alkaline, so I've been cutting with 50% RO water. Well, my mash pH was 5.7, as expected. I do not yet have any acids to adjust, and had some 5.2 laying around so I added a Tbsp of that in hopes it would bring it down a little. It did nothing. So, my mash pH was 5.7. Ended up with a boil pH around 5.9. Not ideal of course, so it'll be interesting to see what happens as I am able to adjust into the 5.2-5.4 range. Question is, how bad, or how far off is that pH. I know it's a logarithmic scale, but I'm not sure if that's about as bad as it can get, or if it's not really too bad. Below are my water specs. The two readings are from the two pumping stations (sources) on our water report. They said we can be getting from either of them at any given time, which makes it even more difficult to predict. Anyway, let me know some thoughts if you have any (all ppm unless stated).

Ca - 155, 75
Mg - 17.8, 7.8
Na - 19.5, 11.8
Cl - 30.7, 22.9
SO4 - 48, 30
pH - 7.4, 7.4
Alkalinity (not expressed specifically as CaCO3) - 144, 60
Hardness (mg/L) - 230, 112

 

[ajdelange]

The beer isn't going to be a disaster by any means. It might even be quite good. Chances are, though, that it's going to be appreciably better when you add some sauermalz or acid to get the mash pH down to closer to 5.5 and the boil pH closer to 5.

 

[gifty74]

Thanks for the response. So, how do my water specs look in general, assuming the worst case of the harder water? I was thinking the alkalinity was pretty high, meaning I might have to add more acid to get to 5.4 than others might. But, they don't list any units with that measurement so I'm not exactly sure it's high.

 

[ajdelange]

Well your numbers don't make sense. If I interpret the calcium and magnesium numbers as ppm (mg/L) total hardness is 459 ppm as CaCO3. If I interpret them as hardness numbers the total is 173 neither of which agrees with 230.

The alkalinity numbers are doubtless ppm as CaCO3. Given the hardness number inconsistency its hard to place much confidence in the alkalinity numbers but they are not atypical. In either case, but especially the 144, that's too much alkalinity for pale beers and will have to be dealt with somehow. Dilution (or replacement) with RO is the obvious and easiest way to handle this (if you have a convenient source of RO). Neutralization with acid is the other approach but it requires more care and leaves the anion of whatever acid you choose in the beer.

It would probably be a good idea to obtain alkalinity and hardness (total and calcium or total and magnesium) from a supplier like Hach or Lamotte and do a few spot checks yourself.

 

[gifty74]

That's what I've been finding as well. I've been trying to enter my numbers into the various water spreadsheets, and the numbers never seem to work out. The expected values are not what they should be (referring to Bru'n water). Here's a link to my water report (PDF)...