That looks like Brewers Friend, if it is, also check the pH using beer color from receipe builder. I did a batch last week and looking at it afterwards I got two different pH calculations. The one calculated from beer color was closer to what I measured.
+1 on what AJ said. If you are using the new BeerSmith3 software there is even a selection to omit chalk from all brewing salt calculations. Also, if you are still able to adjust your recipe you might want to think about going more simple with the grain bill. 10 different grains is quite a lot! Good luck!
Yeah I input 20~25% of roasted malt and I got 4.8~ ph... there are a huge difference and it seems like inputting hard numbers are more accurate so I'm not sure which to trust
You don't want to use chalk. Ever - well hardly ever. Be suspicious of any calculator or spreadsheet which allows chalk to be entered unless its use is heavily caveated in the instructions or by lighting up red or somehow otherwise warning you when any is entered.
There aren't any strong acids in mash but there are acids that are stonger than bicarbonic acid and so they will give their protons up to CO3-- - eventually. The problem is in the time it takes. Rate coefficents in higher order systems usually depend on concentration so that it isn't that the acids aren't strong enough, it's that there isn't enough of them. Add a little hydrochloric acid to a suspension of chalk and you will see gas bubbles evolve and the pH will fall back dramatically and the suspension may even turn clear. Then, over time, the pH will creep back up again as the suspended invisible CaCO3 microcrystals dissolve and protons are absorbed. This will continue over at least 24 hours.The acids in the typical mash are not strong enough to quickly dissolve chalk. There is a small amount of strong acids in the mash...
Should I substitute baking soda for chalk? If so, at what ratio?
Yes, if you can live with the sodium.Should I substitute baking soda for chalk? If so, at what ratio?
It would be helpful if the OP gave us the gallons of mash water, the expected finished batch size, and the anticipated SRM color for the finished beer. I could then re-enter the corrected data into the Kaiser calculator to correct for these input values vs. my presumptions.
I just plugged the OP's recipe into Mash Made Easy, and its output can be seen below. It's calling for half the baking soda that the Kaiser Calculator calls for. Note, this is a testing version of MME, and not a public release. The only difference between this version and the latest released version is the application of A.J.'s baking soda absorbance factor formula, which bumps up the baking soda grams a bit.
View attachment 579736
So, the Kai's Calculator gets me more accurate result? English isn't my first language so I might be missing something from the conversation above.
Perhaps not. It's hard to imagine how a software program like Kai's that looks primarily at the ending color of the entire batch, albeit with a rather confusing (mainly as to how to properly apply it) modifier tossed in for the percentage of color that is derived from the roasted malts, can be more correct than a software solution which attempts to integrate the contributions for each malt or grain present. For the former case there is weak association between the final batch SRM and the overall acidity present, but then again, for the latter case there is also weak association between the grains colors and their individual acidities, so perhaps it's a wash as to who can stake more claim to validity.
All I can say at this juncture is: Stay tuned.
How many gallons of sparge water are you intending to use? To get a yield of 5.3 gallons in the fermenter you will need to use overall well more than 5.3 gallons of water. You will need sufficient water to overcome grain saturation water loss, as well as any other system and process losses, plus losses due to boiling.
*****As an aside, the Kaiser Calculator correctly (albeit confusingly) instructs as to how to derive the percentage of SRM color from roasted malts/grains, but the Brewers Friend instructions for this very same task (unless recently modified) are different, and fail miserably, and will lead to far different and likely catastrophic results. When I ran the Brewers Friend calculator in SRM mode, I used the Kaiser Calculator instructions, and not the Brewers Friend instructions. *****
After our discussion and development of A.J.’s troubleshooter, why even bother with Kai’s sheet?
Wish I can find my answer! I brewed that recipe with 3g each of gypsum and calcium chloride without anything that raises ph. Mash water was 5.3gal, and I added 4gal of water for batch sparge. I got 5~5.3gal of finished wort and now I'm fermenting it. Wish it doesn't taste to sour.
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Perhaps because the average home brewer will not have precise DI_pH values for every malt they will ever choose to use, let alone the requisite and also precise 3 point titration values for same.
Excellent news!Yes, with AJ's assistance, the buffering power of baking soda has been properly modeled now in Bru'n Water.
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