Big Dark Malt PH Issue

[Mexibilly]

Using Brewer's Friend, I'm at a loss on how to manage pH in this recipe based on Kate The Great found right here on HBT.
I've changed the amounts of the darkest grains and salt additions (lye, lime, chalk, baking soda) many ways over and only gotten to around 4 without massive amounts of sodium or calcium.
I've written a whole new recipe to get to 5.19 pH, but that's a little lower than I'd like and I'm afraid the recipe isn't a solid representation of what I'm trying to achieve.
Any gurus out there wanna lend their expertise/experience???

Grist - Lbs - Lovibond
Marris Otter 10 – 3L
Breiss 2 Row 7 – 2L
Flaked Barley .75 – 1.5L
Special B .75 – 180L
Wheat .75 – 2L
Carafa 3 .625 - 525L
Aromatic .5 – 24L
Roasted .5 – 500L
Crystal 40 .5 – 40L
Caramel 120 .25 – 120L
Chocolate .25 – 350L
Black Patent .25 – 550L

Water
Calcium 113
Magnesium 33
Sodium 23
Chloride 38
Sulfate 44
Total Alkalinity (CaCO3) 344
pH 8.16

Target
Ca 100
Mg 5
Na 35
Cl 60
SO4 50
HCO 265

 

[philipCT]

I'd be happy to run this through Bru'nwater for you when I get home tonight.

When I'm brewing IPAs or PAs with my city reservoir water, I usually need some Lactic to get the right pH. But I just brewed a Baltic Porter and, because of the dark malt profile, needed to go the opposite way (slaked lime) to get to 5.4 pH.

I'm working off of a water analysis from Ward's Lab and using Bru'nwater. It's been pretty dependable.

 

[Mexibilly]

What's your starting water profile?

Posted under the Grist
Edit: Just edited to include the target

 

[Mexibilly]

My numbers hit pretty good with no additions except for pH.
I did add 2.25g CaCl to up the ratio a little toward malty

 

[philipCT]

working with Bru'nwater, the water profile you shared wasn't adding up properly. Are there some other numbers from your water analysis you could share? See warning message in red below.

Values that would help are ones I zeroed out because you didn't provide them:
-Potassium (K)
-Iron (Fe)
-Carbonate (CO3)
-Nitrate (NO3)

 

[Mexibilly]

working with Bru'nwater, the water profile you shared wasn't adding up properly. Are there some other numbers from your water analysis you could share? See warning message in red below.

Values that would help are ones I zeroed out because you didn't provide them:
-Potassium (K)
-Iron (Fe)
-Carbonate (CO3)
-Nitrate (NO3)

Thank you for the help.

K=1.51
Fe= .000106
CaCO3= 344
NO3= .1169
NO2= 0
F= Not Listed

Don't have CO3 listed individually among the 44 reported constituents.
I did update my original tap water and target to correct a mistake and to clarify.
I downloaded Brun Water, but find it far less user friendly than Brewer's Friend. I do need to take the time to figure it out and then purchase the official version, as many swear by it...

 

[Mexibilly]

working with Bru'nwater, the water profile you shared wasn't adding up properly. Are there some other numbers from your water analysis you could share? See warning message in red below.

Values that would help are ones I zeroed out because you didn't provide them:
-Potassium (K)
-Iron (Fe)
-Carbonate (CO3)
-Nitrate (NO3)

This is a 4 gallon batch, 6.5 gallons mash, 4 gallons sparge.
Here's the full report. Thank you

Bicarbonate (CaCO3) 344.05 340 mg/L
Phenolphthalein Alkalinity (CaCO3) 0 <10 mg/L
Total Alkalinity (CaCO3) 344.05 340 mg/L
Chlorate (ClO3) 0 <0.20 mg/L
Chlorite (ClO2) 0 <0.20 mg/L
Conductivity (@ 25°C) 807.6 810 µS/cm
Bromide (Br) 0 <0.20 mg/L
Chloride (CaCO3) 53.253 53 mg/L
Chloride (Cl) 37.82173 38 mg/L
Nitrate (CaCO3) 9.42E-02 <0.16 mg/L
Nitrate (NO3) 0.116906 <0.20 mg/L
Nitrite (NO2) 0 <0.20 mg/L
Sulfate (CaCO3) 46.21504 46 mg/L
Sulfate (SO4) 44.35225 44 mg/L
Aluminum (Al) 0.003498 <0.03 mg/L
Barium (Ba) 0.281642 0.282 mg/L
Boron (B) 0.034874 0.03 mg/L
Cadmium (Cd) 0.000106 <0.005 mg/L
Calcium (Ca) 113.102 110 mg/L
Calcium (CaCO3) 282.4157 280 mg/L
Chromium (Cr) 0.000742 <0.016 mg/L
Copper (Cu) -0.00382 <0.03 mg/L
Iron (Fe) 0.000106 <0.02 mg/L
Lead (Pb) -0.00901 <0.11 mg/L
Lithium (Li) 0.008798 0.009 mg/L
Magnesium (CaCO3) 135.0556 140 mg/L
Magnesium (Mg) 32.7964 33 mg/L
Manganese (Mn) -0.00032 <0.005 mg/L
Molybdenum (Mo) 0.015052 <0.04 mg/L
Nickel (Ni) 0.002862 <0.01 mg/L
Phosphorus (P) 0.010494 <0.03 mg/L
Potassium (K) 1.5105 1.5 mg/L
Silica (SiO2) 17.80996 18 mg/L
Silicon (Si) 8.3263 8.3 mg/L
Sodium (CaCO3) 49.56666 50 mg/L
Sodium (Na) 22.737 23 mg/L
Strontium (Sr) 0.86178 0.862 mg/L
Total Hardness (CaCO3) 420 420 mg/L
Vanadium (V) 0.000742 <0.01 mg/L
Zinc (Zn) -0.00933 <0.01 mg/L
Ammonia (CaCO3) <0.1175382783 <0.12 mg/L
Ammonia (NH3) -0.0245 <0.04 mg/L
Ortho Phosphate (PO4) 0.055 <0.1 mg/L
pH @ 25°C 8.16 8.2 Units

 

[Yooper]

Thank you for the help.

K=1.51
Fe= .000106
CaCO3= 344
NO3= .1169
NO2= 0
F= Not Listed

Don't have CO3 listed individually among the 44 reported constituents.
I did update my original tap water and target to correct a mistake and to clarify.
I downloaded Brun Water, but find it far less user friendly than Brewer's Friend. I do need to take the time to figure it out and then purchase the official version, as many swear by it...

With a CaCo3 level of 344, I can't imagine you needing alkalinity, even for Kate the Great. What was the mash pH predicted? Or did you brew it already? If you did, what was the mash pH?

 

[ajdelange]

Assuming you want to mash with about 1.25 qts/lb using that water you'll have a total proton deficit of about 184 mEq to meet if you want mash pH of 5.4. Of that, 154 is necessary to drag the water from pH 8.16 to 5.4 so what does that tell you? You'd better do something about that water alkalinity. The obvious thing here is to heat it or treat it with lime to drop some of the carbonate and calcium. If you could drop 4.5 mmol/L CaCO3 your alkalinity would be down to about 137 and your total proton deficit would be reduced to 106 which could be handled by a 3.2% sauermalz addition. You might be able to get the alkalinity down even further with some additional trickery e.g I've left your calcium at 1 mEq/L so you could add more before the boiling or lime treatment, potentially drop more carbonate and require less sauermalz.

The real message here is that you'll have to get rid of alkalinity.

 

[ajdelange]

Don't have CO3 listed individually among the 44 reported constituents.

That's because it really isn't useful informaton (nor is bicarbonate for that matter). Alkalinity and pH suffice. If you are curious about it, however, (and that's why it's in some reports) carbonate is at 3.6 mg/L and bicarbonate at 418.

 

[Mexibilly]

With a CaCo3 level of 344, I can't imagine you needing alkalinity, even for Kate the Great. What was the mash pH predicted? Or did you brew it already? If you did, what was the mash pH?

Predicted at 3.53.

 

[Mexibilly]

That's because it really isn't useful informaton (nor is bicarbonate for that matter). Alkalinity and pH suffice. If you are curious about it, however, (and that's why it's in some reports) carbonate is at 3.6 mg/L and bicarbonate at 418.

Thank AJ.
My issue is low mash pH. Would lowering alkalinity not decrease my pH, already predicted to be 3.53?
I've run this recipe, starting fresh, twice now and get the same 3.53 result.
I'll run it again tomorrow and triple check all my entries for accuracy.

 

[Mexibilly]

That's because it really isn't useful informaton (nor is bicarbonate for that matter). Alkalinity and pH suffice. If you are curious about it, however, (and that's why it's in some reports) carbonate is at 3.6 mg/L and bicarbonate at 418.

Thank AJ.
My issue is low mash pH. Would lowering alkalinity not further decrease my pH, already predicted to be 3.53?
I've run this recipe, starting fresh, twice now and get the same 3.53 result.
I'll run it again tomorrow and triple check all my entries for accuracy.

 

[ajdelange]

Thank AJ.
My issue is low mash pH. Would lowering alkalinity not further decrease my pH, already predicted to be 3.53?
I've run this recipe, starting fresh, twice now and get the same 3.53 result.
I'll run it again tomorrow and triple check all my entries for accuracy.

Yes, I think you must be doing something wrong. Without reducing the alkalinity of the water or adding acid to overcome it the estimated mash pH (based on the assemblage of grain types I used to approximate your grist) would be more like 5.75. To get pH 5.4 without reducing alkalinity you would need 5.5% sauermalz.

 

[Mexibilly]

Yes, I think you must be doing something wrong. Without reducing the alkalinity of the water or adding acid to overcome it the estimated mash pH (based on the assemblage of grain types I used to approximate your grist) would be more like 5.75. To get pH 5.4 without reducing alkalinity you would need 5.5% sauermalz.

Thanks again. I'll run it again when I get home for the day. I'll try Brun' Water again too

 

[Mexibilly]

Yes, I think you must be doing something wrong. Without reducing the alkalinity of the water or adding acid to overcome it the estimated mash pH (based on the assemblage of grain types I used to approximate your grist) would be more like 5.75. To get pH 5.4 without reducing alkalinity you would need 5.5% sauermalz.

I tried Martin's spreadsheet again. I don't have the purchased version and have far too much on my agenda to spend a lot of time going back over multiple times to figure it out. At this point it will remain a mystery. I added my grist and tap water and chose the 'dark malty' profile. I still come out to a -12 pH.
For one who understands water chemistry, especially as it applies to brewing, and has all the available information and time to review and correct, I'm sure it eventually becomes a great tool.
For someone who is just learning brewing chemistry and would like to brew a big stout with some buddies as a base to work from, it's far more complicated than the Brewer's Friend calculator.
Regardless, they both show me at a low pH.
I'll either postpone this stout until I have time to find a solution to my low pH issue or I'll brew it anyway and see what happens.
Thank you all for your assistance.

 

[Mexibilly]

(based on the assemblage of grain types I used to approximate your grist)

Thought I'd mention that my exact grist, supply water profile and target profile are all in the the 1st post. My full analysis by ECOLAB/NALCO is a few posts further down.
I tried Brewer's Friend and Brun' Water both again.
Brun' Water leaves me at a negative pH, and with a slight grist adjustment I got Brewer's Friend to 3.94.
Guess I'll brew a cream ale and continue to study...

 

[Mexibilly]

working with Bru'nwater, the water profile you shared wasn't adding up properly. Are there some other numbers from your water analysis you could share? See warning message in red below.

Values that would help are ones I zeroed out because you didn't provide them:
-Potassium (K)
-Iron (Fe)
-Carbonate (CO3)
-Nitrate (NO3)

I ran this through Bru'n Water, adding the carbonate and bicarbonate numbers AJ supplied, 3.6 & 418. I get -12pH. I'm not even sure how to quantify -12. Brewer's Friend gives me 3.94 with my exact water report and a slight grist adjustment (to fit the grist into the 10 available entry fields).
I'll either find a new recipe or brew it regardless. Either way, I'll post the results.

 

[ajdelange]

I get -12pH. I'm not even sure how to quantify -12.

Well it means that the hydrogen ion activity is 10^12 ( 10,000,000,000) As the molar concentration of pure water is about 55 mol per liter that means
each water molecule is protonated 1.81818e+08 times or the activity coefficient is really, really big. In plain English that means that something is broke real bad.

Brewer's Friend gives me 3.94 with my exact water report and a slight grist adjustment (to fit the grist into the 10 available entry fields).

As I've indicated a couple of times it is impossible for you to have such a low pH because you have an appreciable proton deficit in your grain bill and a larger one in your water. Unless you are adding acid somehow your mash pH is going to be around 5.7.

When I say I have to approximate your grain bill I mean I have not measured each malt you use (I am not sure I have measured as many malts as you used) and as such when doing proton flow calculations have to use something similar for which I do have data.

 

[Mexibilly]

Gotcha.
Thank you for your diligence in assisting me.
The fact that I enter exact grist and exact water, but get results that differ considerably from what you and others get leaves me 100% befuddled.
I'll brew lighter grain bills and revisit this recipe one of these days.

 

[mabrungard]

Since there is no such thing as -12 pH, I'm guessing that you haven't entered something correctly. Unfortunately, if you aren't the type of person that can read directions, Bru'n Water isn't for you. While it may not be immediately intuitive for a brand new user, everyone that uses it regularly tells me that it is intuitive once they understand how it works. Sorry for your troubles.

RTFI if you ever would like to understand the program.

 

[philipCT]

So, dude, you have the both of the masters of water chemistry chimed in here, AND Yooper as if that wasn't enough so I'm not sure I can add much value, but I wanted to follow through and run this into Martin's model, Bru'nwater, the way I do all my beers to see if I could help.

Caveat: I am but a humble homebrewer with little grasp of formal chemistry. I've been walked through Bru'nwater by Matt Crispen (http://accidentalis.com/), who very kindly spent enough time with me so that I now rely on Bru'nwater for all my brewing and the pH predictions are very reliable.

I'll walk you through what I did with the info you provided. This will show you how I use Bru'nwater.

Image 1. I entered your entire water profile

Image 2. I entered you malt profile and water qtys for this beer on the "Mash Acidification" tab. Note that without adjustments, your pH is 5.8.

Image 3. I shifted to the Adjustment tab and selected the "Black Malty" profile as you indicated. Image 3 shows this tab before any adjustments. What's I notice right away is that it's going to be tough to adjust some of these to be closer to your target because salting is an additive process. So adding salts will increase but not decrease some of these characteristics. For example, you want to bring down Calcium, but there's no way to do that by adding salts. Ditto Magnesium and sodium. Note that the red color of the cells in row 10 "Target Water Adjustments" is a dead giveaway here. Hover over A10 to get the skinny on that, but basically, you will need to dilute your brewing water with distilled in order to bring these down.

Image 4. So diluting with distilled I'll look at next, but in the meantime, if you just wanted to brew with this water, you could either add sauermaltz as AJ suggested or add 0.50 mL/gallon of Lactic Acid. That brings your pH to 5.5. That seems like a lot of Lactic to me so I'd be interested to hear what others think of this. This amount of Lactic may adversely affect the flavor.

Image 5. Finally, I altered the dilution percentage on row 8 to 50% distilled water. This improves the picture dramatically, and even backing out the Lactic, your pH goes to 5.3. You could run with that, but because I'm a tweaker, I tweak Baking Soda and Calcium Chloride to bring your numbers into the "close enough for TV" range. This gives you a pH of 5.3. I would call that good but again, would love to hear opinions of others on that adjustment strategy.

Image 6. The Adjustment Summary tab. I print this out and take it into the brewery with me. This seems to show a pretty nice profile, falling pretty close to the "Vienna" water profile in the historic section below. I always find this interesting to see but I don't do anything about it.

BTW - where do you live and how much do you know about your water source (mine is all city water from a local reservoir).



Hope this helps!

 

[Mexibilly]

Thank you philip!
I appreciate your help so much. I'll run this back thru and refer to your images and explanations. I must be entering something to do with bicarbonate incorrectly.
I'm in New Castle, Indiana. I had my Ecolab Rep run a sample of my tap water from home. I'm confident that it's very accurate for that moment in time. I'm not sure about the supply or whether it's a single and relatively unchanging source.
Again, thank you for your effort to help me get this straight.

 

[Mexibilly]

Since there is no such thing as -12 pH, I'm guessing that you haven't entered something correctly. Unfortunately, if you aren't the type of person that can read directions, Bru'n Water isn't for you. While it may not be immediately intuitive for a brand new user, everyone that uses it regularly tells me that it is intuitive once they understand how it works. Sorry for your troubles.

RFI if you ever would like to understand the program.

I believe I just figured out that acronym. YRPY...

 

[Mexibilly]

So, dude, you have the both of the masters of water chemistry chimed in here, AND Yooper as if that wasn't enough so I'm not sure I can add much value, but I wanted to follow through and run this into Martin's model, Bru'nwater, the way I do all my beers to see if I could help.

Caveat: I am but a humble homebrewer with little grasp of formal chemistry. I've been walked through Bru'nwater by Matt Crispen (http://accidentalis.com/), who very kindly spent enough time with me so that I now rely on Bru'nwater for all my brewing and the pH predictions are very reliable.

I'll walk you through what I did with the info you provided. This will show you how I use Bru'nwater.

Hope this helps!

Thanks again buddy. Based on your very good tutorial I have succeeded in a profile that seems to get me where I need to be on all levels.
My only question is the Batch Volume you have listed at 4.0. My understanding has always been that that batch volume is volume to fermentor, allowing for trub loss.
I set my batch volume at 4.5 and succeeded in building a solid profile using dilution and salt additions, not to Black and Malty, but to the profile I was shooting for in the first place.
Imagine how quickly we'd all progress if everyone shared your patient, cooperative and constructive manner.
If you're near I'll be glad to share the result of this first attempt at a complex dark grain bill. Otherwise I'd be glad to ship.

 

[philipCT]

Thanks again buddy. Based on your very good tutorial I have succeeded in a profile that seems to get me where I need to be on all levels.
My only question is the Batch Volume you have listed at 4.0. My understanding has always been that that batch volume is volume to fermentor, allowing for trub loss.
I set my batch volume at 4.5 and succeeded in building a solid profile using dilution and salt additions, not to Black and Malty, but to the profile I was shooting for in the first place.....

I'm glad that worked out for you. It will be interesting to see how close your prediction hits. Are you using a good pH meter?

As for your thanks, I do appreciate it. I consider this just paying it forward like Matt Crispen did with me. So you're it

I'm in Connecticut, so probably not a drive-by for you But I'd love to sample the results if you're up for shipping!

 

[Gavin C]

The above tutorial has you using ~6.8 gallons of mash water and 12 gallons of sparge water for a 4 gallon batch size.

Can't see how this is going to be accurate unless your planning on boiling for hours and hours.

You need to input correct mineral, grist and volume data if the spreadsheet is to serve you well.
Batch size is the volume into the fermentor regardless of trub volume in he kettle or FV after ferment.



There is no way you need 12 gallons of sparge water.

 

[philipCT]

The above tutorial has you using ~6.8 gallons of mash water and 12 gallons of sparge water for a 4 gallon batch size.

Can't see how this is going to be accurate unless your planning on boiling for hours and hours.

You need to input correct mineral, grist and volume data if the spreadsheet is to serve you well.
Batch size is the volume into the fermentor regardless of trub volume in he kettle or FV after ferment.

There is no way you need 12 gallons of sparge water.

I knew someone with sharp eyes would catch this

The mash water is at a rate of 1.25qts per pound of grain, so I don't see a problem there. Let me know if you do.

The 12 gallons of sparge water is simply an artifact of my brewing system. I do continuous/fly sparging. In my HERMS system I fill the HLT with 12 gallons of water regardless of how much I'm actually going to use. This way the HERMS coils that run thru the HLT are completely covered with water of the correct temperature during the mash. For a 4 gallon batch, I would only sparge long enough to collect the correct amount of wort, which would leave a LOT of sparge water unused in the HLT. I usually brew 10g batches so it's not an issue for me.

Having said all that, I still need to salt the sparge water proportionally, so I need the spreadsheet to calculate correct salting volumes for 12 gallons of water. That's why I put 12 gallons in on the sparge line.

If anyone sees any issues with this, I'm all ears, but I believe this gives me the right results.

And I do take your point about batch size being volume in the fermenter, so I stand corrected there. I note though, that even after correcting that, there was no substantial change in the finished water profile. It may be that the "Batch Wort Volume" entry on the Mash Acidification tab is used solely for calculating beer color, as indicated by the cell comment that is visible if you hover over that cell.

 

[Mexibilly]

The above tutorial has you using ~6.8 gallons of mash water and 12 gallons of sparge water for a 4 gallon batch size.

Can't see how this is going to be accurate unless your planning on boiling for hours and hours.

You need to input correct mineral, grist and volume data if the spreadsheet is to serve you well.
Batch size is the volume into the fermentor regardless of trub volume in he kettle or FV after ferment.



There is no way you need 12 gallons of sparge water.

I skipped the massive sparge you refer to. I built the entire recipe from scratch, entering every detail. I didn't simply copy philip's.
My Ecolab report and Bru'n Water had some slightly different numbers, resulting in the imbalance. Once I got those straightened out it was relatively smooth.
I'm mashing with 7.5 for 1.36 qt/lb and sparging with 3.
Everything appears to be in line now and the order is in my shopping cart. Just waiting to verify my schedule for next weekend.
I truly appreciate everyone's input.

 

[Gavin C]

I knew someone with sharp eyes would catch this

The mash water is at a rate of 1.25qts per pound of grain, so I don't see a problem there. Let me know if you do.

The 12 gallons of sparge water is simply an artifact of my brewing system.

One of the easiest ways to adjust mash pH upward is to simply mash thinner. Super easy adjustment in the system. Just up the mash volume. A useful tool for dark beers for sure. 1.25 is not a problem but is not necessarily the best for a dark beer if pH issues are being considered.

With 12 gallons entered as sparge volume the spreadsheet assumes all that volume is being used so will give you the final water profile accordingly. You can of course enter a different profile for the sparge water if you are not treating it the same way but the software doesn't know the exact sparge amount unless you tell it. This will impact the final water profile it spits out.

Don't get me wrong, I think you have gone to great lengths to provide excellent help in the thread. I'm not trying to shoot you down at all. Just wanted to stick my oar in, so to speak. No disrespect intended. #waternerdsmatter