Big difference bw Bru'n Water and Brewer's friend mash pH predictions

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monkeyman1000

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Planning on brewing ( BIAB, full volume, no sparge) an English Pale Ale tomorrow and I am trying to figure out my water additions. My grain bill is:
Marris Otter 2.6 # Lovibond of 4
Crystal 120 0.2 # Lovibond of 120
Special roast 0.1# Lovibond of 50.
I was going to use a total of 3.3 grams of Gypsum and 1.3 grams of CaCl2 to 3.3 gallons of store bought RO water because I entered this information in Bru'n Water first under the pale ale profile as a guide. I cut back on the gypsum bc I'm not sure if I like that much.
As a check I entered the same values into the Brewer's friend water calculator and I am getting 2 very different numbers. Bru'n water predicts a mash pH of 5.46 and Brewer's friend predicts a mash pH of 5.18. Should I split the difference here and hope I come up with 5.32 or something else? Any guidance would be appreciated.
 
It shouldn't make a difference. Your're probably mashing longer than required anyways.
 
The ordinary bitter from BCS? I was just planning the same brew :) I would be concerned about the low Brewer's Friend calc as its so out of range. I used to check my mash with a pH meter and it was always pretty close (within .05) Lately I've been just trusting it. My plan was to skip the gypsum in the mash which puts the brewers friend estimate to around 5.4 and then add the gypsum in the boil. What does Brunwater say with that level of CaCl? Would that also put Brunwater in the 5.4-5.7 range? If yes, go with that and ideally check your pH during the mash and see who was right. Maybe one works better with no-sparge volumes.
 
It is the recipe from BCS. Bru'n water predicts 5.61 if I take out the gypsum in the mash and Brewer's friend predicts 5.4 without the gypsum. Confusing for sure. I guess all I can do is brew it and see what happens. The last three brews I did, since starting to mess with my water, came about .18 to .2 lower than what Bru'n water and Brewer's friend predicted but the two predictions were a little closer than they are today.
 
Well, I brewed it with the above mentioned additions and ended up with a mash pH of 5.16, pretty close to Brewer's friend. However I rechecked my buffers and my meter read 3.86 in the 4.01 at room temp (73.4) and 6.89 at same temp in the 7.0. I had calibrated the meter about 30 minutes prior to checking the pH. The meter is only 3 months old but I think I will redo the stability test again.(?) Should I add 0.13 back to my reading of the mash pH since the recheck on the buffers was off by about this much? That would make it 5.29 which would make me feel better.
 
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