Brewing BM's Black Pearl Porter - Seeking Water Addition Advice

[Jiffster]

I'll be using RO water. I am going to conduct a test mash (my first ever) using my first pH meter (Hach Pocket Pro+) to determine what my mash pH will be so I can attempt to determine how much lactic acid and/or acid malt I will need to include.

I will also be using Bru'n water (just getting started with it - supporter version - to help understand how to adjust pH and which salt additions to add.

This being said, I anticipate a learning curve with all of the above and I am hoping to get some advice that will help make this first attempt go smoother.

 

[MagicMatt]

Sounds like you've got the right approach. I'd use BrunWater or BrewersFriend and input your grist info, water info, etc, and see what they both estimate for your mash pH. Then you can play around with adding salts or acids to the mash to raise or lower the pH accordingly.

It's helpful (for me at least) to have a target water profile in mind - something you are hoping to come close to in terms of levels of Ca, Cl, SO4, Mg, Na, etc. This is what you'd want your final water to look like and will need to use salts to get there. When to add the salts depends on how your mash pH looks. With a darker beer like a porter, you may find that you need help in keeping the pH from dropping too low if using 100% RO water. In this case, you may want to add some baking soda to add alkalinity and raise the pH a bit. Other salts like calcium chloride, epsom, gypsum, will lower the pH of the mash.

Once you figure out which salts you need in the mash to target a pH, you can add the remaining salts (to get you to your desired target water profile) to the boil (or even sparge). From personal experience though, most of my dark beers (porters, stouts) do not require any acid addition as the roasted grain helps get the pH low enough.

 

[Jiffster]

Bruin estimates my mash pH to be 5.32.

I thought Bru'n Water actually provided the recommended additions based on the style, water, grain inputs, etc?

I have no idea where to begin with building a water profile except for the info found in AJ's primer. I don't think the primer goes into that amount of depth except to say for this style:


Baseline: Add 1 tsp of calcium chloride dihydrate (what your LHBS sells) to each 5 gallons of water treated. Add 2% sauermalz to the grist.

(Note: AJ stated the primer is to be updated and recommends cutting the baseline in half).

Deviate from the baseline as follows:

For beers that use roast malt (Stout, porter): Skip the sauermalz.

 

[MagicMatt]

I think that Primer is a good place to start. It's how I got started.

I use BrewersFriend and not Bru'nWater (personal preference), so I can't comment on whether Brun will provide recommended additions......but I don't recall that functionality the last time I used it.

You can select one of the preset water profiles to use as your target ("Dark Full Body" etc). This will give you a general indication of how much of each element is needed, and then you can play around with adding the salts that get you to those levels. Once you've found the right amount of each salt to add to get you close to the profile you desire, then you can start moving some of the salts from the mash to the boil or vice versa until you get the mash pH you're looking for.

Here's a very basic example:

To get to the target profile, you need to add 5g of CaCl, 3.5g Gypsum, and 2g baking soda.
Inputting your grain info, your DI water mash pH yields 5.8. This is too high, so you'll want to add some of the CaCl and gypsum to the mash additions section until it drops the pH into the desired range (for me, dark beers get targeted to about 5.4-5.5). Adding the baking soda to the mash would actually raise the pH, so we will withhold that and add it to the boil (as well as any leftover CaCl or gypsum if we didn't need it all to hit the desired pH).

Make sense?

 

[Jiffster]

OK, here's my first real swag at my addition's.
Bru'n Water v.3.4 Water Adjustments
Black Pearl Porter

Profiles (ppm) Exist Mash Finished
Ca 0 93 67
Mg 0 5 5
Na 0 8 8
SO4 0 66 66
Cl 0 46 46
HCO3 0 168 NA
SO4/Cl Ratio 1.4

Batch Volume 5.50 Gallons
Total Mash 4.19 Gallons
Mash Dilution 4.19 Gallons
Total Sparge 4.70 Gallons
Sparge Dilution 4.70 Gallons

Mineral Additions (gm) Mash Sparge
Gypsum . 1.3 1.4
Calcium Chloride 1.0 1.2
Epsom Salt 0.8 0.9
Mag Chloride 0.0 0.0
Canning Salt 0.0 0.0
Baking Soda 0.0 Not Recommended
Chalk . 0.0 Not Recommended
Pickling Lime 1.5 Not Recommended

Mash Acid Additions
0.00 (ml)
0.00 (ml)
Sparge Acid Addtions
Lactic 88.00 % 0.34 (ml)
0.00 (ml)

 

[Jiffster]

Here's my grain bill

8# - Pale Malt 2 Row (2 SRM)
2# - Munich Malt (10 SRM)
1# Caramel/Crystal Malt (30 SRM)
1# Chocolate Malt (350 SRM)
1# Flaked Oats (1 SRM)

 

[MagicMatt]

I don't see your predicted mash pH with those additions.....

 

[MagicMatt]

OK I plugged your numbers into BrewersFriend, and one thing that jumps right out at me is that you're using both lactic acid (reduces pH) and pickling lime (increases pH) in your mash. Those are contradicting additions.

What pH are you going for here? The general rule I've seen is lighter beers should target the 5.2-5.4 range, and darker beers should target the 5.4-5.6 range. This isn't a hard rule, but some tend to notice that it helps.

Whatever pH you're aiming for is solely what should determine what goes into your mash. If your grist alone gets you to that pH, then there is no reason to add anything to the mash.

Looking at your numbers, BF tells me that your DI mash pH (i.e. your RO water with no salt additions) with that grain bill will be about 5.53. This isn't bad at all. If you want to bring it down some, then start adding some of salts (CaCl, MgSO4, CaSO4) to the mash until the pH is where you want it. To get the pH to 5.4, I added 3g gypsum, 1g epsom, 1.5g table salt, 3.5g CaCl. No acid needed.

Then you would look at the overall water report and how it compares to the target profile you were aiming for. On BF, I used the "Porter, dark ales" profile, which is

Ca 100, Mg 5, Na 35, Cl 60, SO4 50

Obviously this isn't a requirement and feel free to adjust any of these values as you see fit. You don't have to match whatever you decide exactly either. Accounting for the salts added to the mash, that puts your current water profile at

Ca 49, Mg 3, Na 18, Cl 77, SO4 61

It's a bit low on the Ca and Na compared to the target, so if you wanted to add some additional source of Ca (Na is hard to do without also adding more Cl, which is already a little higher than the target), you could put your pickling lime in the boil (I wouldn't do it in the sparge as it will raise the pH). Adding 1.5g of lime to the boil raises the Ca to 77 which is better.

See the details here, and feel free to play around with it (it's your brew after all!):

http://www.brewersfriend.com/mash-chemistry-and-brewing-water-calculator/?id=XQGX1X5

 

[Jiffster]

The Lactic Acid was automatically added to the "Sparge Acidification" volume as a recommended value.

The target mash pH I was shooting for is 5.5.
The estimated mash pH with these additions was 5.51

Looking at the BF version you created as well, thanks.

 

[Jiffster]

Here's my latest attempt at hitting Bru'n Water's recommendations.

 

[Jiffster]

Also curious on how to use Bru'n Water after I conduct my test mash on Friday.

How do I use the data (test mash actual pH) to fine tune my Bru'n Water report in preparation for my brew the next day?

 

[Jiffster]

My measured mash pH was 5.45 during my test mash.

Bru'n Water estimated 5.31
Brewers Friend estimated 5.79

I give up!!

Not really but don't know what to do.