Brewing salts - EZ Water Spreadsheet

[Roadie]

We haven't been happy with some of the flavors we're getting in our beers which I believe can be traced back to our water chemistry and am seeking help with understanding the correct usage of the EZ Water Calculator. We start with 100% RO water and build up profiles from scratch.

What I do when calculating water profiles in EZ Calculator:

Leave Starting Water Profile all at 0 since again we've using RO water.
Calculate Mash Water based on 1.5 qts per pound as a thicker mash doesn't hit the temp probe in our MT.
Percent that is Distilled or RO is set to 100%.
Input grain bill.
Uncheck the Adjusting Sparge Water box. Input brewing salts at bottom to give me the mineral profile I'm looking for.
Look at Mash pH and adjust as necessary to get between 5.4 and 5.45 which usually call for adding lactic acid.
I ignore Effective Alkalinity and Residual Alkalinity.

When brewing I add all salts to the mash water prior to dough-in.

On a recent 5 gallon batch of IPA here is how the numbers worked out:

Starting Water (ppm):
Ca: 0
Mg: 0
Na: 0
Cl: 0
SO4: 0
HCO3: 0

Mash / Sparge Vol (gal): 5.5/7.5
RO or distilled %: 100% / 100%

Total Grain (lb): 14.3

Adjustments (grams) Mash / Boil Kettle:
CaSO4: 17.8 / 0
CaCl2: 5.1 / 0
MgSO4: 9.5 / 0
NaHCO3: 2.85 / 0
CaCO3: 0 / 0
Lactic Acid (ml): 2.5
Sauermalz (oz): 0

Mash Water / Total water (ppm):
Ca: 261 / 110
Mg: 42 / 18
Na: 37 / 16
Cl: 118 / 50
SO4: 655 / 277
Cl to SO4 Ratio: 0.18 / 0.18

Alkalinity (CaCO3): -60
RA: -271
Estimated pH: 5.42
(room temp)

In doing some reading over the weekend I noticed reference to adding just the pH salts in the mash and using the others in the boil kettle which is something that I've never done.

Which salts should I be adding to the MT and which to the BK?
Should I be more focused on Alkalinity/Residual Alkalinity?
Am I doing anything incorrectly with this program?

 

[Natdavis777]

RO water still contains minerals, just very low in quantity. For your sake, you can leave the values set at 0, but I believe it's 1/9th of the source water. Next , I would check the "adjust sparge water" because that is going to give you your BK additions.

I only use 3 salts: calcium chloride, gypsum, and calcium carbonate.

All three can be used in the mash. Set your water profile first (hop forward, malt forward, soft, etc) and then add your minerals to hit the desired profile. Then input your grain bill. After these have been entered, evaluate your mash ph. If you are high, add some acid malt or lactic acid to drop the ph to the desired level. If you are low on ph, use some calcium carbonate to raise the ph to the desired level.

By checking the sparge box, this will also give you how many grams/gallon to add to your sparge water. You do not need to add the minerals to the sparge water though, but to the BK once you have collected all your pre boil wort. These additions are usually calcium chloride and gypsum, since calcium carbonate is really only needed to adjust mash ph.

I use Bru'n water instead of EZ Water, but from what I understand they are very similar . Good luck and hope this helps.

If I missed anything or stated something wrong, please somebody feel free to make corrections


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[Roadie]

RO water still contains minerals, just very low in quantity. For your sake, you can leave the values set at 0, but I believe it's 1/9th of the source water. Next , I would check the "adjust sparge water" because that is going to give you your BK additions.

I only use 3 salts: calcium chloride, gypsum, and calcium carbonate.

All three can be used in the mash. Set your water profile first (hop forward, malt forward, soft, etc) and then add your minerals to hit the desired profile. Then input your grain bill. After these have been entered, evaluate your mash ph. If you are high, add some acid malt or lactic acid to drop the ph to the desired level. If you are low on ph, use some calcium carbonate to raise the ph to the desired level.

By checking the sparge box, this will also give you how many grams/gallon to add to your sparge water. You do not need to add the minerals to the sparge water though, but to the BK once you have collected all your pre boil wort. These additions are usually calcium chloride and gypsum, since calcium carbonate is really only needed to adjust mash ph.

I use Bru'n water instead of EZ Water, but from what I understand they are very similar . Good luck and hope this helps.

If I missed anything or stated something wrong, please somebody feel free to make corrections

Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

Do you pay any attention to alkalinity?

 

[Natdavis777]

Not if you are building the water from RO or distilled because you are already starting out with very low alkalinity. If you were using source water with a higher level of alkalinity, then it would determine which beer by color would be most optimal. With RO/Distilled water, you can add brewing salts to the desired beer to hit optimal ph


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[Yooper]

I don't understand why you'd add baking soda to raise the pH and then acid to lower the pH. What happens when you leave the baking soda completely out?

Sparging with 100% RO water means you don't have to acidify it. You can add your salts to it if you want, though.

EZ water is, well, easy to use. But the mash pH has never been close to the actual mash pH. I'd suggest using Brewer's Friend or Bru'nwater which have always been close to the actual pH for me.

I assume with that water profile, with the super high sulfate, that you're making an IPA. While some brewers love the high sulfate level, I'd suggest being much more modest at first and adjust upwards if you're not happy with it. My favorite IPA recipe tastes best with about 150 ppm of sulfate, and the other minerals minimal. In this case, 'less is more' really applies.

 

[Roadie]

I don't understand why you'd add baking soda to raise the pH and then acid to lower the pH. What happens when you leave the baking soda completely out?

Sparging with 100% RO water means you don't have to acidify it. You can add your salts to it if you want, though.

EZ water is, well, easy to use. But the mash pH has never been close to the actual mash pH. I'd suggest using Brewer's Friend or Bru'nwater which have always been close to the actual pH for me.

I assume with that water profile, with the super high sulfate, that you're making an IPA. While some brewers love the high sulfate level, I'd suggest being much more modest at first and adjust upwards if you're not happy with it. My favorite IPA recipe tastes best with about 150 ppm of sulfate, and the other minerals minimal. In this case, 'less is more' really applies.

Yes the 110/18/16/50/277 numbers are for an IPA. They are Mosher's ideal pale ale numbers with slightly less sulfate. I'm going to have to pick up a pH meter since we've been brewing on blind faith based on this spreadsheet.

The baking soda is used to get sodium up from 0 as none of the other additives contribute sodium. Is there another recommended way to add sodium?

Way back when I was in school I was very heavy math and zero science and now it's coming back around to bite me.

 

[Natdavis777]

Yeah that's really high for your sulfates. Same as Yooper, I've found my sweet spot around 150-200ppm


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[GotPushrods]

RO water still contains minerals, just very low in quantity. For your sake, you can leave the values set at 0, but I believe it's 1/9th of the source water.

At 1/9th, it's probably time to replace the RO membrane.

The rejection rate depends on many factors... the membrane itself, input pressure, back pressure, water temperature, pH (if it's very high).... etc.

However most properly functioning RO membranes will give 95+% rejection. Often 98-99%.

Using 0 for all values will be fine.

 

[SpeedYellow]

Roadie, something is wrong here. Your inputs show that you're using 13 gal of water for a 5-gal batch. Are you really?

Some folks will recommend Bru'nWater, but it won't work for your process of adding minerals to your mash water and not the sparge water; it's not set up for that. Specifically, if you want to see the predicted mash pH then the water page doesn't tell you your final water profile. If you want the water page to show your final water profile, then the predicted mash pH page isn't correct.

 

[Yooper]

Yes the 110/18/16/50/277 numbers are for an IPA. They are Mosher's ideal pale ale numbers with slightly less sulfate. I'm going to have to pick up a pH meter since we've been brewing on blind faith based on this spreadsheet.

The baking soda is used to get sodium up from 0 as none of the other additives contribute sodium. Is there another recommended way to add sodium?

Way back when I was in school I was very heavy math and zero science and now it's coming back around to bite me.

Why are you increasing sodium? If you know why you want it, then it's fine of course but you never 'need' it. If you feel that you must increase the sodium, use NaCl2, table salt, sodium chloride which increases the chloride and the sodium.

Remember that you have more going on than just a set numbers grouping. Mash pH is crucial. Adding baking soda increases mash pH, so you're adding lactic acid to reduce the pH. That is at cross purposes, and so you're adding two unneeded things to unnecessarily complicate the water.

Instead of shooting for a profile, which is not really the point, try increasing the sulfate to 125-150 ppm by using gypsum and that's it. You don't need to increase the magnesium, although some people do to get a 'dry, sour' sort of taste to it. In large amounts, it is a laxative (remember Milk of Magnesia?) so I'd skip it unless you know how much magnesium YOU like for the dry tart flavor it brings. Of course, with the amount you have it's still just fine, I just thought I'd mention that it wasn't needed at all, but a little is fine.

Malt has plenty of magnesium for yeast health. The same is true with sodium- you never need it. If you want some, and you know why you're adding it, that's a different story!

 

[Yooper]

Roadie, something is wrong here. Your inputs show that you're using 13 gal of water for a 5-gal batch. Are you really?

Some folks will recommend Bru'nWater, but it won't work for your process of adding minerals to your mash water and not the sparge water; it's not set up for that. Specifically, if you want to see the predicted mash pH then the water page doesn't tell you your final water profile. If you want the water page to show your final water profile, then the predicted mash pH page isn't correct.

bru'nwater works great for me- and my predicted mash pH is always close to my actual, so something isn't quite right in this description.

One other point about bru'nwater- there is a lot of water information right in the first page of it, and it lists the ions and what they do. That might be very helpful in beginning water chemistry, as it would explain why you do (or don't) want to increase the magnesium or sodium as an example.

 

[MNDan]

I've only got a handful of results so far, but for me Bru'nwater has averages around .2 lower than my measured on pH while the EZ water spreadsheet has averaged .2 higher than measured. The closest for me so far (within .05-.1 on average) has been this: http://www.brewersfriend.com/mash-chemistry-and-brewing-water-calculator/ It's also very flexible, which is nice since I am diluting RO water with my filtered city water for the mash.

 

[SpeedYellow]

bru'nwater works great for me- and my predicted mash pH is always close to my actual, so something isn't quite right in this description...

I never said it doesn't work. Only that if you DON'T treat your sparge water, then it's wonky. You then have to choose between calculating (1) mash pH or (2) final water profile, because one or the other will be incorrect. This is because the mash pH sheet uses your "finished water profile," which assumes your sparge water has the same mineral content as your mash water. If you don't treat the sparge water, you then have to go back to the Adjustments sheet (Sheet 3) and act like the "finished water" is just the mash. So now you have no idea what your total water (including untreated sparge) looks like. This isn't just academic, either; it greatly impacts the numbers.

EZ Water doesn't suffer from this problem because it gives an option for treating sparge water or not.

 

[Natdavis777]

So for simplicity's sake, and for that of the beer, why not just adjust the sparge water (add your sparge additions to the BK) and then you dont run into the issue of miscalculations. I just dont see the reason of getting into water chemistry, but only to further complicate the process by not adjusting all the water, like programs such as Bru'n water are designed to do. Im not meaning to step on toes, but that seems like the KISS approach...