Bru'n water adjustments and sparge acidification

[jabraben]

I've moved to the country and need to adjust my well water for brewing. I've always been fortunate to have seemingly decent city water for brewing so I've ignored water chemistry till now. I've been reading Palmer and Kaminski's book and Martin Brungard's water knowledge page but I need to brew sooner than I can effectively process all of that so I'm hoping for some help on a few points working through Bru'n Water to determine my adjustments. I've attached the Water Adjustment, Sparge Acidification, and Mash Acidification worksheets.

Does anything look amiss in the adjustments?
I presume that on the sparge acidification sheet I enter the alkalinity from the diluted water profile number, correct?
The starting water pH on the sparge acidification sheet is set to the pH reported on my water profile and I just want to make sure that it shouldn't be another number since I'm cutting the sparge water 40% with distilled. My impression is that distilled is neutral and consequently doesn't effect the pH of my well water but I'm not confident it has no effect.
Would that amount of lactic acid be appropriate, in terms of properly acidified sparge-water and flavor imparted in the final beer?
I should say that I'm batch sparging and I've read conflicting recommendations about the need to acidify sparge water for batch sparging, though clearly high alkalinity seems to necessitate it.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

 

[skunkfunk]

Yikes.

This makes my brain hurt.

 

[mabrungard]

Almost everything looks OK. The quantity of mashing water is quite small. The water to grist ratio is quite dry. I prefer aiming for the 1.3 to 1.5 range, but its just a suggestion. Your dry ratio is probably helping the mashing pH since there is less of that fairly alkaline water in the mash. If you add more water, you might have to add a bit of acid for that grist (robust porter?) since the water may have too much alkalinity for even that dark beer. But a 5.4 to 5.4 mash pH is good for a porter.

If you are diluting your tap water with RO or distilled water for sparging use, then you do have to manually reduce the alkalinity value. That feature is built in to the supporter's version of Bru'n Water. You can see what the reduced alkalinity value will be be dialing in that dilution percentage on the Water Adjustment sheet and copying the alkalinity value it shows on the right side of the sheet for the diluted water.

Even with batch sparging, I feel you should acidify to neutralize to reduce the chance that you extract tannins or silicates from the grist. This is probably much less a possibility with batch sparging, but its a simple thing to acidify. Why not?

Enjoy!

PS: Spring water provides NO guarantee of brewing success. The only thing it provides is better tasting water and that only matters if your tap water tastes terrible. You still have to adjust spring water if you want to make great beer. Finding out what is in that spring water is the first step to figuring out if you need to adjust that water for brewing. This does not have to be a yikes moment.

 

[skunkfunk]

PS: Spring water provides NO guarantee of brewing success. The only thing it provides is better tasting water and that only matters if your tap water tastes terrible. You still have to adjust spring water if you want to make great beer. Finding out what is in that spring water is the first step to figuring out if you need to adjust that water for brewing. This does not have to be a yikes moment.

I am on well water, and it's an issue for me - it tastes terrible and has a very slight yellow haze to it. I've also had to bleach the well a couple of months ago. I don't think any amount of adjustment would my well water suitable for brewing.

 

[Jayhem]

I'm fortunate with my well water in that it is low in Calcium and has moderate alkalinity. I add 2-3 grams of Gypsum to my mash water which puts adequate Calcium in my wort and also reduces RA. The pH of the mash is usually 5.3-5.4. But when I sparge I worry about high pH because my water has a near neutral pH of 6.6 so I add a bit of lactic acid to keep the sparge pH under 6.0.

OP: I think you are right on track there. Brun water is a nice tool!

 

[mchrispen]

1) we need to see the whole water profile, including alkalinity. Water pH is just not that important as alkalinity directs mash pH.
2) no idea of what profile you were targeting, dilution rate, etc. too much missing info to be very helpful. Look for the tips in the Profile rows and try to get at least the calcium, chloride and sulfate boxes to turn green... There is a significant difference between Black Malty and Black Bitter...
3) that seems an acceptable acid addition for sparge, but... See above
4) your water volume amounts do not match... That will throw off your additions. At least get your total mash water volumes synced on the worksheets, then look at the mash pH

If you are hitting 5.4 with such modest additions, I suspect your water alkalinity is fairly high. This seems to conflict with your sparge calculations.

 

[revansCAAD8]

If you are diluting your tap water with RO or distilled water for sparging use, then you do have to manually reduce the alkalinity value. That feature is built in to the supporter's version of Bru'n Water.

As Martin mentioned, it is built into the supporter's version of Bru'n Water. I must say I recently donated and received the Supporter's Version and found it is even more powerful, easier to use and Well Worth It! Recommended

Robert
GypsyBrew

 

[jabraben]

Martin, that low volume was a mistake. I actually planned for 1.4 qt/lb, or 4.57 gallons in the mash. I've made that adjustment on the mash acidification sheet, which I've attached. I've also attached my water report and a better screenshot of my water adjustment sheet because I just now realized that the whole thing doesn't appear in the forum. You'll see that the pH rises to 5.5 with the correct mash volume entered, which seems like a better pH for the style, unless I'm mistaken.

The style is an Oatmeal Stout and the water profile I chose is Black Balanced. Any opinions on that profile for the style?

 

[jabraben]

Thanks for all the advice. I think I'm ready to go with this batch. I'll report back on how it goes. I will also buy the paid version of Bru'n water when I get a chance.

 

[jabraben]

I've corrected the out of balance water volumes. I'm still having trouble understanding the sparge acidification sheet. I put the alkalinity number on that sheet that I got from the diluted water numbers (40% distilled) but I still don't know what to do about the pH number on the sparge sheet. 7.3 pH is my tap water but I presume cutting it with 40% distilled has some effect on the pH but don't know what that effect is. Can anybody help me there?

 

[mabrungard]

I've corrected the out of balance water volumes. I'm still having trouble understanding the sparge acidification sheet. I put the alkalinity number on that sheet that I got from the diluted water numbers (40% distilled) but I still don't know what to do about the pH number on the sparge sheet. 7.3 pH is my tap water but I presume cutting it with 40% distilled has some effect on the pH but don't know what that effect is. Can anybody help me there?

The water pH has only a little effect on the resulting acid quantity. Although you may not know the pH exactly, you can get by with a guess for the value. Somewhere between 7 and 8 is probably OK. While you are there, be sure to test out the effect of your pH assumption and you will see that the acid quantity varies little.

Enjoy!

 

[ajdelange]

I've corrected the out of balance water volumes. I'm still having trouble understanding the sparge acidification sheet. I put the alkalinity number on that sheet that I got from the diluted water numbers (40% distilled) but I still don't know what to do about the pH number on the sparge sheet. 7.3 pH is my tap water but I presume cutting it with 40% distilled has some effect on the pH but don't know what that effect is. Can anybody help me there?

When you add distilled water you are adding no (or really a very tiny amount from atmospheric CO2) acid and so there is no charge redistribution and no pH shift from that effect. The alkalinity (protons required per liter to effect a pH change to the titration end point pH) goes down by the dilution ratio because the liters have gone up.

There is a tiny pH shift because you dilute the concentration of all the ions in the water. For example if water at pH 7 with both alkalinity and calcium hardness equal to 200 (80 mg/l Ca) were diluted 1:1 with DI water the calcium hardness and alkalinity would drop to 100 and as a consequence of this the pH would shift to 7.01. This effect is so small that the spreadsheets and calculators don't account for it.

 

[jabraben]

Thank you Martin, and ajdelange. You've both been very helpful.

I have a related question. If it's better forum etiquette to start a new thread with this, let me know. I've already blended my distilled and tap water but had to postpone my brew date by 6 days. I get the impression that distilled water will absorb co2 when exposed to air. It's in 5 gallon buckets with some headspace and a lid. Would this absorption be sufficient to change my pH and should I always blend distilled with my water just prior to brewing?

 

[ajdelange]

DI water will absorb CO2 from the air but not very much (0.61 mg/L). This is enough to shift the pH substantially, from 7 to 5.65 but in doing so the alkalinity of the water (re pH 4.5) changes from 1.58 to 1.57 ppm as CaCO3. Thus it is nothing to worry about.