Bru'n Water, alkalinity, BIAB...

[Zimm9]

I've been slowly working my way through figuring out Bru'n Water. It's overwhelmingly thorough! I know it will get easier to use once I get past the learning curve. I'm stuck on the water adjustment sheet right now.

I plan to do no sparge BIAB. On the spreadsheet it says to set sparge volume to zero but when I do that, I get nothing for additions. My water has high alkalinity so I know there should be some acid additions. My estimated Mash pH is 6.14 for a simple pale ale grain bill I threw in there.

I tried to search for BIAB specific info regarding Bru'n Water. Is there a different method for that versus traditional AG?

My Ward lab results are attached. Thanks for any input!

 

[mabrungard]

That's acceptable water. The alkalinity will need to be neutralized for most brewing.

For no-sparge BIAB, you do set sparge volume to zero and the mashing volume is set to the entire water volume needed for the batch. That will mean that you'll have additions for the mashing water and no additions for the (unused) sparging water.

 

[Zimm9]

Thanks for your reply, and the spreadsheet, Martin! I'm probably missing something obvious... Here's what I have, and no additions are showing up under the acids section. I realize my water volume is probably a little low considering grain absorption, etc and would change that for a real recipe.

 

[WiscBrewer]

Thanks for your reply, and the spreadsheet, Martin! I'm probably missing something obvious... Here's what I have, and no additions are showing up under the acids section. I realize my water volume is probably a little low considering grain absorption, etc and would change that for a real recipe.

Do you realize that you need to enter mineral additions to match your desired water profile, and then also enter acid values if pH is too high? Those values aren't automatically generated by the spreadsheet.

 

[mabrungard]

As mentioned, you need to enter trial amounts for the minerals and acids that you have access to. Use those additions to add the ions you desire and to alter pH into a more desirable range. A mashing pH of around 5.4 is suitable for many styles, but varying the target by a tenth or two (up or down) can be desirable in differing styles. There is guidance in the Bru'n Water instructions and in the comments that pop up when you hover the cursor over some cells.

 

[Zimm9]

That's the step I was missing. Thank you both.

 

[Zimm9]

Huge facepalm moment. I'm in a new-to-me house and finally got around to checking the water softener. It had no salt in it and probably hasn't since well before I moved in. Will that affect a lot of my numbers besides hardness and sodium? I found I can get a free hardness test and will look around to see what cost effective testing I can do more often versus shelling out $ for another lab test.

 

[ajdelange]

At this point it is not clear whether you sent post softener or pre softener water to Ward Labs. At the same time it is moot as the softener had not been charged for presumably a long time. You do not want to brew with water from the output of a softener. Its job is to remove all the calcium and magnesium and replace them with equivalent amounts of sodium. Since you have 2.5 mEq/L calcium and 2 mEq/L magnesium (for a total hardness of 4.5 mEq/L or 225 ppm as CaCO3) the softener, when working, will put out 4.5 mEq/L sodium (about 103 mg/L) and very low calcium and magnesium concentrations. The softener should not have much effect on other ions but if the backwash is not complete (early in the post recharge cycle) sodium and chloride may be a bit elevated from the brine not washed off the resin beads.

 

[Zimm9]

Sorry that wasn't clear. I sent in a water sample while the softener was not working.

So the water softener actually makes my situation worse? I know it isn't the same as filtering water but I was thinking it would be at least a small improvement.

Thanks for your reply. The water chemistry is turning out to be more complicated than I expected! I'd really like to work through it, though.