Bru'n water vs Brewer's Friend

kjm13 · Dec 5, 2015

Hi all,
I just input my recipe into bru'n water, and brewer's friend, and got 2 very different mash pH estimations. (I'm a nurse and a bit of a control freak, so I check everything at least twice) Bru'n water predicted 5.1, and brewer's friend predicted 5.45. Which one is right? I keep going back to see if I entered something differently in one of the 2 programs, but I don't see anything. It seems no two programs, web sites etc give the exact same instructions or predictions, which is fine, but this is a really big difference.
Which one should I trust? Or should I split the difference and go from there?
Any and all input is welcome
thanks!

Nagorg · Dec 6, 2015

All are calculations only. If you are that much of a control freak, you should get a good pH meter and test your recipe against what was calculated. I use Bru'n Water and cant speak for Brewers Friend. And while I haven't actually tested with a pH meter, I figure that Bru'n Water is likely close enough for me. I'll eventually get a meter but its been pretty low on my list of must have gear.

jmark · Dec 9, 2015

Bru'n Water has always been just about spot-on for me. That was until my last brew... dumped in my grain bill, figured out my additions and BW calculated out my expected pH at 5.35 which is what I was looking for... seemed odd though that I was having to add a couple mL of lactic acid to the mash when I didn't really expect that, but checked my inputs a second time and didn't see anything off so went with it... Oops... ended up with a mash pH of 5.00! Couldn't really figure out why until I checked my inputs a THIRD time and noticed that while I had put the grain bill in correctly (at least the NAMES of the grains), I did not put the weights in for anything other than my base malt!!! Anyway, when I went and filled in the correct weights, lo and behold, BW calculated the expected pH at 5.00 just as I had measured... so even when I screwed up, BW matched!

Anyway... +1 for BW for me... would love it to be idiot-proof and tell me when I miss an entry like this, but this was on me - my gut said something was off, but I didn't really listen.

kjm13 · Dec 9, 2015

jmark said:
Bru'n Water has always been just about spot-on for me. That was until my last brew... dumped in my grain bill, figured out my additions and BW calculated out my expected pH at 5.35 which is what I was looking for... seemed odd though that I was having to add a couple mL of lactic acid to the mash when I didn't really expect that, but checked my inputs a second time and didn't see anything off so went with it... Oops... ended up with a mash pH of 5.00! Couldn't really figure out why until I checked my inputs a THIRD time and noticed that while I had put the grain bill in correctly (at least the NAMES of the grains), I did not put the weights in for anything other than my base malt!!! Anyway, when I went and filled in the correct weights, lo and behold, BW calculated the expected pH at 5.00 just as I had measured... so even when I screwed up, BW matched!

Anyway... +1 for BW for me... would love it to be idiot-proof and tell me when I miss an entry like this, but this was on me - my gut said something was off, but I didn't really listen.

Ok. I'm sold. I'll go with Bru n' water's calculations, at east until I can pony up for a pH meter.
Thanks for the feedback!