Today I brewed a modified recipe of Can You Brew It's Moose Drool.
As I have done for the last half dozen brews, I brewed with RO water, entered all necessary data into the Bru'n Water spreadsheet, more or less adjusted the salts to the style chosen (I now ignore magnesium), and brewed. Bru'n Water predicted a mash pH of 5.3 - right where I wanted to be.
But today I used my brand new pH meter, a Milwaukee MW102, which BTW, calibrated really nicely. I could get very repeatable readings on both the buffers as well as the rinse solution, so my confidence in this instrument is high.
For the first time, I made a mini-mash. I used a very good scale that read to the hundredth of a gram to weigh out the ingredients. The pH of the mini-mash came in at 6.3, too far away to fix with sauermaltz, and would take a ****-ton of 10% phosphoric acid to fix, so I said fsck it, it's time to mash, good or bad.
I know far brewers far better than I who don't give a crap about their water, so I decided to mash in anyways, knowing I'd make beer, regardless. After draining the first runnings, I mixed well and snagged a small sample which turned out to have a pH of 5.38! Very close to Brun Water's prediction, and right about where I wanted to be.
So, I'm happy. Happy with Brun Water (thanks Martin!), happy with my new pH meter, happy I brewed beer today, but not so happy with my mini-mash being so far off.
As I have done for the last half dozen brews, I brewed with RO water, entered all necessary data into the Bru'n Water spreadsheet, more or less adjusted the salts to the style chosen (I now ignore magnesium), and brewed. Bru'n Water predicted a mash pH of 5.3 - right where I wanted to be.
But today I used my brand new pH meter, a Milwaukee MW102, which BTW, calibrated really nicely. I could get very repeatable readings on both the buffers as well as the rinse solution, so my confidence in this instrument is high.
For the first time, I made a mini-mash. I used a very good scale that read to the hundredth of a gram to weigh out the ingredients. The pH of the mini-mash came in at 6.3, too far away to fix with sauermaltz, and would take a ****-ton of 10% phosphoric acid to fix, so I said fsck it, it's time to mash, good or bad.
I know far brewers far better than I who don't give a crap about their water, so I decided to mash in anyways, knowing I'd make beer, regardless. After draining the first runnings, I mixed well and snagged a small sample which turned out to have a pH of 5.38! Very close to Brun Water's prediction, and right about where I wanted to be.
So, I'm happy. Happy with Brun Water (thanks Martin!), happy with my new pH meter, happy I brewed beer today, but not so happy with my mini-mash being so far off.