Does Tree House add Potassium Carbonate to some of their finished beers?

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Larry Sayre, Developer of 'Mash Made Easy'
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Notice the increased Potassium and the strange presence of Alkalinity/Bicarbonate in their finished beers. Are they adding Alkalinity post fermentation, or perhaps adding it up front, or merely not removing it to begin with? If they are adding it, what is their mineral source for the Alkalinity?

Various Beer Mineral Analysis.png

http://thirdleapbrew.com/technical/ward-labs-mineral-analysis-of-tree-house-julius/
 
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Perhaps potassium bicarbonate should also be considered.

K2CO3 = Potassium Carbonate
KHCO3 = Potassium Bicarbonate
 
If the Alkalinity wasn't there up front to begin with (either via addition, or naturally), and therefore it was introduced post fermentation, would the finished beer still be capable of coming in at the measured 4.6 pH?
 
People have been mulling over these analyticals since 2019, but few have concerned themselves with the strange presence of Alkalinity. Most have likely simply ignored it, while focusing upon strained and dubious means whereby to establish the (all important to them) "Water Profile". While others among us on this forum have focused upon the composition of the yeast...
 
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KCl addition seems at first glance to be out, as the chloride ion does not appear to be much different from the two other beers with the more commonly anticipated near zero Alkalinity. Plus KCl would not induce any Alkalinity.
 
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Is perhaps the Alkalinity being introduced slowly and incrementally throughout the fermentation process? And perhaps in conjunction with staged dry hop additions?
 
Here's one for us to also ponder: If Bicarbonate (essentially by definition, as per the typical 'Carbonate Species' charts) hits zero mg/L at somewhere around 4.3-4.5 pH in water, how can Tree House Julius have been analyzed to exhibit both 4.6 pH and a rather quite high 172 mg/L (ppm) Bicarbonate (141 mg/L Alkalinity as CaCO3)?
 
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Another anomaly? Why is Phosphorous (by comparison to the two others) so high in the two Tree House beers?
 
I don't really have any insight to add here, but those are some interesting observations, and I'm curious what some of the "experts" here think about this. I might try just adding some potassium bicarbonate to some finished NEIPA this week and taking pre & post pH measurements to see what kind of increase I see. I'll update with the results here whenever I get some free time to try it out.
 
I just noticed that the cation/anion mEq/L balance is massively out of whack. That alone renders the Ward Labs analysis of the Tree House beers effectively useless in my book.
 
maybe the CO2 bubbling through helps with solubility?
I know it does with chalk.

KOH+CO2 gives K2CO3 plus byproduct

Maybe just all the calcium chloride, sodium bicarbonate, chalk and k-meta reacting out?
Not sure if this is endothermic or exothermic or what activation energy is...that would help to know!
 
I just noticed that the cation/anion mEq/L balance is massively out of whack. That alone renders the Ward Labs analysis of the Tree House beers effectively useless in my book.

Isn't the ion imbalance due in part to classifying phosphorus as a cation? It will be present as phosphate and an anion.
 
Phosphorous (symbol P, as opposed to Potassium, symbol K) is a +5 charge (or valence) cation, and is so even within H3PO4 (where the 4 O's sum to -8, such that the PO4 ion is overall -3). I just checked, and Phosphorus is not present at all within their cation/anion balance computation. Add it as loads of anion PO4--- and the cation/anion mEq/L balance may be restored to full normalcy.

I wish we could see the cation/anion balance data for all four of the beers tested by Ward Labs.

The real question remains: Why do the two Tree House beers have alkalinity and bicarb, when the other two do not (as would be expected for pH's in the range of zero bicarbonate species)?
 
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I just summed the other anions to find phosphate was not accounted.

I don't believe there should be any alkalinity present in a properly made beer of the types tested. The amounts of phosphorus and potassium in the Tree House beers are higher than I would expect for their strength to also makes me suspicious. Also, it appears both those beers are made from the same grist recipe with hopping the only significant difference. While the beers will be from different brews, why is there such a major difference in constituents and in particular, the difference in the ratio of potassium to phosphorus? Those are usually found in a tolerably consistent relationship.
 
Is perhaps the Alkalinity being introduced slowly and incrementally throughout the fermentation process? And perhaps in conjunction with staged dry hop additions?
I've been pondering about this. What if they drop their KO PH very low to influence ester formation that even after copious dry hop amounts it doesnt end up with a high enough ph so they need to raise it with carbonates?
 
Or what about the opposite, they add carbonates end of boil to raise the PH to stress the yeast
 
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