Estimated Mash pH discrepancies (Bru'n Water/EZ Water/BrewCipher)

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WildernessBrewing

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Hey all, just wanted to get a few opinions/some feedback. I plugged the same grain bill, water additions, mash and sparge volumes (BrewCipher is slightly different), and starting water profile (100% RO/Distilled) into Bru'n Water/EZ Water/BrewCipher.

The estimated Ca/Mg/Na/SO4/Cl concentrations are all within the same ppm, give or take 1-12ppm across the 3 tools. However, the Estimated Mash pH is quite different across all 3.

Bru'n Water estimates 5.37 (which is closest to my target)
EZ Water estimates 5.58
BrewCipher estimates 5.54

I'm tempted to just trust the estimates in Bru'n Water, as it seems to be the gold standard water tool on a lot of forums. I've also seen a good bit of feedback saying Bru'n almost always gets a lot of people to within .01 of the estimate. However, perhaps I just want to trust it because it's closest to my target mash pH. Is my thinking way off here?
 
Do you have a pH meter to test your mash pH? If so, then pick whichever one you want (Bru'n water works well for most people) and brew away. Once you get a sample and test it you will know which is closer.
 
I would recommend that you also try MpH, Brewer's Friend, and Mash Made Easy.

'MpH' and 'Mash Made Easy' are free spreadsheet downloads, and 'Brewers Friend Mash Calculator' is free to use online.

I may be wrong here, but it does not appear that EZ Water has been maintained or updated for at least several years now.

Do not let yourself fall into a 'confirmation bias' trap, and thereby simply settle upon one answer among many because it confirms your wishes, or due to hearsay from mostly those who do not bother to measure mash pH's to begin with, or who are also tied up in confirmation bias traps of one form or another. It simply isn't even remotely possible for any of these calculators to get you consistently within 0.01 pH. They are all making internal guesses based upon a multitude of math models derived from malt matching slopes with sketchy at best correlation coefficient ('R') values. And/or they are all working upon what the programmer feels are good fits to hypothetical averages, wherein real malts in the real world rarely conform to 'hypothetical' averages. Therefore you must measure your own mash pH samples with a reliably calibrated and stable pH meter. Give the mash 20 minutes before taking the reading, and cool the sample to room temperature before reading it.
 
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Do you have a pH meter to test your mash pH? If so, then pick whichever one you want (Bru'n water works well for most people) and brew away. Once you get a sample and test it you will know which is closer.

Yes, I do have a pH meter. I'll do that, just didn't know if I could realistically expect better/more consistent results from either of the 3. I'll dial it in and see how consistent Bru'n is. Thanks!
 
I would recommend that you also try MpH, Brewer's Friend, and Mash Made Easy.

'MpH' and 'Mash Made Easy' are free spreadsheet downloads, and 'Brewers Friend Mash Calculator' is free to use online.

I may be wrong here, but it does not appear that EZ Water has been maintained or updated for at least several years now.

Do not let yourself fall into a 'confirmation bias' trap, and thereby simply settle upon one answer among many because it confirms your wishes, or due to hearsay from mostly those who do not bother to measure mash pH's to begin with, or who are also tied up in confirmation bias traps of one form or another. It simply isn't even remotely possible for any of these calculators to get you consistently within 0.01 pH. They are all making internal guesses based upon a multitude of math models derived from malt matching slopes with sketchy at best correlation coefficient ('R') values. And/or they are all working upon what the programmer feels are good fits to hypothetical averages, wherein real malts in the real world rarely conform to 'hypothetical' averages. Therefore you must measure your own mash pH samples with a reliably calibrated and stable pH meter. Give the mash 20 minutes before taking the reading, and cool the sample to room temperature before reading it.

Thanks I really appreciate the detailed response. I do have a pH meter. I'll calibrate it again and see how close my particular system is getting me to some of these various options. Cheers.
 
Yes, I do have a pH meter. I'll do that, just didn't know if I could realistically expect better/more consistent results from either of the 3. I'll dial it in and see how consistent Bru'n is. Thanks!

Well, for Bru'n a good part of it seems to come down to your specific water to grist ratio. See the thread titled "Beersmith 3 pH tool" for a discussion of this.

Determining the consistency of a math model "toy" (OK, someones pet project, my own included) vs. reality would take the brewing of many multiples of batches, and clearly not just one. And then multiple batches in various of the light, medium, and dark color ranges on top of that. And then on top of that all inputs to the program itself need to be assuredly 100% correct and accurate. For example, I've seen people using caramel for roasted, etc..., and getting water inputs messed up, then stating that they hit within 0.01 pH due to amazing software. Confirmation bias big time, or purely random luck, or taking reading upon reading until one outlier reading hits what the software says.... And so many pH meters are pure junk that who can you believe other than your own self? Then there are those who are measuring at mash temperature instead of room temperature, etc.... So many ways to get it wrong and somehow still completely verify the software model. My guess would be that well more people using this type of software place implicit trust in the software than they do in believing their own pH reading results, and this renders such hearsay hard to trust in the end.
 
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Barley base malt DI_pH's (the pH of a malt when mashed in pure DI or distilled water, with no minerals or alkalinity present) routinely span from about 5.55 to 5.85 within the very tight Lovibond color range of roughly 1.5 to 3. That alone introduces the potential for software derived mash pH error with a magnitude of 0.15 points for any of such software which does not take this into consideration, and instead selects a DI_pH value somewhere within the midrange, and for any grist made up of predominantly such a base malt. And if your chosen software only asks you to input a malts Lovibond color along with a weight, it is clearly not taking this into consideration.

And worse yet, base wheat malts (red or white) DI mash pH's are going to rather routinely be in the range of 5.9 to 6.0, so if a program can not internally go beyond a fixed upper value that is established well below this range, the error in actual mash pH measurement vs. such softwares prediction can easily exceed 0.3 pH points if your grist has a fair amount of a base wheat malt added to it, and the software has no prevision for inputting base wheat malt.

Given all of this, I'm amazed that rumors of consistent 0.01 pH accuracy for any mash pH assistant software abound and are believed by so many brewers.
 
Test pH on real batches to find out which calculator is most accurate. Then when you realize you are wasting time and effort on things that might not really matter much at all in the big scheme, throw it all away. That's essentially what I'm doing.

Cheers all.
 
Test pH on real batches to find out which calculator is most accurate. Then when you realize you are wasting time and effort on things that might not really matter much at all in the big scheme, throw it all away. That's essentially what I'm doing.

That should work for those starting with RO or distilled water, adding a moderate degree of mineralization, and making recipes that fall within about 8 to 25 SRM final color. On first educated guess, most batches falling within this range of SRM colors should fall within ~5.6 pH (for ~8 SRM) to ~5.2 pH (for ~25 SRM) during the mash. Below ~8 SRM may need acidification, and above ~25 SRM may require baking soda.

But for those starting with water that has inherent alkalinity, it becomes an entirely different ballgame.
 
Thanks for the advice and input, everyone. Brewed yesterday and kind of took the average of a few water adjustment calculators. Did the average of the additions and estimated mash pH (5.38) and my pH meter read 5.3 at room temp on a sample taken 15 min into mash. Still in the process of dialing in my system with some recent changes (including switching to RO water), so I appreciate the feedback.
 
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