EZ Water Calculator 2.0

[-TH-]

EZ Water Calculator 2.0 is now available:
http://www.ezwatercalculator.com/

The spreadsheet now calculates the estimated mash pH rather than using Palmer's RA/SRM correlation. The pH is calculated using water profile data, SRM, amount of roasted malt, and mash thickness. Calculations are based on Kai's extensive mash water pH experiments, seen here:
http://braukaiser.com/documents/effect_of_water_and_grist_on_mash_pH.pdf
and here:
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php/Beer_color,_alkalinity_and_mash_pH

Version 2.0 also allows for addition of acidulated malt (Sauermalz).

Less focus is placed on the chloride to sulfate ratio, although it is still there.

Regional water profiles (i.e. Burton, etc.) have been removed.

Some disclaimers have been added - including one about the addition of chalk.

Here's a screenshot:

 

[jmo88]

Nice! Thanks for all the hard work and keeping the spreadsheet up with current research. Looking forward to using this!

.... Any chance of uploading an html version. My Excel 2008 for Mac doesn't like the radial buttons for alkalinity and bicarbonate. This was the case in the last version too, so I always used the html version, which worked for selecting alkalinity.

 

[Bobby_M]

You freakin animal.

 

[wildwest450]

Sweet! Are crystal malts roasted? Or does that just apply to black patent and roasted barley?

 

[Douglefish]

I always assumed that Crystal malts were not roasted (which contribute more acidity) and that roasted malts (Roasted Barley, chocolate, black patent) contributed less acidity. Is this true?

Also, how does munich and vienna play into this spreadsheet? When using Kai's spreadsheet I considered them to be roasted specialty malts.

 

[wildwest450]

I always assumed that Crystal malts were not roasted (which contribute more acidity) and that roasted malts (Roasted Barley, chocolate, black patent) contributed less acidity. Is this true?

Also, how does munich and vienna play into this spreadsheet? When using Kai's spreadsheet I considered them to be roasted specialty malts.

I put munich in as a base grain, I hope that's right? Always more to learn.

 

[Douglefish]

Ok, since we started it how about Aromatic? I'm assuming this is roasted?

 

[wildwest450]

The "specialty" grain heading is what throws me off, aren't all specialty grains roasted, at least to a point?

 

[adam01]

Any chance for a tsp size addition conversion ?

 

[-TH-]

here's the chart from Kai's paper:

Munich and Vienna are in the base malt grouping.

I think I will change the heading "specialty" malts to be "crystal - type" malts
and maybe list examples somewhere.

 

[wildwest450]

Any chance for a tsp size addition conversion ?

4 grams is approx 1 tsp.

 

[-TH-]

.... Any chance of uploading an html version. My Excel 2008 for Mac doesn't like the radial buttons for alkalinity and bicarbonate. This was the case in the last version too, so I always used the html version, which worked for selecting alkalinity.

Not real soon. I'm having a hard time getting anything to successfully convert it to html or even any web-based spreadsheet format for that matter.

All that the radio buttons do is put a "1" in cell K3 for HCO3 or a "2" for CaCO3. You could try to just do that manually in your Mac version by typing 1 or 2 in cell K3 and see if that works. Maybe if I had access to a mac I could tweak it to work better but for now...

 

[adam01]

You may want to round to 2 digits for mash thickness since 1.25qts/lb is common.

If you turn off adjust for sparge water, then you're expected to put enough in the mash
to account for all the water, correct?

Is there a benefit to only putting salts into the mash vs mash + sparge ?
(Mash is easier)

Adam

 

[Reelale]

Nice work TH. It's a lot busier than version 1, but a whole lot more information too. I kinda miss the SRM ranges though.....

 

[jmo88]

Not real soon. I'm having a hard time getting anything to successfully convert it to html or even any web-based spreadsheet format for that matter.

All that the radio buttons do is put a "1" in cell K3 for HCO3 or a "2" for CaCO3. You could try to just do that manually in your Mac version by typing 1 or 2 in cell K3 and see if that works. Maybe if I had access to a mac I could tweak it to work better but for now...

Good enough for me. That worked. It's an easy enough workaround.

 

[wuertele]

Great work! And thank you VERY much for the OpenOffice version!

 

[AScott]

Man, and I just finally got comfortable with version 1. There's always more to learn...

Thanks for all the hard work, -TH-. I can't imagine how complicated this must be to get into spreadsheet form for people like me.

 

[wuertele]

My water report (Bear Gulch Water District, CA, http://www.calwater.com/wq/ccr/2009/bear-gulch-bg/bear-gulch-bg-2009_web.pdf) does not list bicarbonate or alkalinity. Is there a way to derive it from other values that might be found on the water report?

 

[wildwest450]

Nice work TH. It's a lot busier than version 1, but a whole lot more information too. I kinda miss the SRM ranges though.....

Why miss something that apparently is far less important than we thought?

 

[ajdelange]

My water report (Bear Gulch Water District, CA, http://www.calwater.com/wq/ccr/2009/bear-gulch-bg/bear-gulch-bg-2009_web.pdf) does not list bicarbonate or alkalinity. Is there a way to derive it from other values that might be found on the water report?

Given that bicarbonate is one of the most prevalent ions in most drinking water you can get an idea of how much is present by adding enough to bring the total electronic charge per liter to 0 based on all the other ions reported. In your case the situation is complicated by the fact that averages are presented and that the water has an inordinate amount of aluminum. Caveats given, I estimate that your alkalinity is around 189 mg/L as CaCO3.

 

[martinworswick]

thank you very much, i may try a bit of headscratching tinkering to see if i can convert it to metric-any suggestions appreciated, working in carpentry doesn't really require office software skills!

 

[soGGy]

Thanks for the work

 

[adam01]

The water report lists 'Hardness' as 55 (average). This is probably what you are looking
for.

 

[DrawTap88]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

 

[ajdelange]

The water report lists 'Hardness' as 55 (average). This is probably what you are looking
for.

No, he said alkalinity or bicarbonate neither of which is listed. Also he specifically said Bear Gulch which has an average hardness of 170. The 55 number is for the SFPUC district.

You may be confusing "carbonate hardness" with hardness. Carbonate "hardness" is the term Europeans sometimes use to describe alkalinity. In this case it means the part of the hardness which is paired with bicarbonate i.e. the alkalinity (at pH < 8.3). Here, the carbonate hardness, usually called "temporary hardness" in the US, is about 170 with the rest of the 189 being being "permanent hardness" (paired with sulfate and chloride). If there is no chloride or sulfate (or other anion) then alkalinity and hardness are the same.

And yes, I did say 50 last night but that was because, like the big dummy I can sometimes be, I didn't notice that the "as sulfur" check box on my spreadsheet was selected. The total alkalinity for these data would be about 189. I'll go back and correct yesterday's post.

 

[maida7]

That is so Awesome! I can't wait to use it on my next batch! Thanks so much for your contributions to the community. You should get free beer everywhere you go.

 

[thorongil]

Why were the regional profiles removed? Doesn't that help us target the product we are shooting for? Other than that, I love the changes (and the work-around for Excel for Mac).

 

[RonRock]

Why were the regional profiles removed? Doesn't that help us target the product we are shooting for.

Second that.

 

[-TH-]

Why were the regional profiles removed? Doesn't that help us target the product we are shooting for? ...

IMO the target we are shooting for is #1 getting pH right and #2 getting ions within preferred ranges (not necessarily matching a historical profile). I understand there might be a few hard core folks out there who really want to match regions - thats why I put it on v1.0 (it was by request). However, after I did that, so many people got the wrong idea thinking they HAD to match region profile. It created way more confusion that what it was worth. With v2.0 I figure if someone is bent on matching a profile, they can still do that by finding the values on their own and matching them by comparison. They should be aware however that to match the profile exactly might be difficult to get right and might require a lot of salts/acids - in which case the resulting water might not end up a perfect match due to factors outside the realm of this spreadsheet. Also, I've read (can't remember source) that the well-known breweries in these regions most likely adjust their water now anyway so attempting to match the published profiles is somewhat pointless.

Hope you can use it anyway

Cheers

 

[thorongil]

That all makes good sense, and I will absolutely use the spreadsheet - it is a great tool for which I thank you. I'll just continue to compare to the regional ratios and RA to stay in the ballpark.