EZ Water Calculator 3.0

[kincade]

Kal,

Thanks a million, I appreciate all the advice from you and everyone else here. One of your comments stood out at me:

After I've sparged to the boil kettle, I add the boil salts (called 'sparge salts' in the spreadsheet) directly to the boil kettle. Goal of salts here is for taste. Some of the mash salts end up in the boil kettle too when sparging of course so they affect taste too. It's all taken into consideration with the spreadsheet.

This I think is where I am getting messed up, and it's a matter of terminology. I have been reading this as 'sparge salts', meaning to me prior to sparging the grains. I have never added any salts to the boil kettle, and have tried to adjust my water prior in the HLT prior to sparging. My assumption was that the minerals will end up in the boil kettle after the sparge anyway, and will likely help the mash stay in the proper PH and conversion while sparging.

Is there a disadvantage to doing it this way as opposed to splitting the mash salts into the mash and 'sparge salts' into the boil kettle directly post sparge?

I do think that I will need to get a pH meter if I'm going to be serious about this. The test strips have worked ok for me in the past but the accuracy is just too dependent upon the light available and even then seems to be subject to an accuracy of .2.

FWIW, I know Palmer says to add sparge salts to boil kettle for the reason that not all minerals will dissolve in the water and may be left behind in MLT, but others (AJ and Martin for example) have said that the only mineral that might not dissolve well is chalk and most of us are avoiding the use of that anyway. AJ mentioned in another thread that he treats all of his water for his session at once prior to everything (mashing, sparging, etc.)

Thinking about all this again reminded me why I took the note off v3 regarding adding sparge salts to boil instead of sparge water. However I do plan on putting some kind of note on there soon to help clear things up but I want to do a little bit more research first.

Cheers!

TH, thanks for the comment (which seems to address my question to Kal). My experience was that chalk was the only left over in the MLT/HLT as well, but it was hardly scientific on my part and more observational. I'm happy to hear that others have done it the way I have been doing it, but I'd really like to know which is the better method.

Thanks again for the incredibly useful spreadsheet; I can't imagine to going back to hand plotting nomographs I had copied from palmers book. I've thought about trying Bruinwater out as well but it seems that I'm confused enough already to add another wild card.

 

[Yooper]

One more question. Is lactic acid ever added to the mash to adjust ph? As I always start with RO water (ph of 6.9) and adjust the mineral content to suit I am sometimes not able to get the mash ph correct with only the mash mineral additions without going drastically out of palmers recommended ranges. In the past I have compensated using a small amount of lactic in the mash while keeping in the recommended ranges. I have avoided using acidulated due to a fear of it affecting my flavor, but after reading last night it appears the lactic can have the same effect.

<sigh>. Thanks for bearing with me, I'll get this yet.

Certainly you can add lactic acid to the mash to adjust pH. After much reading on the subject, though, I found it just easier to add 1-3% acid malt to the mash to lower the pH.

As far as flavor, its' the same. Lactic acid from the acid malt is the same lactic acid from the bottle. The amounts differ, but if you stay below the taste threshold, you won't notice a difference.

 

[ajdelange]

As far as flavor, its' the same. Lactic acid from the acid malt is the same lactic acid from the bottle. The amounts differ, but if you stay below the taste threshold, you won't notice a difference.

I think the malt actually adds a subtle complexity to brews, and Weyermann's actually advertises this, even at the levels required for pH control in Pils, Kölsch etc.

 

[kincade]

Perfect. Thanks for the information; I'm doing an APA tomorrow so I plan to try this the 'correct' way and see how things turn out.

I do have one rather dumb question still. For those of you that are using the spreadsheet, this this your one stop shop for adjusting water? Or are you using in conjuction with Palmers spreadsheet / Bruinwater / etc?

To date I have been using Palmers spreadsheet to determine ppm of CA or MG needed to adjust mash then going to the EZwatercalc spreadsheet and dividing those up between the three choices in order to keep the water balanced. If additions wouldn't cut it, then I add some lactic. But I may be adding unneccesary complexity to the process.

Here is my last water adjustment for a wheat beer for reference.

 

[kal]

Certainly you can add lactic acid to the mash to adjust pH. After much reading on the subject, though, I found it just easier to add 1-3% acid malt to the mash to lower the pH.

As far as flavor, its' the same. Lactic acid from the acid malt is the same lactic acid from the bottle. The amounts differ, but if you stay below the taste threshold, you won't notice a difference.

Yup. Both will work. The reason I prefer to add lactic acid instead of acid malt is that it's easier: I can add a bit of lactic acid at time using an eyedropper instead of trying to figure out ahead of time how much acid malt you need to include in the crush.

Kal

 

[kal]

I do have one rather dumb question still. For those of you that are using the spreadsheet, this this your one stop shop for adjusting water? Or are you using in conjuction with Palmers spreadsheet / Bruinwater / etc?

I only use EZ water. I then verify with a pH meter on brew day, though it's rare that I'll try to make adjustments after the salts are all measured out. About the only brew day "on the fly" pH adjustments I make are with lactic acid to lower mash pH (rarely needed) or to lower sparge water pH.

Incidentally, your water seems *extremely* soft (lack of minerals). Congrats! you can pretty much brew anything with that water. There's seriously no Mg in it at all? Wow. Your levels are close to what you get with distilled or RO water.

That said, you're making an APA - I'd try to get the Cl:S04 ratio in the bitter range by upping your S04 a bit and lowering your Cl a bit. But that's just me!

Kal

 

[emjay]

I don't use sparge additions, but I do treat my sparge water with 5 ml of lactic acid as I have alkaline water.

Me too. Very hard, very alkaline water. I was going to ask if you have municipal water, but I'm guessing in the UP, most of you have wells.

Because my (municipal) water comes right from the Great Lakes (Lake Ontario), and it's just not very good brewing water. It's best for dark beers, but even then, it's far from ideal. So I'm pretty much resigned to using distilled water.

Some people chose to use 10% phosphoric acid instead as they say it cannot be tasted as easily as lactic acid.

10%?

My LHBS carries 1gal jugs of 85% phosphoric acid from Five Star. I use it for everything except German beers, which I use a similar 1gal jug of lactic acid, also from Five Star. A gallon of each is such a large amount, and costs so relatively little, that I just don't care if the contribution of lactic acid is supposed to be undetectable.

I also use the lactic acid for flavoring, and the phosphoric acid to wash yeast - Five Star even includes instructions for it right on the label.

 

[kincade]

I only use EZ water. I then verify with a pH meter on brew day, though it's rare that I'll try to make adjustments after the salts are all measured out. About the only brew day "on the fly" pH adjustments I make are with lactic acid to lower mash pH (rarely needed) or to lower sparge water pH.

Incidentally, your water seems *extremely* soft (lack of minerals). Congrats! you can pretty much brew anything with that water. There's seriously no Mg in it at all? Wow. Your levels are close to what you get with distilled or RO water.

That said, you're making an APA - I'd try to get the Cl:S04 ratio in the bitter range by upping your S04 a bit and lowering your Cl a bit. But that's just me!

Kal

Thank you for the information Kal. To clarify, I brew with RO water. The measurements I used are from a sample of my RO I sent to Ward Labs so I would know what I'm working with. Secondly, the EZwater xls I posted above is for my last brew, a wheat beer. My upcoming will be an APA. Thanks for the tips, I'm still trying to get this down. I broke down and bought a PH meter finally, so hopefully I can try and get this a bit closer than guessing.

For those that check the mash with a PH meter do you pull a sample of grain and water out, let it cool and then test? Or just test the liquid after cooling? I'm planning on checking it about 10 minutes after mashing in.

 

[ajdelange]

Just the liquid is OK. Do be sure to let it cool and pull samples every 10 minutes or so to see how long it takes the readings to stabilize. Once you've done the work of calibrating the meter it takes very little additional effort to take a sample reading.

 

[-TH-]

Just the liquid is OK. Do be sure to let it cool and pull samples every 10 minutes or so to see how long it takes the readings to stabilize. Once you've done the work of calibrating the meter it takes very little additional effort to take a sample reading.

I am curious, how exactly do you pull samples? The reason I ask is because I did a brew Sunday that was a recipe I have brewed before, and after waiting about 15-20 min I opened the lid on my cooler MLT and dipped a shot glass into the top of the mash to get my sample. It contained liquid as well as grain. After letting it cool to room temp (it sat for an additional 20 or more minutes), I calibrated my meter and then measured the pH which was 6.0. In the past for this recipe (which includes about 2% acid malt BTW), I have always measured 5.5. So I opened the cooler again, this time stirred the mash thoroughly, opened my spigot, let a quart or two runoff, then collected another shot glass full (only liquid of course). Measured the pH and this time it was right at 5.5. Thoughts?

 

[ajdelange]

I think the pertinent aspect of it given your experience is that a sample should be taken after thorough mixing if the most recent process is likely to cause a change pH. For example at dough in you are mixing water at a relatively high pH with grain which will lower it. If some of the water (that which stands at the top) doesn't get as much exposure to the grain meal its pH will likely be higher. Similarly, if you add some alkali it needs to be thoroughly mixed in before taking the sample for a pH check.

Mxing can sometimes be less thorough than you think it is. A good way to get insight is when returning a decoction. It will be darker than the rest mash and this lets you see whether it is thoroughly mixed or not.

The procedure I use is to stir the mash (if it hasn't been stirred already for some other reason) and then pick up a few mL of the mash with a small pot (designed for jobs like melting butter) which I then float in a sink of cold water to cool the sample. I when cool I tip it to get enough depth of sample at one side and then insert the pH electrode.

 

[hafmpty]

Somebody should write an app for this and put it up on Apple's App Store. I'd pay for it (as long as updates to the program came with updates to the spreadsheet). Who's up for it?!

 

[emjay]

Somebody should write an app for this and put it up on Apple's App Store. I'd pay for it (as long as updates to the program came with updates to the spreadsheet). Who's up for it?!

That's really a no-no without the permission of EZ Water's author.

 

[jkarp]

EZ Water's a bit quirky but generally works in Numbers on the iPad.

 

[joe4444]

Great spreadsheet, very intuitive, but there is one aspect I am not understanding.

Existing water: Calcium 35, Magnesium 12, Sodium 9, Chloride 15, Sulfate 27, Bicarbonate 124
w/ 1.5g gypsum: Calcium 58, Magnesium 12, Sodium 9, Chloride 15, Sulfate 82, Bicarbonate 124

Assume for example 4 gallons of mash water and 10 lbs 2-row for a pale ale. Without any acid, this gives an estimated room-temp pH of 5.76. After adding in 3ml of lactic acid, the pH is now the perfect 5.5. But this also changes the Effective Alkalinity to -131 and the RA to -179.

The question is: These numbers seem quite negative. What is really going on here, chemistry wise and resulting taste wise?

I know I could use Acidulated Malt or dilute my water to get into a more reasonable bicarbonate range, but considering this is way under the supposed taste threshold of 2 mL/gallon, I figured this to be by far the easiest approach. Should I not do this?

 

[ajdelange]

Don't really know but as the alkalinity is defined in terms of the amount of acid required to lower sample pH to a specified titration end point pH (usually 4.3) a negative alkalinity would mean that the sample being titrated would be at pH < 4.3 at the outset. If you put 3 mL of lactic acid in 4 gallons of DI water it will take the pH to 3.30 and the alkalinity for a 4.3 endpoint would be -83. As such it would usually be referred to as "the titratable acidity to end point [whatever the end point is]". The definition of RA is RA = alk - (effective_hardness)/3.5. Clearly it can be negative. Consider some gyspsum dissolved in distilled water. And clearly if you dissolved the gypsum in 4 gallons of water with the 3 mL of acid we just looked at it will be more negative still: -87 -(effective_hardness)/3.5.

It looks as if you are trying to figure out whether to just add enough acid to the water you have to get the pH low enough or dilute first and then add the acid. Part of the answer is that you will be able to use less acid in the latter case and in that case there will thus be less lactate floating around in the beer and also less bicarbonate. Bicarbonate doesn't taste very good and so this latter approach may seem appealing but the residual bicarbonate in either case would be quite low and I don't think that would be a major concern. Dilution will also, of course, dilute the calcium so you would need to add some of that back in. My real recommendation would be to do it both ways and use whichever gives the better beer thereafter. I'm guessing it wouldn't make that much difference.

 

[joe4444]

Thanks for the quick reply, it generally makes sense, and corroborates what I suspected. I do have one follow up. You said:

You will be able to use less acid in the latter case and in that case there will thus be less lactate floating around in the beer and also less bicarbonate. Bicarbonate doesn't taste very good and so this latter approach may seem appealing but the residual bicarbonate in either case would be quite low and I don't think that would be a major concern.

This makes it sound as if there will still be some bicarbonate in the water. So my question is: How does the math work in this situation?

I thought that Bicarbonate = Alkalinity * 1.22, and thus greater than alkalinity. In this situation where alkalinity is -131, is the bicarbonates equal to (-131*1.22)? Or since the alkalinity is negative and bicarbonate is suppose to be greater would you now do (-131/1.22)? Or does it even make sense to have negative bicarbonate? Thanks a lot for the help.

 

[ajdelange]

Get a beer and make yourself comfortable.

What I call collectively "carbo" comes in three forms carbonic, bicarbonate and carbonic. There is, unless some leaves the solution, a fixed amount of carbo in a water sample and it is distributed according to the pH. If a sample has one mmol of carbo per liter and the pH is 7 that mmol will be distributed (at 20 C) as follows:

0.194 mmol/L carbonic
0.806 mmol/L bicarbonate
0.0003 mmol/L carbonate

If you do things to mash and/or water such that the mash pH comes to 5.4 at say 50 °C the carbo will be redistributed as
0.924 mmol/L carbonic
0.076 mmol/L bicarbonate
0.000 mmol/L carbonate

Now of course it isn't quite that simple because much of that bicarbonate that converted to carbonic will in turn convert to carbon dioxide gas and leave the solution thus lowering the total carbo. One can extend the calculation to figure out how much that will be at thermodynamic equilibrium but that really complicates things and carbo systems in water are often not at thermodynamic equilibrium. For example, water from a typical well is often appreciably over saturated with carbonic (carbon dioxide) and thus out of equilibrium and can take days to reach it. But the message should be that acid does not convert all the biarbonate to carbonic. There is some bicarbonate residue. The distribution depends on pH, temperature and ionic strength but and the more you start with the more will be left. Poking some numbers into a spreadheet it looks as the difference between x and 2x original bicarbonate would amount to a pretty small number vs. twice a pretty small number at pH 5.2, at least it would be at equilibrium, and so, perhaps this isn't really that important a consideration.

At pH 8.3 below 8.3 the carbonate is less than 1% of the total carbo with the rest being in the other 2 forms. In potable and brewing water it is assumed that there are no other bases than bicarbonate present and this is where the tie-in between alkalinity and biarbonate ion comes in. In measuring alkalinity acid (H+) is added to the sample until pH 4.3 is reached at which pH 99.18 of the carbo has been converted to carbonic. The assumption is that this is all of it* so if you have 1 mEql/L bicarbonate it will take about 1 mmol/L acid to convert it and bicarbonate and alkalinity are thus equivalent. The equivalent weight of bicarbonate ion is 61 and it is standard practice to report alkalinity as 50 times the equivalence of the acid. Thus bicarbonate = 61*alkalinity/50. Above pH 8.3 this simple conversion does not work. The pH of the sample must be taken into account.

If you want the details of the math you can go to www.wetnewf.org and download the Cerevesia paper. If you want to try numbers you can download the spreadsheet there (be sure to get the User's Manual too) but it is not for the faint of heart.

*Another aspect which is usually ignored is that it takes some acid to move DI water to 4.3 from a higher pH. Thus DI water at pH 7 has an alkalinity of about 2.5 ppm as CaCO3.

 

[Yooper]

I have a question about the EZ calculator. I don't have Excel, so I've been using openoffice. It's worked just fine, but I had to restore my computer on Sunday and am re-downloading everything.

When I try to use the spreadsheet now, I get a green box around the pull down grain selections and I can't pick a grain. The "anchor" symbol shows, and it will not let me select a grain. I'm sure it's my error, but can someone explain how to work around this/fix it? I'd really appreciate it!

 

[samc]

I've found better luck using Libre Office with many Excel apps. I'm using a mac however so windows version may be different results.

 

[-TH-]

I have a question about the EZ calculator. I don't have Excel, so I've been using openoffice. It's worked just fine, but I had to restore my computer on Sunday and am re-downloading everything.

When I try to use the spreadsheet now, I get a green box around the pull down grain selections and I can't pick a grain. The "anchor" symbol shows, and it will not let me select a grain. I'm sure it's my error, but can someone explain how to work around this/fix it? I'd really appreciate it!

I think maybe your openoffice is in "design mode". To toggle it on/off, find this button on one of the toolbars:

and make it not depressed (I couldn't find a way to do it through the pulldown menus).

Hope that helps!!!

 

[Aschecte]

Wow this spreadsheet is really opening doors for me to step up my brewing. Thank you so much for developing such as easy to use format. One quick question for everyone I am very new to water chemistry and have a rudimentary understanding of the compounds and ions we are dealing with but is there any other sources for learning why a particular salt is favored over another and also reading this thread why RA is insignificant to a styles srm as for example Palmer has stated.

Sent from my iPhone using HB Talk

 

[ajdelange]

.... why a particular salt is favored over another and..

A salt is a delivery system for ions. Thus if one wants chloride ions he must use a chloride. There are several choices. Magnesium, potassium, sodium, calcium or ferric chloride would all deliver chloride ion. But each chloride salt also contains a cation. Iron would not be a good choice for this cation because it makes things taste metallic. Any of the others I listed may or may not be suitable depending on what you are trying to do. If you are trying to increase magnesium and chloride then magnesium chloride would be a good choice but it's not found at LHBS's. If you are trying to increase calcium (which you often are) then calcium chloride is a good choice (readily available and commonly added to brewing water). So you really need to understand what the various ions do. There are lots of books, articles, websites etc that have this information.

....reading this thread why RA is insignificant to a styles srm as for example Palmer has stated.

Palmer never said that! The problem is that people don't seem to recognize that he never said that. What he did say with respect to his SRM/RA nomograph and spreadsheet is that the relationship is "a handwave at best". The reason it's a handwave at best is that in general darker beers were brewed originally with waters with higher RA. There is a correlation. But a statistician would point out that the correlation is a very weak one (Pearson's r is small). What this means in simple terms is that a stout with SRM 60 can be brewed with water with an RA of 20 or an RA of 200 or anything in between. Assuming the average is 110 you should be able to see the folly in saying that to brew a 60 SRM beer you must have an RA of 110.

 

[atreid]

Ok I just started looking into this great Spreadsheet and I entered all my tap water data, and grain bill for my next brew, an English IPA.

I added 8g of Gypsum, 1g of CaCl2, 2g of Epsom, all that to get a decent water profile, with 300ppm Sulfate and 0.16 Cl/SO4 ratio to enhance bitterness. My question is not actually about that.

Problem was my pH was 5.72... not very good... As I can buy 88% lactic acid at my LHBS (never tried that before), I added 4mL in the spreadsheet and I now have 5.46, pretty good enough...

My question is: I now have an Effective Alkalinity of -163ppm and a Residual Alkalinity of -276ppm.

What is the meaning of those negative values? I can't seem to find a clear answer anywhere...

Thank you!

EZ Sheet included right there:

 

[ajdelange]

Alkalinity is defined as the amount of acid you must add to a sample of water to bring its pH to a titration endpoint, often, but by no means always, 4.3. Thus if you have a negative alkalinity that means that the sample is originally at a pH < the end point pH. In spreadsheet calculation a negative RA means that if you added the acid to your water the pH would go below 4.3 (or whatever the end point pH is) but that you are not doing that - you are adding it to water plus grain and the acid is pulling the grain pH down at the same time it is neutralizing alkalinity in the water. All this is empirical and a bit iffy but the pH prediction numbers work out pretty well most of the time though they tend to estimate pH's that are too low.

Residual alkalinity is defined by RA = alkalinity - (calcium_hardness + magnesium hardness/2)/3.5. Thus any water sample with 0 alkalinity and some hardness will have a negative RA. Any sample in which (calcium_hardness + magnesium hardness/2)/3.5. > alkalinity will have a negative RA. The traditional Burton water has a negative RA (lots of hardness, not much carbonate). No natural water has a negative alkalinity.

In the spreadsheets the assumption is made that each unit of reduction of RA results in a corresponding reduction in pH. At 0 RA the pH of a base malt grist will be the DI water pH of the particular malt. If the RA < 0 the pH will be lower than the DI water mash pH by 0.00168 pH per ppm as CaCO3 of RA. If RA > 0 it is assumed the the pH will be higher by a like amount . Again, this is a little iffy but seems to work reasonably well for planning purposes.

If you want to know what the pH of your mash is you will have to obtain and learn how to use a decent pH meter. There is just too much variability to allow consistent accurate predictions with an empirical model.

 

[atreid]

Wow GREAT reply...! :rockin:

No money for the pH meter yet, but I used pH probes a lot in the last years, fairly simple and reliable if you just take the time to calibrate them...

You say the predictions tend to estimate pH's that are too low... Does it mean I should aim for lower, like 5.3 to get 5.4? I'm guessing it's not as simple as this or the worksheet would just do it already... ;-)

What I was wondering is if a negative residual alkalinity meant there was no more buffering power but it doesn't sound like it from your explanation... No buffering would mean water very sensible to pH change. You never want to be in that steep titration slope happening when neutralization occurs...

(Have a hard time switching to English technical writing on a subject I'm not a master of...) ;-)

 

[motobrewer]

Wow GREAT reply...! :rockin:

yeah, uh, you'll find that with AJ.

why he hangs with us mortals, the world may never know...

 

[ajdelange]

No money for the pH meter yet, but I used pH probes a lot in the last years, fairly simple and reliable if you just take the time to calibrate them...

You'll also be familiar with their quirks then and that's a good thing. I'm always advising people to get them but I know it takes a bit of practice with them to understand when they are drifting. Fortunately, with the newer technology that is less likely to happen.

You say the predictions tend to estimate pH's that are too low... Does it mean I should aim for lower, like 5.3 to get 5.4? I'm guessing it's not as simple as this or the worksheet would just do it already... ;-)

Actually the EZ spreadsheet has been adjusted and is now much more "accurate" than it was. That means it matches (obviously) the author's brewing experience but, since the adjustment, it also matches mine better than it used to. I wouldn't apply a bias because I don't really know if one is there. In order to determine that it is dozens of brewers would have to make hundreds of measurements and AFAIK that hasn't been done. When I say the spreadsheets tend to estimate low I am referring mostly to the fact that they assume that dark/roast malts supply more acid than they sometimes do. Today, for example, I brewed a stout which will doubtless measure at least 60 SRM using 10% roast barley. I did it with water with alkalinity of about 50 and the mash pH came in at 5.62. I can't run the latest version of the EZ calculator as it is not compatible with Office 2011's version of Excel but I am sure it would tell me that the pH of this mash would be appreciably lower that 5.63 and indeed it usually is. With this recipe I usually get 5.55 but this particular batch or roast barley was apparently less acidic than most and/or this batch of Maris Otter has a lower DI water mash pH than most.

What I was wondering is if a negative residual alkalinity meant there was no more buffering power but it doesn't sound like it from your explanation...

No, the buffering depends on the pH and the acid being used.

No buffering would mean water very sensible to pH change. You never want to be in that steep titration slope happening when neutralization occurs...

Thiking in terms of a titration curve alkalinity is the equivalent amount of acid or base required to go from one point on the curve to another. If you pass close to the pK (or pK's) of the acids involved the buffering capacity is high. If the starting and end points don't span one or more pK's the buffering capacity will be low. It doesn't matter that the alkalinity, as defined for our purposes, is negative.

(Have a hard time switching to English technical writing on a subject I'm not a master of...) ;-)

I can assure you it is better than my technical (and other) French.

 

[-TH-]

I can't run the latest version of the EZ calculator as it is not compatible with Office 2011's version of Excel

It won't open? or is there another issue? I thought 2011 was supposed to open older files. I don't have 2011 yet so I can't try it myself.

 

[rockytoptim]

I have Office 2010 and it opens fine with that.