EZ Water Calculator 3.0

[Dan]

I'm thinking about changing my handle to "Mr Obvious".

The EZ Water Calc thread is quite long and I read most all of it and then posted.

I've used TH's EZ Water Calculator, (version 3) for awhile now and my beers have improved, improved A LOT!

So why would I like to change my handle? Cause it's quite blatantly clear that "TH" is truly a good person (as most homebrewers are)and he gives so much to this community.

Could you imagine paying for the research he has put into his work and the results? But he doesn't ask for anything, just provides some great info in the name of beer and continuosly improves and provides us more info and our cost is nothing.

But, I haven't read all of this thread yet, it's getting a bit late in the night. TH, have you started taking donations yet? I'd be more than happy to send some dinero your way for what you have contributed to this community. If you are not taking cash then at least let me buy you another years membership!

Thanks for what you have given to us TH.

With great appreciation,

Dan

 

[ajdelange]

As AJ said (repeatedly )

That was weird. When I tried to post the site kept coming back with "This site requires 30 seconds between posts, try again in 14 seconds" so being a stubborn SOB I did - several times. Think I got them all cleared out except the first.

 

[lud]

I just thought you REALLY REALLY want to get your point across...

 

[kal]

TH, have you started taking donations yet? I'd be more than happy to send some dinero your way for what you have contributed to this community.

He has. See the donate button here: http://www.ezwatercalculator.com/

Kal

 

[Dan]

He has. See the donate button here: http://www.ezwatercalculator.com/

Kal

Done! Thank you for the link Kal.

 

[-TH-]

Hey thanks for the kind words Dan. And for the donation too! Perfect "pick-me-up" for a Monday morning. Well that and finding out that the Tigers came back to win after being down 3 in the 10th yesterday...

 

[scrawbag]

i need to read this again

 

[Dan]

i need to read this again

Sounds like a good idea.

 

[yso191]

Call me lazy, but I don't want to sort through 31 pages of conversation that may not contain the answer to my question, so I apologize in advance to any hall-monitor types ;-)

I am about to brew my first beer, an all-grain Amber Ale recipe. I am building water profiles from 100% RO, primarily to avoid chlorine. I feel like I am chasing my tail with respect to the mash pH and RA. To lower the mash pH, it lowers the RA (duh). I'm looking for a RA of ~40-60 (currently 40) but to get that, the mash pH is too high (5.57 in my current attempt). I find myself wondering if I am paying too much attention to mash pH, because everything else: Chloride/Sulfate ratio, and "Step 5 Resulting Water Profile" ranges are all green.

In short, how can I lower the mash pH while raising the RA? What am I missing?

Steve

 

[mabrungard]

RA is not what matters. Only the mash pH matters. What the program is trying to tell you is that the RA you are unfortunately trying to achieve, is not right for your grist.

 

[yso191]

Thank you Martin, that makes sense - I was chasing my tail.

If I may impose on you for another water related question: I intend to use Wyeast's yeast nutrient blend as recommended. Will that addition skew any of the water additions/calculations? Thanks,

Steve

 

[jmf143]

Thank you Martin, that makes sense - I was chasing my tail.

If I may impose on you for another water related question: I intend to use Wyeast's yeast nutrient blend as recommended. Will that addition skew any of the water additions/calculations? Thanks,

Steve

It won't have any affect. Brew on!

 

[RoadKing]

How would flaked corn / rice, effect ph? Would it have the same effect as a base malt or a different value altogether?

 

[ajdelange]

As these are not roasted it is unlikely that their acid levels would be even as high as light kilned malt but they do have buffering capacity so it might turn out that some extra acid is needed. I don't think it would be much though.

 

[loetz]

This looks like a great spreadsheet, but I keep getting ##### in the estimated mash pH cell. Do any of you have any idea what is going on?

This is a picture of the spreadsheet I'm using.

 

[-TH-]

This looks like a great spreadsheet, but I keep getting ##### in the estimated mash pH cell. Do any of you have any idea what is going on?

This is a picture of the spreadsheet I'm using.

It could be that your Arial font is a bit large for some reason. You could highlight the cell in question (F32) and change the font size from 20 down to something smaller.

If that's not it, then download a fresh copy of the spreadsheet. In fact, I would recommend doing this anyway because it looks like the cell that totals the weight of your grain got screwed up (11 kg should be 11.5 kg).

I entered all of your numbers into the latest version and I didn't have any problems.

Let me know if you still have issues...

 

[loetz]

Thanks for the reply! I figured out what part of the problem was. I wrote .5 instead of ,5 in that crystal malt field.

BUT. Now with those same numbers I'm getting an estimated pH of 0,08. How is that possible? I'm wondering if my water report isn't very accurate. I'm going to go buy some water testing materials tomorrow morning.

 

[-TH-]

Can you change your excel to use decimals (periods) instead of commas? Maybe that's the problem. I don't know. When I enter your numbers this is what I get:

 

[loetz]

Wow, good thought! You were right! I switched the region to America and now it works. Thanks!

 

[andycr]

Love this tool, thanks so much for it!

Biscuit malt is also counted as a roasted/toasted malt, right? If so, how far off will the calculations be since it's such a lower L rating (25L) than something like roasted malt (500L)? I suppose it's in the same class as Munich (toasted malt) which has it's own row in the drop-down, but it's so much darker (8L vs around 25L).

Thanks!

 

[Kaiser]

Love this tool, thanks so much for it!

Biscuit malt is also counted as a roasted/toasted malt, right? If so, how far off will the calculations be since it's such a lower L rating (25L) than something like roasted malt (500L)? I suppose it's in the same class as Munich (toasted malt) which has it's own row in the drop-down, but it's so much darker (8L vs around 25L).

Thanks!

Only count roasted malts with a color rating higher than 50 L as roasted malts. Below that their acidity seems to follow that of base or crystal malts.

In the end you only have to guess the %roasted color in increments of 25% anyway.

Kai

 

[-TH-]

I have a question for those of you who are using lactic acid to adjust your mash pH. I noticed that I had put a 2x multiplier in my calculation on the spreadsheet for its affect on RA/mash pH. For the life of me I can't remember why I put that in there and I don't see anything in my notes. I think I am going to take this out for the next minor revision but before I do I would appreciate any feedback from those of you who use the spreadsheet and do lactic acid additions.

Thanks!

 

[solavirtus]

Maybe because you were adding the lactic acid to both mash and sparge water? I realized I wasn't adding enough at first because I was adding salts and acid to my total water, but I think the acid calculation is for the mash water only.

 

[DeltaRage]

I have a question for those of you who are using lactic acid to adjust your mash pH. I noticed that I had put a 2x multiplier in my calculation on the spreadsheet for its affect on RA/mash pH. For the life of me I can't remember why I put that in there and I don't see anything in my notes. I think I am going to take this out for the next minor revision but before I do I would appreciate any feedback from those of you who use the spreadsheet and do lactic acid additions.

Thanks!

You mean that the effect of lactic acid is 2x its expected effect? Adding 1ml of lactic in the spreadsheet seems to change the predicted mash pH by -0.075. Does this mean that the rule of thumb of -0.1 is an overestimate?

The spreadsheet is great! Thanks for putting the work into it!

I'm guessing that this request has been made before, but a phosphoric acid addition calculator would be great.

 

[DeltaRage]

I'm trying to determine the alkalinity of my water to input into the EZ spreadsheet, but I don't know what value in my water report is equivalent to "Bicarbonate (HCO3 ppm)" or "Alkalinity (CaCO3 ppm)". The relevant part of my water report reads as follows:

Alkalinity mg/L: 88
Hardness (as CaCO) mg/L: 124
pH: 7.7
Colour T.C.U.: 1
Conductivity μmhos/cm: 341
TOC mg/L: 1.8
Total Solids mg/L: 197

In the report, the "Hardness (as CaCO)" v. "Alkalinity" confuses me. Thanks for the help.

 

[ajdelange]

Alkalinity and hardness are both reported as mg/L as CaCO3. Your alkalinity is 88.

 

[atreid]

Because the density of water is 1 g/ml, unit conversion calculations are resulting in:

1 mg/L = 1 ppm

If you ever come across some other heavier or lighter fluid like alcohol, this approximation is no longer true... mg/L is more thorough because it's always right, but both units are vastly used for water...

 

[kshuler]

Thanks for doing this!

 

[deezy]

Great thread - I just received my wardlabs report and was trying to wrap my head around water additions. Feel pretty good about it now; ready to give this a shot. To anyone who may be new to water calculations, download the spreadsheet and read this entire thread...yes all 33+ pages. Cheers -TH- and HBT

 

[JLem]

TH, can you make that small change to the spreadsheet and change "sparge water" to "boil"?

I get emails every day from people who think taht sparge water additions need to go in their sparge water instead of the boil. Your v1 spreadsheet used to indicate this but v3 does not.

If I had a nickel for every time I told someone this, I'd have a lots of nickels to donate to you.

Kal

done deal. version 3.0.2 is now available.

btw I hope to be going electric in the near future and I must say you have got quite a resource over there at theelectricbrewery.com...

Is this the only change in v3.0.2? I have customized my v3.0.0 and don't really want to deal with doing it again with a new version unless there is a calculation change. Thank! (and...did I miss anything importatn in v3.0.1?)