Help me sanity check my first grain brew

[Zadkiel]

never mind, sorry, I need to learn how to RTFM. I worked out how to use the water section in beersmith, set source to RO and picked a random target (Amber Balanced) and it gave a list of chemicals.

 

[Brockness Monster]

Probably Gypsum & Baking Soda. You don't need to add Mg because the wort will provide all that the yeast need. Some people like to use table salt for Na and Cl2, but Baking soda and Calcium Chloride will give you those. I would use minimal baking soda because it will hamper the effect of the acid, but you might need a little as a buffer for carbonic acid.

Sounds like you got it.

 

[mac_1103]

Zinc for example it says that at concentrations of 10mg/l the 'Maximum Permissible Effluent Concentration' is 5mg/l which sounds like it's only removing 50%, but then it claims next to it that's a 99.9% reduction.

So just to clear this up for posterity - "Maximum Permissible Effluent Concentration" is the highest amount allowed under the relevant NSF/ANSI standard:

"The concentration of the indicated substances in water entering the system was reduced to a concentration less than or equal to the permissible limit for water leaving the system, as specified in the relevant standard."

"Average Percent Reduction" is the data. A 50% reduction in Zinc would be acceptable; a 99.9% reduction was observed.

I think the difference may be that both systems assume higher efficiencies than others here think I'll get. Brewfather sets efficiency to 78% when I select brewzilla 35L, and beersmith sets it to 75% when I choose BIAB 5 gallon.

Your efficiency is your efficiency, not anyone else's. You won't know what it is until you've done a few batches and dialed things in the way you want them. And neither will Brewfather or Beersmith, but they've got to start somewhere.

 

[Zadkiel]

So just to clear this up for posterity - "Maximum Permissible Effluent Concentration" is the highest amount allowed under the relevant NSF/ANSI standard:

Ah.

Your efficiency is your efficiency, not anyone else's. You won't know what it is until you've done a few batches and dialed things in the way you want them. And neither will Brewfather or Beersmith, but they've got to start somewhere.

Yup, I know. I was just responding to someone saying they thought my gravity would come out lower than the numbers I was getting from brewfather, as to a possible reason why that might be true. His point, that I should use less water to cover that possibility, and I could add more after if I needed, was a good one I thought.

 

[jerrylotto]

Mashing is an enzymic conversion process of starches (polysaccharides) to simple sugars. Ions and pH both play an important role in that process (calcium in particular). You don't want to mash in zero TDS water because the pH will swing widely and the efficiency will be low. Concentrations of various ions should be specified in the recipe you're following for mash water or can be figured out with calculators online like the ones at Brewer's Friend.

 

[Zadkiel]

OK, so here's my brewday plan. I think this is going to seem excessively detailed and pedantic to some of you, but I found doing a list like this for my extract brews was super helpful, and given it's my first ever grain mash and first ever on the machine, I'm super worried that I'll forget something important or do something out of order.

I really really appreciate those who are taking the time to help me with this. You folks rock

For those short on time, I'll bolden the major steps, as those are the ones I'm wanting to check I'm doing correctly and in the correct order.

Prepare 35L of water at desired water chemistry.
Test pH of room temp water, adjust to about 6.0
Clean Brewzilla & other equipment. Check tap is closed, jacket is on, false bottom & HED is in. Add basket but no grain yet.
Set thermometer source to built-in
Add 20L water
Heat to strike temperature (73C).
Set temp to 67C
Add grain, stirring to break up any dough balls.
insert temp probe into middle of grain, change settings to use temp probe.
add recirculation arm & tube, add top cover and lid, set to low-medium flow rate.
Start 60 minute Mash at 67C
After a few minutes, take sample, cool to pH meter calibration (room temp). reduce to 5.6 (at mash temp this will be 5.2-5.3).
Stir occasionally (every 10-15m?)
Raise Mash to 75C (aim for 10 minutes) and heat sparge water to 75-80C
Raise basket and let drain
sparge (approx 15 minutes?)
remove grain basket and put in bucket as will drain more.
Aim for 28L pre-boil. Hopefully gravity should be 1.041-1.046 (adjust for temp)
Raise temp to boil.
boil additions:
30g hops @ 60m
25g hops @ 20m
Protofloc tablet & yeast nutrient @ 10m
insert whirlpool arm & chiller @ 2m to sanitise
25g hops @ 0m
Heater off. This is now cold side, anything touching wort must be sanitised
Chill to 80C, turn off water
Whirlpool 20m
Check gravity & temp adjust. Target is 23L @ 1.045-1.050.
Turn water back on, Chill as low as possible, will probably get to about 25C, whirlpool arm on low will help chill rate
swap to recirc arm, pump to sanitised FV
FV into fridge set to 16C to continue to cool (approx. 6 hours from 25C)
prepare starter, cool to 16C and pitch (Aerate wort)

 

[mac_1103]

1) Don't worry too much about the pH of the water before the mash; even with the chemical additions it's not going to have that much buffering capacity and might be frustratingly unstable.

2) Don't chase pH during the mash; add the salts and acid that the software tells you to use and you will be close; check it about 10-15 minutes in and adjust the acid addition for your next brew.

 

[Zadkiel]

acid that the software tells you to use

I have zero doubt that your advice is good, but I'm struggling hard with working this out. I've spent hours today wrestling with various water addition calculators and can't get any of them to agree with each other and just don't understand what they are telling me Brewfather, the one I am currently preferring because it lets me select the specific EU grains I'm using, just gives me a nonsensical result to add 0.23ml of acid lol.

That was why I kinda 'gave up' and figured I'd just take a reading and adjust on the fly.

 

[mac_1103]

The problem with adjusting on the fly is that you'll never catch up. You dough in, you stir well, you wait ten minutes, you pull a sample, you chill the sample, you test the sample, you decide you need to add more acid... OK, but how much more? And guess what - by the time you add it and get your pH where you wanted it (you hope) you've already converted half (or more) of the starches under the "wrong" conditions.

I've spent hours today wrestling with various water addition calculators and can't get any of them to agree with each other and just don't understand what they are telling me

I bet if you post screen shots of what they're telling you, folks will be happy to explain it to you.

 

[Zadkiel]

The problem with adjusting on the fly is that you'll never catch up. You dough in, you stir well, you wait ten minutes you pull a sample, you chill the sample, you test the sample, you decide you need to add more acid... OK, but how much more? And guess what - by the time you add it and get your pH where you wanted it (you hope) you've already converted half (or more) of the starches under the "wrong" conditions.

Oh, I guess I didn't realise that would be so time consuming. my PH meter only wants a small amount of liquid to sit in, 10ml in a small dish works fine, and I figured I could chill that in like a minute or so. I'll take your word for it.

I bet if you post screen shots of what they're telling you, folks will be happy to explain it to you.

OK, let's have a go!

So, using brewfather, here's where I input my base settings: grains, volumes etc. I set the water 'source' to RO (as hopefully I'll be as close to that as makes no difference) and choose the inbuilt profile for Cali Common as the target.

The next part had me confused for the longest time, because it then showed me water additions that came out way off from the profile and with a really high pH. This had me stuck for ages, until 10 minutes ago I suddenly realised that you have to click the little 'gear' icon which opens another screen where you select which chemicals you can use, and baking soda was disabled. I enabled it and boom suddenly everything 'works'. This has kinda fixed everything.

Now that part lines up, I can enter a value into the mash acid box and the 'mash pH' value up top changes. This was showing nonsensical values before. Now if I put in 5ml that sets the Mash pH to 5.26 which should be good?

There's another part to this called Acid Sparge - I *think* this is an adjustment phase? it requires me to fill in the water pH & target pH so I think it's saying to take a pH measurement at the start of the sparge and if it's off, how to correct it?

If this is all correct, then my last problem is converting the lactic acid value. This is giving me a result in ml, so I assume that means it's an acid solution. My 60% lactic acid is a powder. I'm not sure if this is a 1:1 ml:mg conversion or not...

 

[mac_1103]

There are lots of people here who know a lot more about water chemistry than I do, so hopefully some of them will chime in. But the one thing that jumps out at me is that I wouldn't want to add both bicarb and acid since they work against each other.

 

[Zadkiel]

Well no criticisms of either my brewday checklist, or my chemistry, so I'm assuming that means it's all good

Brewday is scheduled for this sunday. Excited.