High Mash pH

[Nil]

Hello All,

I made a batch this last weekend. The mash pH = 6.5.

I added approx. 3/4 cups of CaCl2, as I had no other option.
The final RT pH = 5.6, which is approx 5.3 at mashing temperature.

My logic was that, the Ca2+ would be consumed to lower the pH of the mash and the Cl- would be gone during boiling.

Any thoughts?

Thanks, Nil

 

[billl]

My guess - user error in the mash ph measurement followed by salty beer.

On the plus side, Gose is pretty popular now.....

 

[LLBeanJ]

3/4 cup?!!! I hope it was a 100 bbl batch.

 

[Nil]

There was no error in the measurement. I verified the instrument calibration with 4 - 7 pH standard solutions.

Will start to play with RO water from know on.

 

[The_Bishop]

Did you really add 3/4 cup of calcium chloride?!

Boiling doesn't remove minerals.

 

[saltymirv]

Reminds me of the guy trying to clone Heady Topper water profile and added a pound of gypsum

 

[Yooper]

Did you really add 3/4 cup of calcium chloride?!

Boiling doesn't remove minerals.

Right, and unfortunately (in this case especially), boiling evaporates liquid and actually then would concentrate minerals.

I use 5 grams of chloride for some beers, and that's about a teaspoon. You probably added 150 grams or so, at a guess. That's a lot of chloride, and a lot of calcium. Like 1500 ppm of calcium, and 2500 ppm of chloride.

I doubt the beer will be drinkable, but if it is, that's good.

Next time, remember that adding salts is not appropriate for pH management. Those are flavoring components- like "seasonings" for beer. It's like adding garlic to spaghetti sauce. Just like you don't want 3/4 cup of garlic salt for your pint of spaghetti sauce, you don't want 3/4 of a cup of calcium chloride in your brewing water.

Acids are for pH control- phosphoric acid and lactic acid are the most commonly used ones. lactic acid in large amounts has a flavor impact (tart), so often phosphoric acid is the best choose.

However, if you have so much alkalinity in your water that your mash pH is in the mid 6's, then you have to deal with the alkalinity BEFORE mashing in. Pre- boiling or lime softening, or going with RO water and mixing it with your tap water (or straight RO water) would be good choices.

 

[saltymirv]

I use 5 grams of chloride for some beers, and that's about a teaspoon. You probably added 150 grams or so, at a guess. That's a lot of chloride, and a lot of calcium. Like 1500 ppm of calcium, and 2500 ppm of chloride.

Some quick math:

3/4 cup = 177 cm^3

Density of CaCl2 is ~ 2g/cm^3

So he added about 344g of CaCl2, which correlates to ~8,500 ppm Chloride and ~ 4800 ppm of Calcium assuming he used 7 gallons of water for the batch

 

[mabrungard]

Chloride (Cl-) is not the same as chlorine gas (Cl2). Chloride does not boil out. What sort of batch size were you dealing with? It doesn't sound good if you were brewing a 5 to 10 gal batch!

 

[lstewart89]

Did you really add 3/4 cup of calcium chloride?!

Boiling doesn't remove minerals.

Right, and unfortunately (in this case especially), boiling evaporates liquid and actually then would concentrate minerals.

I use 5 grams of chloride for some beers, and that's about a teaspoon. You probably added 150 grams or so, at a guess. That's a lot of chloride, and a lot of calcium. Like 1500 ppm of calcium, and 2500 ppm of chloride.

I doubt the beer will be drinkable, but if it is, that's good.

Next time, remember that adding salts is not appropriate for pH management. Those are flavoring components- like "seasonings" for beer. It's like adding garlic to spaghetti sauce. Just like you don't want 3/4 cup of garlic salt for your pint of spaghetti sauce, you don't want 3/4 of a cup of calcium chloride in your brewing water.

Acids are for pH control- phosphoric acid and lactic acid are the most commonly used ones. lactic acid in large amounts has a flavor impact (tart), so often phosphoric acid is the best choose.

However, if you have so much alkalinity in your water that your mash pH is in the mid 6's, then you have to deal with the alkalinity BEFORE mashing in. Pre- boiling or lime softening, or going with RO water and mixing it with your tap water (or straight RO water) would be good choices.

Chloride (Cl-) is not the same as chlorine gas (Cl2). Chloride does not boil out. What sort of batch size were you dealing with? It doesn't sound good if you were brewing a 5 to 10 gal batch!

All of this.

I do believe that your mash pH could have been 6.5. My mash pH when doughed in with mineral additions (~1g of CaSO4 and ~1g CaCl2 depending on recipe) hovers around 6.1. Mineral additions aren't effective for massive pH changes. Use a bit of lactic acid in your mash. Most water adjustment spreadsheets will allow for you to adjust with a volume of lactic acid. If you don't have anything to accurately measure a small volume, you can convert to mass of lactic acid (though I don't know the density of pure lactic acid off the top of my head, but even still it'll be a bit of an approximation since 88% lactic acid is usually used for pH adjustments)

 

[Nil]

Thanks for all your advice, folks.

I never had to use a lot of salts for my water as I mostly made amber and darker beers. When I made a light beer, I add 1 -2 Tbs of CaCL2 and placed the pH right on target (5.6 at RT that is 5.3 @ mashing temperature). This day I made another light beer. My mistake was to keep adding salt without taking into account the effects on the water. Yes: I added 3/4 cups, and with a CaCl2 density of 2.15 g/mL, I ended up adding 387 grams, which delivers 5576 ppm of Ca2+ and 9865 ppm of Cl-...

Never again... next time I'll have either Lactic or Malic Acid available.

Thanks, Nil

 

[Nil]

So, I did some homework...

If I use RO water in order to brew the same grain bill (light beer), these are the values that I selected with the corresponding water profile:

Target ppm
Calcium: 75
Mg: 10
Na: 27.3 (calculated from Sodium Bicarbonate)
SO2: 30 (calculated from MgSO2)
HCO3:72.5

Water Profile
Hardness as CaCO3: 228.8
Alkalinity as CaCO3: 59.4
Non-Carbonate Hardness as CaCO3: 169.4
Effective Hardness: 59.4
RA (mEq/L): 0.0
RA (ppm of CaCO3): 0.0
Alkalinity as Degrees dH: 0.0
Predicted Mash pH : 5.7
Total Cl (ppm):132.7

Seems good to me.

Any thoughts?

Thanks, Nil

 

[Nil]

Opps... forgot to include the amounts:

CaCl2 Dihydrate: 5.2 g
MgSO4 7 Hydrate: 1.9 g
NaHCO3: 1.37 g

 

[Juno_Malone]

lactic acid in large amounts has a flavor impact (tart), so often phosphoric acid is the best choose.

Has there been any research done on how much lactic acid you can add before you can start to detect the flavor? I routinely add 2-3 ml to both my mash and sparge water to bring my pH down to a desired level, just wanted to make sure I'm not coming close to crossing the line of how much I can add before imparting that tart flavor.

 

[mabrungard]

Yes, there have been many scientific studies. The average taster can detect lactate at about 400 ppm. But some people are more sensitive to it or are super-tasters. At a dose of 1 ml of 88% lactic acid per gallon, the lactate content would be around 281 ppm and that should be under most people's detection.

 

[Kerrbrewer]

Nil,
Look into acidulated malt. I use acid malt and hit mash ph most the time. Then I add lactic acid to my sparge water for its ph adjustment. Works real well for me. I use the ez water spreadsheet for calculations