I think I overdid my brewing salts, what do you think?

[JNish]

I brewed a dry stout last weekend and my local water source is very soft:
Ca: 13, Mg: 5, Na: 13, SO4: 16, Cl: 10, CaCO3: 50.
I was aiming to mimic Dublin water, plus using Palmer's Excel sheet for water modifications to hit near my target SRM of 35. I added the following to the mash:
Chalk: 3.6g (2tsp), Gypsum: 2g (1tsp), CaCl2: 3.4g (0.5tsp), Baking Soda: 8.8g (2tsp)

According to Palmer's spreadsheet, this would yield an adjusted mash of
Ca: 107, Mg: 5, Na: 93, SO4: 53, Cl: 64, CaCO3: 281 with an RA of 202 for 8 gallons of water. I thought I was being conservative since the estimated SRM range was 22-27. Now I'm thinking about it, I added all the salts to my mash which was actually 4 gallons, then sparged with 3 gallons of the soft tap water. So that's really only 7 gallons, but then I added 1 gallon of tap water to compensate for boil-off. So theoretically the final salt concentrations should be fine.

I tasted the wort during the boil and the beer after a couple of days of fermentation and it tastes pretty bad. Basically it tastes very chalky. Did I overdo my salt additions? Will the flavors mellow out over time or is there anything I can do. Normally I have a very passive relationship with my beer and won't taste it until fermentation is over, but I'm a bit worried about this one. What do you think? This is the first time I've tried targeting a water profile, so I'm feeling out of my comfort zone.

 

[ajdelange]

I brewed a dry stout last weekend and my local water source is very soft:
Ca: 13, Mg: 5, Na: 13, SO4: 16, Cl: 10, CaCO3: 50.
I was aiming to mimic Dublin water, plus using Palmer's Excel sheet for water modifications to hit near my target SRM of 35. I added the following to the mash:
Chalk: 3.6g (2tsp), Gypsum: 2g (1tsp), CaCl2: 3.4g (0.5tsp), Baking Soda: 8.8g (2tsp)

Yes, you did. You should not have added either the baking soda or the chalk. In addition to making the beer taste chalky these have the effect of increasing mash pH which is detrimental to the beer in many ways.

The problem here is that there really is no useful correlation between beer color and mineral content. Historically, darker beers did tend to come from places with more alkaline water but the correlation is not strong enough that one ought to draw conclusions about what RA should be based on desired color. The model in the Palmer spreadsheet is absurd and Palmer readily acknowledges that.

Your water is fine for dry stout. You may wish to add the calcium chloride to provide more calcium to your mash and you may also wish to add the gypsum if you want a sharper, drier hoppiness but never put bicarbonate or chalk in brewing water. If you ever do need chalk, and that would be only with grists with an unusual amount of roast malt/barley, add it to the mash but only do that if a properly calibrated pH meter tells you your pH is below 5.1.

There is probably not much you can do to salvage this beer but it never hurts to try a little tincture of time. It may smooth out with age.

 

[lamarguy]

Adjust for RA first (mash pH) and mineral content second (stylistic taste).

The sodium level (93 ppm) you stated is way too high and should make for an effective laxative beer.

The RA "rule of thumb" I've found to work is:

• pilsner: -50 - 0
• pale: -25 - 25
• amber: 25 - 75
• stout: 75 - 125
• imperial stout: 125 - 175

So long as you stay in the stated RA range, the mash pH should be in the "ideal" range.

 

[JNish]

I thought it was magnesium that was the laxative (hence milk of magnesium). The RA predicted by the Palmer spreadsheet is 202, so way over what you state lamarguy.

Ajdelange, are you saying that a dark beer does not necessarily need an alkaline water to buffer the acidity? My understanding was that the alkaline water was needed to buffer the acidity of the roasted barley. Since my water is soft, it would need to have some buffering added in the form of chalk or baking soda. I'm sure I overdid it, but I'm just wondering what is required. I did measure my pH during the mash, and it went from pretty high (6.1 range) when I just added the salts to nominal (5.3 range) towards the end of the mash.

I failed to include my grain bill: 7lb pale malt, 2lb flaked barley, 1lb black roasted barley.

 

[JNish]

AJ, I just noticed your recent post on a similar topic and am now aware of the continuing debate over these RA/SRM spreadsheets. Any informative posts/links you could forward me to? It seems to me that you are saying don't bother with any additions at all, which really bothers the engineering side in me. It seems that having hard or soft water will play a role in mash pH, particularly with the darker styles such as a stout. But I saw that you have brewed stouts successfully without additions with an RA of 36, which is similar to mine. My only counter to this is do you have that malt complexity that was discussed in Brew Strong? Sure any water can brew any beer, the question is whether or not it brings out the full character of that style.

 

[remilard]

AJ, I just noticed your recent post on a similar topic and am now aware of the continuing debate over these RA/SRM spreadsheets. Any informative posts/links you could forward me to?

Any brewing author other than Palmer (Noonan and Fix address water in their books) or those repeating Palmer's work.

It seems to me that you are saying don't bother with any additions at all, which really bothers the engineering side in me.

Next time you are touring your favorite brewery, ask them where they keep the chalk. The engineering side of you can take things out or if starting from essentially ion free water add small amounts of things back. For light beers you should be adding acid. Plenty of things to add after you hide the chalk. You may miss adding gypsum when you want a hoppy beer, I'll propose that adding more hops will have the desired effect.

My only counter to this is do you have that malt complexity that was discussed in Brew Strong? Sure any water can brew any beer, the question is whether or not it brings out the full character of that style.

If a particular kind of water brings out malt complexity, which of Guinness (whichever type you like) and Pilsner Urquell lacks malt complexity? Or if we are talking about stouts only which of Guinness and Stone RIS (brewed with low alkalinity water) are not complex?

 

[ajdelange]

I thought it was magnesium that was the laxative (hence milk of magnesium).

It is

The RA predicted by the Palmer spreadsheet is 202, so way over what you state lamarguy.

The Palmer spreadsheet only calculates half the alkalinity associated with carbonate. If you add 100 milligrams grams of calcium carbonate to a liter if water the alkalinity is increased by 100 mg/L "as calcium carbonate". That's why those units are used. The Palmer spreadsheet assumes that the chalk has been dissolved and the solution brought to pH 8.3 without taking into account that acid is required to do this. Thus his spreadsheet requires you to add approximately twice the amount of chalk you would need for a given "RA". I put that in quotes because RA doesn't really have much meaning in a case where there is undissolved chalk unless the system is in equilibrium and it isn't in such cases and won't be for a very long time. All the math falls apart.

Ajdelange, are you saying that a dark beer does not necessarily need an alkaline water to buffer the acidity?

Yes.

My understanding was that the alkaline water was needed to buffer the acidity of the roasted barley. Since my water is soft, it would need to have some buffering added in the form of chalk or baking soda.

It may help to look at this from the other direction. Why did the brewers of stout in Dublin use dark malt. The answer is that the acid in it lowered mash pH and made better beer. What pH did they get? We don't know of course but you can be sure they tried brews with more roast barley than went into the final recipe and discarded them because even though they lowered the pH further they made the beer too ashy, roasty, sharp, bitter...

I'm sure I overdid it, but I'm just wondering what is required. I did measure my pH during the mash, and it went from pretty high (6.1 range) when I just added the salts to nominal (5.3 range) towards the end of the mash.

What is required is to get the mash pH into the 5.2 - 5.4 region and, of course, there won't be a disaster if it is as low as 4 or as high as 4.6 or so. What I recommend is doing a mash (perhaps a scaled down test mash) with the untreated water. Let things sit for a few minutes. Then check the mash pH. If it is too low (unlikely) add some calcium carbonate to the mash. Only a bit at first. Stir it in thoroughly and wait. These reactions don't take place quickly. Check pH again and keep adding increments until it's where you want it to be.

I failed to include my grain bill: 7lb pale malt, 2lb flaked barley, 1lb black roasted barley.

IOW about 10% roasted barley. When I did some experiments with Maris Otter I found that 10% roasted barley came to pH 5.57 with distilled water. I would expect you to get similar results - i.e. within perhaps ± 0.1 pH unit unless your base malt, flaked barley and roast malts are very different. I would actually like my pH to be a bit lower than this but can live with it and the beer is pretty good.

Using 20% roast barley gave me 5.34 and 30% 5.19. I can't imagine this stout would be very good with 3 times that but there is no accounting for taste. But assuming I did 5.19 is borderline low. So I added 35 mg chalk to this 40 gram mash and the pH eventually rose to 5.32.

 

[ajdelange]

AJ, I just noticed your recent post on a similar topic and am now aware of the continuing debate over these RA/SRM spreadsheets.

Any informative posts/links you could forward me to?

Just do a Google search on "RA SRM" and you should turn up something. In http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=3195.45 I explain why the SRM/RA correlation should not be relied on. On the Brewing Network forum there are several places where this is discussed. It is here that the guy who started all this refers to it as "nothing but handwaving".

It seems to me that you are saying don't bother with any additions at all, which really bothers the engineering side in me.

Careful here! How many times in 40+ years practice have I seen guys "engineer" solutions to unproblems? And how many more times have I seen disaster (financial, never had a bridge collapse or the wing fall off an airplane) resulting from engineered solutions based on a faulty premise? The latter is the danger with the Palmer and Palmer-imitation spreadsheets. They are based on the faulty premise of a strong correlation between color and alkalinity. There is no data from which such a correlation could be determined. Reasonable assumptions can get you to a fit with slope 1 (RA = 5 + SRM) but Palmer's slope is 12!

It seems that having hard or soft water will play a role in mash pH, particularly with the darker styles such as a stout.

It does of course but not to the extent that one might at first think.

But I saw that you have brewed stouts successfully without additions with an RA of 36, which is similar to mine. My only counter to this is do you have that malt complexity that was discussed in Brew Strong?

Yes, I'd say so. It tastes amazingly like Guiness and I happen to think Guiness is pretty good beer.

Sure any water can brew any beer, the question is whether or not it brings out the full character of that style.

Now this is a key comment. I mentioned in another post that Guiness brewers added roasted barley to counter bicarbonate and guessed that the amount of roasted barley finally settled on represented a compromise between its pH lowering effects (generally beneficial) and the excesses of flavor elements that percentages higher than 10% would probably bring. Beyond that, in those early days, they were pretty much locked in.

But I don't have Dublin water. I can set up any water I want and an option is to brew with softer water. A pH check (in my brewing) shows a reasonably low pH with soft water, doubtless lower than I would get with Dublin water and that might actually result in a better beer than Arthur was able to get using a similar grist with Dublin water. Put another way, the most authentic beer isn't necessarily the best beer. I've told this story many times in various fora but I have twice done water treatment seminars for my home brew club in which I brew 2 Burton ales. One with synthetic Burton water and one with my well water. Tasters' conclusions have pretty generally been that the Burton one is more authentic but the softer water one is a better beer. This makes it tough for those who are in this for competition ribbons. Will you have a panel that consists of style Nazis or guys who appreciate the good beer?

So I recommend to people starting out that they get RO water and add about a tsp of calcium chloride per 5 gal. With this water you can brew anything. For most beers your pH will be a little high. The solution to this is to add acid but that comes later. Start with RO water and calcium chloride. Take careful tasting notes and then brew the beer again this time adding an equal amount of gypsum. Compare the 2 brews. Do you like what the sulfate did? If so, keep that in the formulation or add even more. If you don't, use half as much next time. And so on.

When you are comfortable with this level, start looking at the styles a bit more closely. You'll note that Bohemian pils is brewed with very soft water. Try a Boh Pils with and without the calcium chloride. Without the results may be more authentic but with the beer may be better.

As soon as you think you are ready, start thinking in terms of mash pH, not mineral content. Buy, read up on and be sure you understand what is behind pH measurement and start checking the pH of your mashes. You will usually find them higher than desirable. Start incorporating sauermalz in you grists to lower pH into the desired range using the rule of thumb 1% sauermalz for each 0.1 pH drop you need. Control the minerals to taste consistent with getting the mash pH right. Remember that a residual alkalinity change of 100 ppm as CaCO3 only shifts pH by 0.17. You can get the same shift by adding 1.7% sauermalz. Sauermalz will quickly become your major means of pH control allowing you a lot of flexibility on the water treatment.

The ultimate scratch to your engineer's itch will come when and if you get to the point that you want absolute authenticity e.g. you want to brew with "real" Burton water. Then you must synthesize a profile which can be pretty tricky largely because most of the profiles offered in the literature are not physically possible. But the methods for minimizing rms error between desired and attained ion concentrations will definitely appeal.

 

[Bil]

It may help to look at this from the other direction. Why did the brewers of stout in Dublin use dark malt. The answer is that the acid in it lowered mash pH and made better beer. What pH did they get? We don't know of course but you can be sure they tried brews with more roast barley than went into the final recipe and discarded them because even though they lowered the pH further they made the beer too ashy, roasty, sharp, bitter...

Wow, that explanation really clicked with me. Great way of looking at it.

 

[JNish]

Wow, thanks for the detailed response AJ. I see that you have written extensively on this topic. I'll have to review your papers and browse the forums more to get a better grasp of how to predict mash pH. Ideally, it would be nice to predict my mash pH depending on grain bill and calculate what salt additions are needed for buffering and flavor profile. I don't quite have the time/resources to make lots of mini-mashes for each recipe.

How long, in your experience, does a standard 10lb mash take for pH to stabilize? I noticed my pH changed quite a bit from beginning to end of mash, which is logical since the mash is an active reaction. It would be great to just take a couple test strips and add salts as necessary during the mash. What do you think?

 

[ajdelange]

It involves, as you note, a multiplicity of reactions so the time depends on which reactions are taking place and which are dominant. In my experience if mash pH adjustment is being done by addition of salts the pH declines slowly over the course of the whole thing with noticeable reduction each time the mash, or portion thereof is boiled i.e. after each decoction and after the kettle boil. With soft water and pH set by sauermalz the opposite seems true. The dough in pH may be 5.1 and it climbs pretty quickly into the correct range but does increase a bit after each decoction. There is still a drop in the kettle boil, however.

Note: There was a glaring fat-finger in #7 in this thread. I had 4.2 - 4.4 when clearly it should have been 5.2 - 5.4. As no one commented I assume everyone knew what was meant. Anyway, the post has been edited to fix this.

I don't think much of trying to chase pH during the mash. I'm always encouraging people to use pH meters (there seem to be just too many problems with strips) but always warn about really being up to speed on how they work and how to interpret their readings so you don't wind up dumping acid one minute and chalk the next. If you get the minerals and acid right at the beginning, pH should track throughout the rest of the process - all the way to the glass. This does not mean that kettle addition of salts is not a good idea. Many breweries do that for whatever reason.

 

[wildwest450]

ajdelange, could you recommend a ph meter? I've been searching and there's a lot of choices out there. Thanks!

 

[3 Dog Brew]

I started reading this thread and began to get very worried. I had finally cracked the water equation in my brewery and was making good beer again, but you guys were telling me I was doing it all wrong.

When local legislation forced our water districts to switch from well water (good) to surface water (bad and inconsistent), my beer suffered for a couple of years while I tried to figure out the problem.

I felt better when I read this:

So I recommend to people starting out that they get RO water and add about a tsp of calcium chloride per 5 gal. With this water you can brew anything. For most beers your pH will be a little high. The solution to this is to add acid but that comes later. Start with RO water and calcium chloride. Take careful tasting notes and then brew the beer again this time adding an equal amount of gypsum. Compare the 2 brews. Do you like what the sulfate did? If so, keep that in the formulation or add even more. If you don't, use half as much next time. And so on.

I'm now using RO water with Calcium carbonate and 5.2 Mash Stabilizer after trying all sorts of experiments with the water spreadsheets and large volumes of mineral additions to the mash water and the sparge water.

So far this is working for me and I don't see a need to deviate from it yet. This allows me to "engineer" other stuff in my brewery. Anything I'm missing?

 

[ajdelange]

ajdelange, could you recommend a ph meter? I've been searching and there's a lot of choices out there. Thanks!

There certainly are plenty of choices but for home brewing price really narrows the field. I can't really recommend one of these low price units because I use laboratory or field instruments but I did buy one of the Hanna pen units just to see how it performed and from what I can see it performs quite well. The other part of the equation is how long it will last. I think I've had it a little over a year and though I don't check it often it seems to be holding up well so I guess I would recommend one of those. There are other units available for less than $100 but I have never held one in my hand so I don't have an opinion about any of them. The fact is that the technology has advanced by leaps and bounds and the last 10 years or thereabouts so the situation is much brighter than it was in the past.

 

[ajdelange]

I'm now using RO water with Calcium carbonate and 5.2 Mash Stabilizer after trying all sorts of experiments with the water spreadsheets and large volumes of mineral additions to the mash water and the sparge water.

So far this is working for me and I don't see a need to deviate from it yet. This allows me to "engineer" other stuff in my brewery. Anything I'm missing?

Yes. Calcium carbonate takes you in a direction opposite from the one you want to be going in. Most mashes suffer from pH too high. Calcium carbonate raises it further. If 5.2 stabilizer did what it is supposed to do it would be fighting the calcium carbonate by trying to reduce mash pH. Use RO water and calcium chloride. It has moderate pH reducing effect and no pH raising effect. Skip the 5.2. It doesn't do enough to justify the added sodium.

 

[JNye]

ajdelange, could you recommend a ph meter? I've been searching and there's a lot of choices out there. Thanks!

milwuakee, pinpoint and hanna all get good reviews from people i know. i use a pinpoint for my marine aquarium(very happy with it for the past 3 years). make sure to get some calibration fluid, 4.0and 7.0.
http://premiumaquatics.com/aquatic-supply/Pinpoint.html

 

[wildwest450]

There certainly are plenty of choices but for home brewing price really narrows the field. I can't really recommend one of these low price units because I use laboratory or field instruments but I did buy one of the Hanna pen units just to see how it performed and from what I can see it performs quite well. The other part of the equation is how long it will last. I think I've had it a little over a year and though I don't check it often it seems to be holding up well so I guess I would recommend one of those. There are other units available for less than $100 but I have never held one in my hand so I don't have an opinion about any of them. The fact is that the technology has advanced by leaps and bounds and the last 10 years or thereabouts so the situation is much brighter than it was in the past.

Thanks. And is it possible for you to make a "spreadsheet" that is accurate and basic for homebrewing? It seems there's none out there. It's a shame the most crucial aspect of making truly good beer is the most difficult and least understood part of the whole process. As one who with zero chemistry skills, it's very frustrating.

 

[-TH-]

Thanks. And is it possible for you to make a "spreadsheet" that is accurate and basic for homebrewing? It seems there's none out there. It's a shame the most crucial aspect of making truly good beer is the most difficult and least understood part of the whole process. As one who with zero chemistry skills, it's very frustrating.

I'm just putting the finishing touches on EZ 2.0 which predicts pH based on: Water profile, SRM, amount of roasted malt, and mash thickness. It also allows for addition of acidulated malt. The pH 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

Spreadsheet should be out soon, stay tuned...

 

[ajdelange]

Thanks. And is it possible for you to make a "spreadsheet" that is accurate and basic for homebrewing? It seems there's none out there. It's a shame the most crucial aspect of making truly good beer is the most difficult and least understood part of the whole process. As one who with zero chemistry skills, it's very frustrating.

Accurate, yes. Basic, I'm not so sure. To correctly model the carbonic/bicarbonate/carbonate chemistry complicates things by orders of magnitude

I do all my calculations with a spreadsheet I put together for a water seminar in order to make some of this accessible to the students. Since then I've kept adding stuff to it which makes it a really neat but much of that stuff is well beyond what any normal home brewer would be interested in (it calculates the osmotic pressure of your water and can be used to design buffers, for example). Plus it deals with lots of nuances like the effects of ionic strength and temperature. These effects are too small to be of practical consequence in most cases.

It does not have a place where you can put in beer color nor does it attempt to calculate probable mash pH based on salt/acid additions. I don't, personally, believe that you can model either of those accurately enough. Of course the accompanying question is "How accurately do you need to model them?" Basically then, it is a water spreadsheet. It does not model malt.

If you add acid or base or the salt(s) of a weak acid it forces you to adjust pH or add acid/base until electrical balance is found. You can do this manually or automatically using the Solver. The need to do this is something that most brewers (including those who have done spreadsheets in the past) are unaware of and it is a pain but you can't model anything more than the addition of neutral salts (all the ones we ordinarily use except bicarb and carbonate) without accounting for this.

If, despite all this, you want to play with it, it can be found at www.wetnewf.org under NUBWS (Nearly Universal Brewing Water Spreadsheet). I was quite surprised, and gratified, to learn that at least one guy is using it for all his calculations.

 

[3 Dog Brew]

Yes. Calcium carbonate takes you in a direction opposite from the one you want to be going in. Most mashes suffer from pH too high. Calcium carbonate raises it further. If 5.2 stabilizer did what it is supposed to do it would be fighting the calcium carbonate by trying to reduce mash pH. Use RO water and calcium chloride. It has moderate pH reducing effect and no pH raising effect. Skip the 5.2. It doesn't do enough to justify the added sodium.

Yeah, that was a brain fart/typo. I MEANT Calcium Chloride and wrote Calcium Carbonate.

So, I'm brewing today and I'm going to try adding nothing to my RO water but Calcium Chloride. Then I'll take a pH measurement and see where I need to go. The only acids I have on hand are Phosphoric, acid blend for wine and pool chemicals :cross:. I'll use the Phosphoric unless I get a reply in time to tell me not to.

Thanks ajdelange

 

[ajdelange]

Phosphoric should be fine. Just be sue to add it in very small amounts, stir it in very thoroughly and give it a few minutes to work. Also be sure to calibrate your meter with fresh buffer before taking mash readings.