mash run false bottom help

[Brew_Meister_General]

Well I look forward to the day when I'm as knowledgeable as the guys who have participated in this thread - bring it on.

I got more comprehensive report from my water company... http://www.ywonline.co.uk/web/WQZ.nsf/0/08F2F7D0B5D90B47802574FD003904A0/$file/Northallerton%202004%20WSZ.pdf

Seems my water is pretty bang on for bitters, porters and stouts.

So to summaries...

Calcium 67 (50 - 82)
Magnesium 16 (10 - 20)
Sodium 15 (12 - 17)
Sulphate 105 (77 - 125)
Chloride 19 ( 17 - 22)
pH 7.3 (7.1 - 8.3)

Yikes! Your sulphate is high which means it would be ideal for brewing IPAs and other bitter beers. That being said if you increase your chloride, which is very low in comparison, to 85 or 90 say (but away from 100) then that will produce a balance between sweetness and bitterness and also allow you to increase your calcium and sodium in the process using calcium chloride and sea salt.

So using the Basic Water Chemistry calculator on Brewer's Friend this is what your salt additions might look like per 10l of water:

I've also read never to use table salt as it contains iodine which sea salt and pickling salt doesn't.

And wow that is a huge swing in bicarbonate! I haven't come across that before, I'd be curious to find out why now, maybe its seasonal? But every problem has a solution! It'd probably to start a thread and get some expert feedback on your water chemistry.

 

[HTH1975]

Once again, big thanks for your input - some great advice a d I feel like I've got a better idea of what my baseline is now. Living in North Yorkshire, I had an idea that the water would naturally be good for bitters - that's what all the breweries round here are traditionally known for, and it's my favourite style of beer too. Check out Timothy Taylor beers, if you haven't already (I like Bolt-thrower best).

Regarding the bicarbonate levels, I did think that was weird. I'm going to ask my water company about that. I know that they do sample customer's water to get a sample of what domestic homes are getting at the tap, so I'm gonna ask if they would do a sample test (they can only say no). Failing that, I know that I can get a water report for around £20 by sending a tap water sample away to a lab.

 

[HTH1975]

My water company has advised me that the reason why the results are varied is because there are two water treatment works that can supply the water in my supply zone.

The bicarbonate levels for the treatment works more often supplying me are on the higher end:

Max 347 mg/l
Min 321 mg/l
Mean 333 mg/l

Ouch!!!

 

[Brew_Meister_General]

Failing that, I know that I can get a water report for around £20 by sending a tap water sample away to a lab.

I considered that too but after looking at my own report I realised that even that wouldn't give me an accurate idea just because of how much the mineral content and pH can vary. To be honest I think you have all the info you need.

I imagine the best way to proceed is to simply add the malt to the water first, give it a good stir, wait 5 or so minutes, test the pH and then adjust as necessary. Nothing ever goes smoothly anyway at first, I thought I had everything figured out before I did my first brew except reality didn't fit the theory. I didn't even test the pH and that was all pale malt, came out fine, and then when I put my stout recipe into the water calculator it told me my pH would be 2.0 when it arrived at 5.8.

My water company has advised me that the reason why the results are varied is because there are two water treatment works that can supply the water in my supply zone.

I've heard a similar thing before where you can have 2 different water supplies, one in the day and one in the night for example. I'm pretty sure I have two as well but their mineral content is very much the same anyway.

 

[HTH1975]

The 'problem' seems to be that the main water works that supplies me has higher bicarbonate levels, and the other one has very low levels - I'd imagine that this could make consistency very difficult due to the large swing.

At this stage, I'm thinking that I'm just going to brew this batch and see how it turns out without procrastinating over every last detail. I think that sticking with darker beers will put me in the ballpark for mash pH. I would however like to treat my sparge water and that is still a bit unclear to me. I did some tests with sea salt, calcium chloride dihydrate and sodium bicarbonate. The first two only dropped my pH by around 0.3, while the bicarb dropped the pH by a good 1 or more pH points. However, I'd imagine that having so my bicarb in the water could leave a weird taste.

 

[Brew_Meister_General]

The 'problem' seems to be that the main water works that supplies me has higher bicarbonate levels, and the other one has very low levels - I'd imagine that this could make consistency very difficult due to the large swing.

At this stage, I'm thinking that I'm just going to brew this batch and see how it turns out without procrastinating over every last detail. I think that sticking with darker beers will put me in the ballpark for mash pH. I would however like to treat my sparge water and that is still a bit unclear to me. I did some tests with sea salt, calcium chloride dihydrate and sodium bicarbonate. The first two only dropped my pH by around 0.3, while the bicarb dropped the pH by a good 1 or more pH points. However, I'd imagine that having so my bicarb in the water could leave a weird taste.

It'll be good to start a new thread on that and get some expert advice, I'm sure someone has had experience with it before.

Salts are used only to attain the desired water profile, its phosphoric acid which you'll need to lower the pH/bicarbonate level of your sparge and mash water, you'll be able to purchase some from a home brew store. It's better than lactic acid due to its neutral flavour.

I think sea salt is actually alkaline so better to add that during the end of the boil.

 

[HTH1975]

Nice one bud, thanks for the reply. I'll grab some phosphoric acid.

Back on the thread topic, I bought a false bottom as the pie dish rusted - should have known, seems obvious now.

I'm thinking that I'll go with a pump to circulate the wort as I've read that it eliminates the need to sparge. That would take out an extra step and (from what I gather) improve efficiency.

 

[Brew_Meister_General]

Nice one bud, thanks for the reply. I'll grab some phosphoric acid.

Back on the thread topic, I bought a false bottom as the pie dish rusted - should have known, seems obvious now.

I'm thinking that I'll go with a pump to circulate the wort as I've read that it eliminates the need to sparge. That would take out an extra step and (from what I gather) improve efficiency.

Oh you'll want sparge anyway, it's just about soaking as much of the sugars out of the grain as possible, but only until the gravity of the second runnings reaches 1.010. When it falls below you'll start to extract unwanted tannins.

This would mean taking regular samples of your second runnings using the hydrometer, with the water being drained slowly (1 litre/minute) this shouldn't be too much of a hassle. The tricky is then using Brewer's Friend's 'Hydrometer Temperature' to correct the reading as the higher temperature the higher the reading will appear, i.e. at 70c the wort will have a reading 18 higher it really is, meaning you would stop at 1.028 rather than 1.010. To be honest I do need to doubled check that.

That plus you'll only be able to fit so much water inside anyway. From all that I've read a thinner mash improves efficiency, with a 30l tun you should try and fit as much water in there as possible with each brew.

After that you'll have to take into consideration other factors like the volume of your boiler and water loss via grain absorption which is thought to be 1 - 2 litres per kg, although with a pump I imagine it will be on the lower side. An estimate of 1kg of malt = 1 litre of volume is also reasonable.

So with a 30 litre mash tun:

5kg grain = 5l volume (allowing say, 23l room for strike water)

23l / 5kg = 4.6l strike water per kg (or 1.84 qt/lb) which is great

Water loss = 5kg x est 1.5l = 7.5l

23l strike water - 7.5l loss = approx 15.5l first runnings

Sparge water: add until gravity reaches 1.010 (or rather 1.028)

 

[RM-MN]

Nice one bud, thanks for the reply. I'll grab some phosphoric acid.

Back on the thread topic, I bought a false bottom as the pie dish rusted - should have known, seems obvious now.

I'm thinking that I'll go with a pump to circulate the wort as I've read that it eliminates the need to sparge. That would take out an extra step and (from what I gather) improve efficiency.

Your wort will be high in sugars and when you drain it there will be sugars left in the grains because the wort sugars and the grain sugars will be at equilibrium and no amount of recirculation can change that. Drain out the wort and replace it with fresh water and now the grain has more sugar than the water and you can extract more sugars from the grain.

You don't have to sparge but you will gain more sugars by doing so. At the small batch size most of us do that isn't necessary as you can just add a bit more grain to get the OG you want but it does come at a cost, a cost that in commercial breweries would make them less competitive.