Mistake with calcium carbonate

[Niatras]

Brewing today and trying salt additions for the first time. Per brewers friend water calculator, I needed to add 1 gram gypsum and 5.5 grams calcium chloride. I mistakenly add 5.5 grams of calcium carbonate instead of calcium chloride. Once I realized my mistake, with 5 minutes to go in mash I added the calcium chloride to mash and sparge water. Mash ph was 5.5 before calcium chloride addition but the late addition did not affect ph. I extended mash an additional 20 minutes.
What problems will I encounter if any.

 

[Holden Caulfield]

Biggest issue would be raising your PH above 5.6. That said, since your PH was ok at the end of the mash (5.5) you will probably be ok unless the PH rose over the course of the additional 20 mins. CaCO3 does not dissolve well, which in this case was fortunate for you. Going forward, if you you need to raise PH due to an acidic grain bill (lots of roasted and caramel malts), it is better to use baking soda which dissolves quickly.

Other issue may be a lot of calcium. Not sure how much, someone else can chime in on the PPM impact - I don't use CaCO3 for the reason noted above.

Bottom line - don't sweat it - it will probably turn out just fine.

 

[Niatras]

Thank you for the reply. I did not intend to raise mash ph. That addition was a mistake. Read salt package wrong. After the addition of calcium chloride, per calculation, calcium at 96 and chloride at 93. As far as I know those should be acceptable ranges. I used 25% tap water and 75% distilled water because my sulfates are too high. I don’t trust local RO water. They might have mineral additions.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

As was already stated, in this case the high degree of insolubility of Calcium Carbonate is your friend. Most of it never enters solution and instead simply drops out and therefore your mash pH rise was likely only somewhere around 0.10 points. If it was as soluble as Baking Soda your mash pH rise would have been more on the order of 0.30 to perhaps 0.40 points.

Good thing you didn't add 5.5 grams of Calcium Hydroxide, as for that case your pH rise might have been on the order of about 0.90 to 1.00 points.

 

[mabrungard]

Yes, probably no substantial effect from the calcium carbonate addition. Relax on this one, but do pay attention next time!

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

The sad part is that home brewers are not informed that (due to it's insolubility issue) their Calcium Carbonate will not do what textbooks and mash software claim it will with respect to both Ca++ ion contribution and pH shift. Such sources generally do not account for the poor solubility, and instead presume full solubility.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Worse yet, the solubility of Calcium Carbonate in water at mash temperature is about 1/3 of it's already dismal solubility in the same water at room temperature. It's solubility in water runs inverse to temperature in a logarithmic fashion.

 

[tracer bullet]

Agreed on using the baking soda. For practically any grain bill a pH bump is needed it'll do the job without side effects. I'm sure there's a recipe out there where it would end up being too much but for a normal stout or even Imperial it seems fine. Lime is an option but only for RO water, I learned the hard way it doesn't go well with tap water, and appreciate Larry and Martin both for their posts and answers regarding that. Chalk - forget about it.