Need help with water chemistry

[Knightshade]

Ok, I made some assumptions (e.g. grain wort absorption and boil off rate, 5 gallon batch) which may not match your own, but assuming you're mashing with approx. 7.9 gallon of water, here's what I would probably do.

In Mash: 2.5 grams CaCl2 (just to get a bit of calcium in the mash as an enzyme cofactor and alkalinity offsetter, and some chloride for rounded malty-ness). Mash pH should land in the vicinity of 5.5.

Add After Mash:
1.5 grams CaCl2 (calcium for yeast flocculation, Cl2 for rounded malty-ness)
2 grams CaSO4 (more calcium for yeast flocculation, and a bit of sulfate to balance all the chloride a little)
5.5 grams NaCl (Sodium enhances the chocolate-y flavors)

ETA: the above will result in a profile similar to my big stouts.

So..I threw these numbers into BrewersFriend, and this is the result. Is this accurate?

I thought you wanted your Ca and Sulfate numbers to be at least 50? Or is the Sulfate number just on the cusp what is generally accepted as a 2:1 ratio and you stretched it to 3:1?

 

[VikeMan]

So..I threw these numbers into BrewersFriend, and this is the result. Is this accurate?

I thought you wanted your Ca and Sulfate numbers to be at least 50?

If you followed what I posted, including the "add 10% more minerals" comment after I knew the actual water volume, you should have come up with an overall Ca concentration of close to 50 ppm. I can't tell from your Brewer's Friend screen cap what you actually added. If you can lay that out here, I can tell you what the actual concentrations would be. What were your water volumes and your additions? (Don't forget to include both the mash additions and the after mash additions.)

 

[Knightshade]

If you followed what I posted, including the "add 10% more minerals" comment after I knew the actual water volume, you should have come up with an overall Ca concentration of close to 50 ppm. I can't tell from your Brewer's Friend screen cap what you actually added. If you can lay that out here, I can tell you what the actual concentrations would be. What were your water volumes and your additions? (Don't forget to include both the mash additions and the after mash additions.)

I did base this on 8G of water and did add the 10% more that you mentioned. I noticed that BF didn't seem to change any of the values for .1G, so I just left it at 8 for simplicity. And since the Op confirmed full volume mash based on your inquiry, I'm just assuming no sparge calculations are needed.

And clearly I don't know how to add...but the numbers still look off? The source water has 0 values for everything.

 

[VikeMan]

Here's what I originally recommended:
In Mash: 2.5 grams CaCl2
Add After Mash:
1.5 grams CaCl2
2 grams CaSO4
5.5 grams NaCl

Then, when OP stated 8.97 gallons, I recommended increasing by ~10%. That would get us to:

In Mash: 2.75 grams CaCl2
Add After Mash:
1.65 grams CaCl2
2.2 grams CaSO4
6.05 grams NaCl

Here's the result:

I don't know how you do separate, non-proportional mash and kettle additions in Brewer's Friend, but I would assume there's a way.

 

[Knightshade]

Too many tabs..and trying to work. I completely missed the initial "In Mash" of CaCl2. I get close enough to the numbers that you posted that I feel better about where/what I missed. I put in the Op's grain bill...or at least a rough approximation of it and end up with numbers fairly close to yours.

53.9 / 0 / 61 / 166.3 / 31.5 / 0
mash pH 5.45

(and I've read, read, and re-read the preso you oftentimes link regarding water chemistry. I now see that you're pretty much laying out Slide 9. I had been operating under the assumption up to this point that you just dumped all the salts into your hot water, then add your grains and have at it.

I imagine...you'd want to try and bump up the pH a little closer to 5.5 and alkalinity in the 180-200 range, which would also be added to the kettle vs. the mash.

Regardless learned quite a bit today, thanks!

 

[VikeMan]

I imagine...you'd want to try and bump up the pH a little closer to 5.5 and alkalinity in the 180-200 range, which would also be added to the kettle vs. the mash.

You could target a mash pH of 5.5, using bit of baking soda or slaked lime. But 5.45 is, IMO, also fine for a stout.

Regarding Alkalinity (HCO3), IMO it should never have any sort of independent target. If you have to add it to reach a desired mash pH (i.e. to increase the pH), that's fine. But other than that, it doesn't really "do" anything for your beer, other than make it harder (for many grists) to get down to the desired mash pH. And I can't think of a good reason to add it to the kettle after the mash.

ETA: Regarding the mash pH of 5.45 you saw in Brewer's Friend... you should make sure that you didn't add all of the salts (both mash and kettle) to the mash (as far as Brewer's friend is concerned). You don't want "kettle salts" impacting your mash pH projection. I mention this because if I put all of the salts (mash + kettle) into the mash in BrewCipher, I get a predicted mash pH of 5.43...pretty close to your 5.45.

 

[Knightshade]

If I got straight up all into the mash with 8.97G of water, 2.2 CaSo4, 6.05 NaCl and 4.4 CaCl (all grams of course) I end up with 5.40 pH and of course, the 'actual' water values are all screwed up again.

61.9 / 0 / 70.1 / 190.9 / 36.1 / 0

I'm guessing this is just underlying math, Lovibond values?

Hear ya on the Alkalinity, I'll just let it fall where it may.

 

[VikeMan]

I'm guessing this is just underlying math, Lovibond values?

I don't know what Brewer's Friend does, but years ago, Lovibond numbers were commonly used in mash pH calculations. The issue with that is that you can get the same wort SRM different ways, e.g. you can get (the same) color from crystal malts or from darkly roasted malts, and they don't add the same amount of acidity "per color unit."

Next came models that use generic information about general malt types (e.g. base, wheat, crystal, roasted). These were/are an improvement on the straight SRM models.

Then came models that use specific measured data about specific malts, like "Briess Caramel 60" or "Dingemans Aromatic" where available and generic data where specific data is not available.

You might find any/all of these methods, depending on the mash pH model you choose.

 

[Knightshade]

I need a beer...so damn complicated.

I just want something that says...this style, start HERE. It won't be award winning, but it won't suck either.

Not give a range between 50-150 or similar. That is alot of variance.

 

[VikeMan]

Not give a range between 50-150 or similar. That is alot of variance.

Some mash pH programs come with recommended profiles for each style.

 

[Knightshade]

Yeah..I've probably got about 4 different spreadsheets and they're largely inconsistent. Which doesn't help...I just need to pick one and be done w/it me thinks.

 

[DarrellQ]

Ok, I made some assumptions (e.g. grain wort absorption and boil off rate, 5 gallon batch) which may not match your own, but assuming you're mashing with approx. 7.9 gallon of water, here's what I would probably do.

In Mash: 2.5 grams CaCl2 (just to get a bit of calcium in the mash as an enzyme cofactor and alkalinity offsetter, and some chloride for rounded malty-ness). Mash pH should land in the vicinity of 5.5.

Add After Mash:
1.5 grams CaCl2 (calcium for yeast flocculation, Cl2 for rounded malty-ness)
2 grams CaSO4 (more calcium for yeast flocculation, and a bit of sulfate to balance all the chloride a little)
5.5 grams NaCl (Sodium enhances the chocolate-y flavors)

ETA: the above will result in a profile similar to my big stouts.

New to all grain brewing, so please pardon these basic questions. When do you measure mash pH? After the 60 minutes mashing? Also, how do you determine "the efficiency of the mash?" I assume by measuring OG after the boil? Thanks

 

[VikeMan]

New to all grain brewing, so please pardon these basic questions. When do you measure mash pH? After the 60 minutes mashing?

I measure at about 30 minutes into the mash.

Also, how do you determine "the efficiency of the mash?" I assume by measuring OG after the boil? Thanks

Mash efficiency is a measure of what percentage of total possible sugars and dextrins from the grain bill actually make it into the kettle. You can measure it before the boil or after the boil, because the amount of sugars/dextrins won't change during the boil. Either way, the volume of wort at the time the gravity measurement is taken has to be taken into account, because boiling does change the concentration of sugars/dextrins. I think the most common mistake people make when computing mash efficiency is to measure a post boil gravity and just assume that the post boil volume is what the recipe says it should be, or they know the volume is different, but don't understand why that's important. Further reading:
http://sonsofalchemy.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Mash_Efficiency_and_Brewhouse_Efficiency.pdf

 

[Knightshade]

http://sonsofalchemy.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Mash_Efficiency_and_Brewhouse_Efficiency.pdf

Perhaps it is because I already had a primer of that presentation due to having previously read that section from "How to Brew", but that was really easy to follow. Good info.