Newbie question about grain bills

[Abdul Muhamed]

1.010 perhaps (and hopefully)?
Measured with a calibrated hydrometer that reads 1.000 in plain water, at calibration temp?

What yeast did you use?
How long had it been fermenting?

Have you read How to Brew 4th Ed. by John Palmer?

Sorry, Typo...It finished at 1.010 specific gravity meaning it had a starting gravity of 1.064 and final of 1.010. This indicates ABV of 7%. I was sure it had finished fermentation. I fixed the typo to prevent confusion. Yeast was S 04 and it fermented 11 days. I got 3 consecutive readings of 1.01 so I was confident it was done.
My confusion was reading the BrewSmith2 calculator on amount of water to add.

 

[Abdul Muhamed]

It is just about impossible to get accurate pH measurements on distilled, deionized, or RO water. They have no buffering power, so anything they absorb from the air, or any minor contaminants, will shift their pH.

You should always check your meters with purpose made calibration solutions. These have a high buffering capacity to keep their pH stable. To check the stability of your meter, first calibrate the meter (with either two or three buffers), and then periodically remeasure pH over several hours, using the same buffers that you calibrated with. If you get drifting pH measurements, then your meter has stability issues.

Brew on

Taking pH of deionized distilled water can be accurately accomplished if one puts a tiny pinch of salt in the water. This re-ionizes it to allow the electrical impulse to travel between electrodes without changing is neutral pH.

Both meters were calibrated with the included powders and still showed significantly different readings simultaneously and over time. If I put the first calibrated meter in the buffer solution marked 4.01 and get 4.01 at calibration then get 4.8 a minute later, then it is inconsistent. If I put the next meter in the same solution and get 3.3 that shows inaccuracy. Believe me, I fiddled with them for over an hour. They sometimes calibrated correctly then drifted over time, they always gave different readings between the two meters in the same solution. Owning 2 meters, I had the opportunity to to side-by-side and over-time comparisons. As I mentioned, even Lab-quality pH meters must be calibrated each use. I'd have been happy with an error rate of 0.09 or less, but pH is logarithmic. meaning that being off by 1 is actually being wrong by 10 times the true value...

 

[hottpeper13]

I don't use a pH meter in RO (or the like) water, I use a TDS meter. My RO is between 5-7 ppm and the membrane gets replaced at 10 ppm.

 

[mac_1103]

Taking pH of deionized distilled water can be accurately accomplished if one puts a tiny pinch of salt in the water.

But why do you care about the pH of your water?

This re-ionizes it to allow the electrical impulse to travel between electrodes without changing is neutral pH.

But as noted above, all sorts of things can and do change its pH.

 

[Abdul Muhamed]

But why do you care about the pH of your water?

But as noted above, all sorts of things can and do change its pH.

People cares about the pH of their tap water if they are using it to make beer- beer is mostly water. My tap water is 8.6- alkaline. Some tap water is acidic.

I'm done discussing the accuracy of home pH meters. If you believe you have a good meter which is accurate and precise, and you recalibrate it regularly, great. As many people say, "who cares if the brew tastes great" but if someone has skunky beer and it is due to a pH problem, an inaccurate meter will only hide the problem.
I couldn't figure out why my homemade bread wasn't turning out. I tried lots of recipes all failed. THEN I took a digital temp of my 425°F oven and found out that it was really only 385°F. My process/recipe was fine, the oven thermostat was inaccurate. a mental note to myself to add 50 degrees to any recipe solved that issue. I can't "recalibrate my oven

 

[mac_1103]

People cares about the pH of their tap water if they are using it to make beer- beer is mostly water.

The starting pH of the water is (almost) irrelevant, the pH of the mash is what matters, and the alkalinity (buffering capacity) of the water is what matters for getting the mash pH right. You were talking about "deionized distilled" water, which should have basically zero alkalinity. If you're brewing with tap water, you need to account for its chemistry and its alkalinity in particular, but you can almost certainly safely ignore its pH.

 

[ncbrewer]

I got 3 consecutive readings of 1.01 so I was confident it was done.

IMO it's best to just take two gravity samples, 3 days apart, rather than sampling three days in a row. Less chance for contamination and oxidation.

 

[Abdul Muhamed]

IMO it's best to just take two gravity samples, 3 days apart, rather than sampling three days in a row. Less chance for contamination and oxidation.

Thanks, I didn't think about the contamination aspect. I worry about the whole siphoning process contaminating it anyway....

 

[Abdul Muhamed]

The starting pH of the water is (almost) irrelevant, the pH of the mash is what matters, and the alkalinity (buffering capacity) of the water is what matters for getting the mash pH right. You were talking about "deionized distilled" water, which should have basically zero alkalinity. If you're brewing with tap water, you need to account for its chemistry and its alkalinity in particular, but you can almost certainly safely ignore its pH.

Thanks, That is a good explanation. I had my tap water tested several years ago and they included the dissolved solids and alkalinity. I'll have to dig that report out and read it again.

 

[doug293cz]

Sorry, Typo...It finished at 1.010 specific gravity meaning it had a starting gravity of 1.064 and final of 1.010. This indicates ABV of 7%. I was sure it had finished fermentation. I fixed the typo to prevent confusion. Yeast was S 04 and it fermented 11 days. I got 3 consecutive readings of 1.01 so I was confident it was done.
My confusion was reading the BrewSmith2 calculator on amount of water to add.
View attachment 875188

I think your volume issues are caused by the amount of post-boil Top Up Water that YOU specified. That forces the strike water and sparge water volumes to be too low.

Brew on

 

[doug293cz]

Both meters were calibrated with the included powders and still showed significantly different readings simultaneously and over time. If I put the first calibrated meter in the buffer solution marked 4.01 and get 4.01 at calibration then get 4.8 a minute later, then it is inconsistent. If I put the next meter in the same solution and get 3.3 that shows inaccuracy. Believe me, I fiddled with them for over an hour. They sometimes calibrated correctly then drifted over time, they always gave different readings between the two meters in the same solution. Owning 2 meters, I had the opportunity to to side-by-side and over-time comparisons.

Definitely sounds like your meters are pretty low quality, and have very poor stability.

Brew on

 

[Abdul Muhamed]

I think your volume issues are caused by the amount of post-boil Top Up Water that YOU specified. That forces the strike water and sparge water volumes to be too low.

View attachment 875226

Brew on

I guess I don't understand "top up water". My mash pot has no calibrations for volume, I rely on volume of strike water and volume of sparge water and estimated boil off...How can I figure "top up water"?

 

[mac_1103]

I had my tap water tested several years ago and they included the dissolved solids and alkalinity. I'll have to dig that report out and read it again.

If it's been several years then it may have changed.

 

[mac_1103]

I think your volume issues are caused by the amount of post-boil Top Up Water that YOU specified. That forces the strike water and sparge water volumes to be too low.

I guess I don't understand "top up water". My mash pot has no calibrations for volume, I rely on volume of strike water and volume of sparge water and estimated boil off...How can I figure "top up water"?

If you aren't adding water to the wort after the boil to hit your desired volume into the fermenter, then you need to delete that 2.25 gallon entry in the "Top Up Water" cell.

 

[doug293cz]

I guess I don't understand "top up water". My mash pot has no calibrations for volume, I rely on volume of strike water and volume of sparge water and estimated boil off...How can I figure "top up water"?

Top Up Water is what you add after you are done boiling* in order to reach your desired batch volume. It is normally added directly to your fermenter. You should only be using top up water if your boil kettle is not large enough to hold your entire batch volume (volume into the fermenter) plus your boil-off volume plus whatever trub volume you leave behind in the BK.

Top Up Water is an input variable in BeerSmith, meaning it is something you specify. BeerSmith does not determine how much top up water to use.

Unless your BK is too small to hold all of the wort volume required (as defined in the first paragraph above) you should enter "0" in the input field for Top Up Water.

* In some cases you might add some of the top up water during the boil as volume is made available by water boiling off.

Brew on

 

[Abdul Muhamed]

Top Up Water is what you add after you are done boiling* in order to reach your desired batch volume. It is normally added directly to your fermenter. You should only be using top up water if your boil kettle is not large enough to hold your entire batch volume (volume into the fermenter) plus your boil-off volume plus whatever trub volume you leave behind in the BK.

Top Up Water is an input variable in BeerSmith, meaning it is something you specify. BeerSmith does not determine how much top up water to use.

Unless your BK is too small to hold all of the wort volume required (as defined in the first paragraph above) you should enter "0" in the input field for Top Up Water.

* In some cases you might add some of the top up water during the boil as volume is made available by water boiling off.

Brew on

Ah, OK...I don't remember putting a number in the "top up water" box but I must have. I generally start with more strike water and sparge water than I need so that boil off and grain absorption loss brings me to the final volume. As I mentioned, my boil kettle (a 23qt pressure canner without the lid) has no markings to show the level of liquid but holds nearly 6 gallons. It seems strange to "top up" after a boil if the calculators can tell you a close approx. of the actual loss before you start. I thought BrewSmith's telling me to only use 1 qt of sparge very strange!

 

[Abdul Muhamed]

Ah, OK...I don't remember putting a number in the "top up water" box but I must have. I generally start with more strike water and sparge water than I need so that boil off and grain absorption loss brings me to the final volume. As I mentioned, my boil kettle (a 23qt pressure canner without the lid) has no markings to show the level of liquid but holds nearly 6 gallons. It seems strange to "top up" after a boil if the calculators can tell you a close approx. of the actual loss before you start. I thought BrewSmith's telling me to only use 1 qt of sparge very strange!

So, after the idiotic mistakes I made, this is the final profile of what I bottled. For the HUGE mistake I made with water calculations, I would think it horribly strong and undrinkable, but after bottling, I sampled some left in the fermenter and it was pleasant. The only thing I can figure was the "top up water" box was prepopulated and I didn't notice. The grainbill I used should have given me 2.3 gallons of final product and I got exactly 1 gallon so you see how much error in water was involved. Not sure why, but it is a bit darker than the BrewSmith picture, it is almost as dark as Coca-Cola with a definite red hue to it. Here is a screenshot of the BeerSmith breakdown when I adjusted the water amount from what I SHOUD have used to what I actually used:

 

[Abdul Muhamed]

If it's been several years then it may have changed.

It is well-watered from an underground water table, so it probably hasn't changed much. My understanding is that if you like the taste of your water, using it will be fine. Part of the problem is that nowadays most people have "municipal" water, which has chlorine. This must be run through a filter or allowed to sit for a time to evaporate the chlorine; well water has no chlorine. I have decided that regarding pH and water contents, If the final brew tastes good, I'm not going to fuss with buffers, mineral add-ins, or checking pH/alkalinity. I've never had a problem with our water inhibiting enzymatic activity in corn mash, sour mash, or beer. Our water is fairly alkaline and I worried at first that I couldn't get a mash acidic enough, but I get a highly efficient ferment no matter what I ferment.

 

[Abdul Muhamed]

Update on the disasterous brew saga: I opened a bottle. Been long enough to test carbonation and flavor. It was delicious. I have NO idea how it ended up tasting good when I literally ended up with about half what I should have from the grainbill I used. it had a darker color, like strong iced tea. b/c I used 2 oz of chocolate malt, and didn't have enough water. It had no burned toast flavor but a smooth coffee and caramel taste. I'm sad I screwed up the top-up water b/c if I made the full recipe I'd have 30 bottles instead of 18.

Lessons learned: ALWAYS check all of the boxes on a brew calculator to make sure the are correct. Practice siphoning with water until I'm not splashing it all over the place. Triple check that the grains I "thought" I had on hand were.

 

[RM-MN]

Update on the disasterous brew saga: I opened a bottle. Been long enough to test carbonation and flavor. It was delicious. I have NO idea how it ended up tasting good when I literally ended up with about half what I should have from the grainbill I used. it had a darker color, like strong iced tea. b/c I used 2 oz of chocolate malt, and didn't have enough water. It had no burned toast flavor but a smooth coffee and caramel taste. I'm sad I screwed up the top-up water b/c if I made the full recipe I'd have 30 bottles instead of 18.

Lessons learned: ALWAYS check all of the boxes on a brew calculator to make sure the are correct. Practice siphoning with water until I'm not splashing it all over the place. Triple check that the grains I "thought" I had on hand were.

if you had used all the water your beer would have half the alcohol and half the flavor.

 

[bike2brew]

Update on the disasterous brew saga: I opened a bottle. Been long enough to test carbonation and flavor. It was delicious. I have NO idea how it ended up tasting good when I literally ended up with about half what I should have from the grainbill I used. it had a darker color, like strong iced tea. b/c I used 2 oz of chocolate malt, and didn't have enough water. It had no burned toast flavor but a smooth coffee and caramel taste. I'm sad I screwed up the top-up water b/c if I made the full recipe I'd have 30 bottles instead of 18.

Lessons learned: ALWAYS check all of the boxes on a brew calculator to make sure the are correct. Practice siphoning with water until I'm not splashing it all over the place. Triple check that the grains I "thought" I had on hand were.

We all started somewhere. Savor your 7 beers and keep brewing.

 

[Abdul Muhamed]

if you had used all the water your beer would have half the alcohol and half the flavor.

I don't understand why. The original recipe called for about 5lbs of grain and 4 gallons of water to make 2.6 gallons of brew. I accidentally had 2.25gal of "top up water" in the brew calculator box when I should have had "zero gallons" of top up water. I never added the top-up water so the brew ended up only 1.6 gallons instead of 2.6 gallons. It should have been nasty-too strong. If I had done it correctly and used 2.6 gal. water, it should have had the same ABV after ferment, and had a good flavor. but using 38% less water than I should have resulted in good beer...

 

[mac_1103]

If I had done it correctly and used 2.6 gal. water, it should have had the same ABV after ferment, and had a good flavor.

How do you figure? If you had added top up water, your wort would have had the same amount of fermentables in a larger volume of water and therefore lower ABV in the finished beer. If you had mashed in a larger volume, you might have gotten somewhat better efficiency but it seems unlikely that you'd have wound up with exactly the same ABV.

 

[Abdul Muhamed]

How do you figure? If you had added top up water, your wort would have had the same amount of fermentables in a larger volume of water and therefore lower ABV in the finished beer. If you had mashed in a larger volume, you might have gotten somewhat better efficiency but it seems unlikely that you'd have wound up with exactly the same ABV.

I know that...ABV is cut in half if water is doubled after fermentation. But I added the wrong amount of water before fermenting.
The correct amount of water the recipe said to use for a 2.6-gallon batch was 4 gallons. I accidentally only used about 2 gallons of water for the full grain bill and got only 1 gallon of final product instead of 2.6 gallons. It should have been too strong, too dark, too concentrated with only half the correct amount of water. The recipe must have been wildly wrong if half of the correct amount of water made a good beer.

 

[mac_1103]

ABV is cut in half if water is doubled after fermentation. But I added the wrong amount of water before fermenting.

ABV is also cut in half if water is doubled before fermentation. Say you mash, lauter, boil and end up with one gallon of wort with SG of 1.08; add another gallon of water and now you have 1.04; the ABV of the finished beer will be half of what it would have been if you hadn't added the extra water.

The recipe must have been wildly wrong if half of the correct amount of water made a good beer.

Or your efficiency took a really big hit and you wound up with both less wort and a lower SG.

 

[Abdul Muhamed]

ABV is also cut in half if water is doubled before fermentation. Say you mash, lauter, boil and end up with one gallon of wort with SG of 1.08; add another gallon of water and now you have 1.04; the ABV of the finished beer will be half of what it would have been if you hadn't added the extra water.

Or your efficiency took a really big hit and you wound up with both less wort and a lower SG.

Looking at my notes, my starting SG was 1.064 and final was 1.010, which gave ABV of about 7%. I added no sugar so the efficiency of the grain starch conversion was good. I used S 04 yeast which has a decently high alcohol tolerance.
It's like taking lemonade drink mix powder and the instructions say "Add 1 tablespoon of mix powder to 12oz of water and I added 1 tablespoon of powder to 6 oz water. It would be undrinkable, too sweet, too strong, etc. yet it tastes fine.

 

[mac_1103]

starting SG was 1.064 and final was 1.010, which gave ABV of about 7%. I added no sugar so the efficiency of the grain starch conversion was good.

Conversion is only one part of efficiency. According to your post #77, the expected OG was 1.119 and your overall efficiency was 35%. So most of that converted starch didn't make it into the fermenter; if it had you would have wound up with 11+% ABV.

 

[Abdul Muhamed]

Conversion is only one part of efficiency. According to your post #77, the expected OG was 1.119 and your overall efficiency was 35%. So most of that converted starch didn't make it into the fermenter; if it had you would have wound up with 11+% ABV.

Ok. Maybe the efficiency was poor. I'm still confused about how the flavor wasn't off-the-top nasty. I"m just trying to learn from my mistakes (this one was b/c I was not careful reading the calculator). But I'm also curious about why it turned out fine...

 

[ncbrewer]

Maybe the efficiency was poor. I'm still confused about how the flavor wasn't off-the-top nasty.

Efficiency was low, and top-off water volume was low. To some extent, they cancelled in terms of extract concentration.

 

[mac_1103]

^this^

Your errors counteracted each other.