non techie needs help with mash pH

[BOBTHEukBREWER]

Hi, I have just been reading around this topic and my head is spinning. I think the water here is hard, so do I need to adjust mash pH if I make light bitters from maris otter crushed pale malt with no other grains added. Should the answer be yes, would adding carapils at 16 oz to 5 gallons of final liquor help at all? Can you get mash pH buffers here in UK. Many thanks.

 

[Denny]

Carapils won't drop the pH a lot. I've found the buffers to be rather hot or miss...depending on your starting water and the type of beer you're making they may or may not work. The best way to deal with it would be to get a water analysis and some pH papers to get a reading of what your actual mash pH is.

 

[Mateo]

I would recommend getting a pH meter and some calibration solution. Then before attempting to change anything make a mini mash of your intended brew. You need to get a baseline off of what pH you mash is before attempting to manipulate it.

Measuring with pH paper can be very inaccurate. Pilsner Malt and RO water generally mash in at 5.8 for me. If add .5 grams of each of the following: Chalk, Epsom Salt, and Calcium Chloride I get my mash down to 5.7 at mash in.

One of the simplest methods of adjusting the pH is an acid rest for a small portion of the mash. I take few pounds of grain and mash it at about 32-35C for a few hours until it starts to develop phytic acid. Then when I start the main mash I mix in enough of this bring the mash pH to just below 5.2. I like to mash at 4.9 pH for my Pilsners. Sparging dramatically increases the pH back up into the high 5s and the acidic taste is negligent, if not enhancing to the overall flavor of the beer.

pH meters are fun investment as you can measure the final pH of your beers and contrast that against commercial examples.

 

[BOBTHEukBREWER]

thanks, folks, I will get a water analysis if I can and come back on this.

 

[BOBTHEukBREWER]

nitrate 18mg/L free chlorine 0.06 mg/L total chlorine .73 mg/L
sodium 38.6 mg/L hardness as calcium 110 mg/L
sulphate 119 mg/L water is officially described as hard. My home brew supplier sells burtonising salts - I assume these are a mix of epsom salts and calcium sulphate, how much of these should I add to a mash of 10 lbs crushed pale malt, thanks.

 

[ajf]

for a Bitter, your calcium and sulfate are both on the low side of good.
Your analysis doesn't mention the water pH, Magnesium, or Chloride. You may be able to get test kits for the Mg and pH from a pet store that deals with fish, and a good garden center often has kits for the pH.
I would think you could add a small amount of Gypsum or Burtonizing salts (say a max of 4g for your total brewing water) without doing any damage, and this would bump the SO4 to a better level for a Bitter. You may also benefit form a very small addition of non iodized salt, depending on the chloride level.
On the other hand, you should also be able to use the water without any adjustments.

-a.

 

[maida7]

I think you need a good idea of your PH before you can decide if and how much adjustment you need.

Both gypsum and calcium chloride will drive the Ph down. Gypsum is more appropriate in a bitter.

Another idea is to use hydrochloric acid. It's a quick and easy way to drop the ph. But don't over do it. I think you'd need a good Ph meter to know what's going on and how much to add.

 

[BOBTHEukBREWER]

free chlorine is .06 mg/L and total chlorine is .73 mg/L so surely non free chlorine = chlorides = .67 mg/L. I have asked water company for a full analysis so will have the Mg figure in a few days. I have pure sea salt, and I have accurate scales that can weigh to half gram accuracy. Next brew I will add 4 gm burtonising salts and 2 gm salt. If I detect an improvement I won't know what to do next - smiles. Seriously, could I just add gypsum - calcium sulphate to the mash? I am sure that I saw a table of water analyses for london dublin burton pilsner and others I will look for it now, thanks.

 

[maida7]

free chlorine is .06 mg/L and total chlorine is .73 mg/L so surely non free chlorine = chlorides = .67 mg/L. I have asked water company for a full analysis so will have the Mg figure in a few days. I have pure sea salt, and I have accurate scales that can weigh to half gram accuracy. Next brew I will add 4 gm burtonising salts and 2 gm salt. If I detect an improvement I won't know what to do next - smiles. Seriously, could I just add gypsum - calcium sulphate to the mash? I am sure that I saw a table of water analyses for london dublin burton pilsner and others I will look for it now, thanks.

I would not add all that sodium. Sodium gets unpleasant fairly quickly. I'd use gypsum. Get your water report and then plug your numbers into this http://www.ezwatercalculator.com/ Do not go crazy with the sufate and try to match the burton water profile. Sulfate above 300 ppm is gonna be way over the top. Sometimes less is more.

 

[ajf]

No. chlorine and chlorides are different. See http://www.edstrom.com/Resources.cfm?doc_id=164 for an explanation of chlorine.
Yes, you could add Gypsum instead of Burtonizing salts. The Gypsum will lower the pH a bit more and will not add any Mg, but according to George Fix, malts already contain enough Mg, so it isn't necessary to add more.
I'm brewing a Special Bitter right now, and I added 12g Gypsum and 500mg of sea salt (but my water is downright wimpy i.e. very soft).
I wouldn't add 2g salt. That's about 4 times as much as I need with my soft water.
According to Terry Foster (author of Pale Ales), the ideal water profile for a Bitter is Calcium 50 - 100 ppm, Sulfate 100 - 200 ppm, and Chloride 20 ppm, so I was wrong in my original post. Your Ca levels are slightly above his recommendations, but as you get into the IPA range, he doubles the Ca and SO4, and up's the Cl to 30 ppm.
I have had very good luck following his recommendations. Sorry about the error in the first post.

-a.

 

[BOBTHEukBREWER]

thanks maida and ajf. If sodium is bad, should I add chloride as calcium chloride? Will wait for my full water analysis now but brewing tomorrow a darker bitter with 8 oz of chocolate malt and 12 oz of crystal malt with 8 lb pale malt (6 gals) - should be ok, and finally I think I over sparge so will check SG of runnings with refractometer and stop at 1.008, thanks again.

 

[ajf]

Too much of anything is bad, not just sodium. As you don't have the full details of your water yet, but you know that the Ca and SO4 are good, I wouldn't add anything. That way you'll have a reference point if you later decide you want to treat your water.

-a.

 

[pearlbeer]

Or you can just adjust your water to 5.2 and make life easy:

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/produ...=1692&osCsid=eef0257ce3c92d9916c9b3970c2d2277

 

[Denny]

Or you can just adjust your water to 5.2 and make life easy:

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?products_id=1692&osCsid=eef0257ce3c92d9916c9b3970c2d2277

And it may or may not work. Always check your pH when you use that stuff. It usually does nothing for my mash.

 

[winvarin]

One other piece of advice. Take these questions to the Brew Science forum and look for a guy by the name of "ajdelange". I have highly alkaline water and have had a terrible time brewing lighter beers. I spent much of last week on that forum talking with him and got a lot of great advice that helped me this past weekend.

He took an in depth look at my goals and what I was planning to do to my water and in my opinion, saved me from what might have been a handful of bad mistakes that I was planning on making with my water chemistry.

He'll go extremely heavy on the science end, so you'll need to be prepared for a little extra research to keep up with him. But if you do, it will be worth it.

Based on his recommendations of CaCl and a touch of acidulated malt, I brewed a wheat/rye that was in the 5.1-sh range accoding to my pH strips. Conversion was good, my numbers were good. I'm really looking forward to delving deeper into the subject myself. It opens up a lot of beers that I had decided were going to be marginal based on my water profile (which is best for stouts and porters, not that there's anything wrong with that) :rockin:

 

[BOBTHEukBREWER]

ok full analysis of my water is as follows..
hardness 109 mg/L as Ca Chloride 58.4 mg/l sulphate 119 mg/L
fluoride 1 ppm nitrate 18.1 mg/L Aluminium 2.1 micrograms/L
Ammonium 0.205 mg/L Iron 16 micrograms/L nitrate 18 mg/L
pH (hyrogen ion) 7.36

Please suggest adjustments for light bitters (3.6%, only pale malt) and darker bitters 4.2% with crystal and chocolate malt as well as pale malt - many thanks.

 

[BOBTHEukBREWER]

stop press Magnesium 10.5 mg/L

 

[ajdelange]

Hi, I have just been reading around this topic and my head is spinning. I think the water here is hard, so do I need to adjust mash pH if I make light bitters from maris otter crushed pale malt with no other grains added. Should the answer be yes, would adding carapils at 16 oz to 5 gallons of final liquor help at all? Can you get mash pH buffers here in UK. Many thanks.

If by mash buffers you mean something like the 5.2 product sold here in the US, don't waste your money.

What you can get in the UK is a product called CRS. See http://www.brupaks.com/brewing-aids.htm where they describe it and how to use it. Following the instructions there should get you a decent beer as long as you stick to British styles where high mineral content (especially sulfate) are common. This methodology does not work very well for continental lagers, for example.

 

[BOBTHEukBREWER]

thank you for the really quick response, friend.

 

[ajdelange]

thank you for the really quick response, friend.

No problem.

I forgot to note that though your report does not mention alkalinity or bicarbonate, the former is going to be about 175 ppm as CaCO3 and the latter about 210 mg/L. You need alkalinity to calculate the amount of CRS to use if you go that route.

Also forgot to mention that your water contains chloramine which isn't removed easily by the usual methods of treatment. Get some sodium metabisulfite from an HB or wine shop and use a pinch of that to treat your water (add it in tiny increments until you can't smell chlorine any more). Or get Campden tablets and use 1 per approximately 20 gal treated.

 

[BOBTHEukBREWER]

My water is 109 mg/L (=ppm) as Calcium, so surely I do not need to reduce carbonate.
In fact I think I need to add dry liquor salts at 0.6 gm/L to bring the Calcium up to 220.

Ajdelange - can you confirm please? also my pH is 7.36 so maybe I reduce the carbonate then add calcium and magnesium sulphates - I do find this very confusing.

 

[maida7]

Use this spreadsheet. http://www.ezwatercalculator.com/ Plug in your numbers and it will simplify the whole process.