Ph meters(Europe)+ other questions re BIAB science

[winstonia]

Where could one attain one of these for brewing, also how much should I be spending?

People from the rest of the world can answer too obviously.

At what stage should I add gypsum etc ie from the start or when reached mash temp or after adding grain. Won't be sparging

My tap water profile is below, first timer and looking to attempt this for a 12-13L batch US IPA beer(any profiles to copy?)

Calcium: 20.00 ppm
Sulfate: 35.00 ppm
Magnesium: 1.50 ppm
Chloride: 25.00 ppm
Sodium: 12.00 ppm
Bicarbonate: 32.00 ppm
PH: 6.80

trying to figure it out using ezwater calc, it's confusing. Obviously I know this isn't going to work straight away. That's a Dublin water profile by the way, where I'm based. Is it like they say the perfect one for stouts? I doubt it!

 

[ajdelange]

A scientific supply house. The relatively popular Hach pHPro + is actually the product of Lange, a German company (though it is manufactured in China). In the US they sell for around $100. Do a search on the web.

If I were doing an Irish stout with that water I wouldn't do a thing to it. It is pretty good as is. I would, however, consider brewing it several times with some gypsum addition (add to the water whenever it is convenient) to see if you like the beer better with more or less sulfate.

 

[mabrungard]

Suitability for stout brewing depends upon what style of stout being brewed and where in Dublin you are. Most of the city gets water from the Liffey and its quality can vary between wet and dry seasons. Its mostly hard and alkaline. But if you are located on the south side of the city, the water is probably coming from one of the Wicklow reservoirs. That water is typically soft and has low alkalinity. That is the water that St James Gate started with. Its the reason that Guinness dry stout and nicely acidic. Guinness now employs RO machinery in their brewery to assure a consistently low mineralized water for brewing.

Since your target is IPA, that water profile is well suited for amendment into a water suited for IPA. Gypsum should certainly be a mineral amendment. As a starting point, the Pale Ale profile presented in Bru'n Water is what some use for IPA and PA brewing. It does contain a significant sulfate content (300 ppm). That may not suit your palate and you might consider a more moderate level to begin with. I find that 100 ppm sulfate is completely insufficient in a bittered beer. A recommended starting point would be 150 to 200 ppm sulfate.

That tap water really is a decent starting point for brewing. Its not overly mineralized. Do be aware that the city can vary the water quality in some districts. Do visit the City's website to see the water districts and the water sources.

Regarding a pH meter, I strongly recommend against obtaining a unitized meter such as the Hach unit since it ropes you into only buying their replacement probe. If you buy a meter that uses a cabled probe with a BNC connector, you can use a large variety of replacement probes. Since probes will eventually fail, you should plan for its replacement.

 

[ajdelange]

Regarding a pH meter, I strongly recommend against obtaining a unitized meter such as the Hach unit since it ropes you into only buying their replacement probe.

I strongly recommend being strongly influenced by this sort of advice. There are advantages to pocket type meters (convenience) and to separate probe type meters (more flexibility) but I and others use both types with success. You should be able to make up your own mind.

 

[winstonia]

Cool cheers lads. Yeah it's Northside Dublin 3 water. I'm going to try and figure it out anyway, have ordered gypsum and Epsom before posting this thread.

 

[winstonia]

Is this a typo btw? The 28g per gallon?

https://www.thehomebrewcompany.ie/calcium-sulphate-gypsum-100g-p-1420.html

 

[mabrungard]

I'm not sure it's a typo, but I wouldn't be amending at that rate. That is way over limit.

 

[ajdelange]

Is this a typo btw? The 28g per gallon?

No, that's a perfectly reasonable starting recomendation though many brewers would want more. This supposes that 'g' stands for 'grains' not grams. As it clearly does not given that they are selling a package of '100 g' it has to be a typo. Though some of the guys here might love to have the 4172 mg/L sulfate implied by 28.3 grams/gal that exceeds the solubility of gypsum. Even though you use Imperial gallons over there.

 

[winstonia]

I love Americans but whoever thought of your way of measuring things should get a kick up the arse.... Reminds me a bit of this poster I seen recently

 

[ajdelange]

The 'whoever' were folks from the UK - the people who reckoned money in pounds, shillings and pence (not to mention farthings, ha'pennies, tuppence, thrupence, crowns, half crowns sovereigns and guineas) and gave us the fathom, the rod, the league, the furlong and the fortnight for distance and the drop, ounce, dram, quart, gill, cup, pottle, pin, firkin and hogshead for volume. The yard, for example, was originally the distance from Henry's nose to his thumb when his arm was outstretched. The mile came from the Romans (mille passum - a thousand paces). The original colonies naturally, as most of their commerce was with Mother England, used the units of measure of their principle trading partner. The mistake we make in the US is in insisting on using those relict units even though we are fully aware the longer conversion is put off the more costly the switchover will be.

The Celsius scale is as arbitrary as the Fahrenheit one. It happens to use the freezing point of pure water and its boiling point at sea level on a day when the barometer reads 1013.25 mb as benchmarks. There is an absolute scale, K, but its unit is scaled to put the arbitrary Celsius thumbtacks 100 units apart. The Celsius scale is a big PITA in brewing when we need to do things like compute ATC corrections for pH meter readings because it has to be converted to the absolute (K) scale.

The date thing is a killer. I have booked rooms for the 9th of June only to arrive and be told that there is no reservation for me on that day but that I am in their system for the 6th of September.

 

[mabrungard]

Winstonia, I sure agree with you. But there are too many people in this country that can't or won't learn new things.