RO Water for Belgian Dubbel - Additions?

[Jiffster]

I'm brewing this "Christmas in Belgium" and I ma not certain of what additions, if any, I should use for my RO water aside from lactic acid to bring the mash pH in the 5.2-5.4 range.

Any advice would be very welcome.

I'll be batch sparging - 5 gallon batch.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=274187

 

[mabrungard]

Look at the sodium, chloride, and sulfate levels that are present in the various Belgian city profiles in Bru'n Water to get an idea of what they start with. None of them are particularly mineralized. Getting the wort pH in the right range is important. Most pale grists require some acid in the mash to get the pH down enough.

 

[Jiffster]

Look at the sodium, chloride, and sulfate levels that are present in the various Belgian city profiles in Bru'n Water to get an idea of what they start with. None of them are particularly mineralized. Getting the wort pH in the right range is important. Most pale grists require some acid in the mash to get the pH down enough.

I plugged my grain bill into Bruin Water and the estimated Mash pH is 5.57 with RO water and no additions.

When I add .5 grams/gal Calcium Chloride for 4.25 gal of Mash water and 4 gal of Sparge water it brings my estimated mash pH to 5.45.

Bruin is dividing the "Mash" and "Sparge" additions at 2.13 and 2.00 respectively.

The "Mash Water Profile" and "Overall Finished Water Profile" both show a Calcium level of 48.7 ppm.

1) Is the Mash pH adjustment from the CaCI2 addition due to the "Mash" addition (2.13g) alone or is also taking into account the "Sparge" addition (2.00g)?

2) If my mash pH is sufficient due to the 2.13g addition in the "Mash", should I just add the 2.00g "Sparge" addition to the wort/boil instead of putting it in my sparge water?

3) Bruin is showing my RO water has 8 ppm of Sodium. Based on the Chimay water profile (7 ppm Sodium) I assume I wouldn't need any other additions than Calcium Chloride (~50 ppm) for this brew, correct? (To err on the side of caution).

 

[mabrungard]

There can be times when you want to add all the salts to the mash instead of distributing to both mash and sparge. The supporter's version of Bru'n Water has a feature to account for that.

 

[Jiffster]

I'm using the supporters version. I don't recall how to adjust for that.

Also, would I need to consider anything different for pH if doing a protein rest followed by saccrification rest then batch sparking?

 

[mabrungard]

There is a toggle with "Add Sparging Water mineral additions to Mash?" next to it. Setting that to Yes will account for the pH shift due to the extra Ca and Mg along with the resulting dilution when the sparging water is added. This is very helpful when brewing beers like light lagers with little mineralization in the final water. Adding all the salts to the mash will boost the Ca content to aid in knocking out oxalate.

 

[Jiffster]

Thank you.