Treating sparge water for HERMS system

[BrewRunning]

I'm about to brew my first beer using my new 1/2 BBL Spike HERMS system and wanted to get some intput on my planned mineral and acid additions. I've always batch sparged before and this will be my first time fly sparging.

Using the HERMS system will require more water in the HLT than I will need for sparging. My plan is to do the following;

1. Fill MT with needed strike water (100% RO water).
2. Add all mineral additions recommended for mash AND sparge directly to the MT.
3. Adjust mash PH if needed.
4. Adjust total volume in HLT to achieve a PH around 5.3-5.5 for sparging.

This way I don't have to treat the entire HLT with minerals that would be wasted.

Anyone see any issues with this method? Also, the left over water in the HLT will be used for cleaning. Any issues using PBW with a lower PH like this?

Thanks for any input.

 

[Yooper]

I"d suggest putting the mash additions (the salts and acid, etc) in with the mash, but for the 'sparge additions'- add those to the kettle so you don't drive the mash pH down too low. Those are flavor additions and can go right in the kettle.

How much water will you have to add to your HLT? My HEX is in the HLT, so refilling it too much with cool water means that it'll be too cold to maintain my mash temperature. I start with my HLT full, and then add my salts/acids to the mash as per usual and then refill my HLT as needed (I only have a 15 gallon HLT so often have to refill it after pumping out the strike water).

What acid are you using for the sparge water and your water source? If you have alkaline water, you may have to add quite a bit of certain acids to get such a low sparge water pH and that could have a flavor impact.

 

[jekeane]

Add you sparge salts to the boil kettle add just your acid to the HLT.

 

[BrewRunning]

I"d suggest putting the mash additions (the salts and acid, etc) in with the mash, but for the 'sparge additions'- add those to the kettle so you don't drive the mash pH down too low. Those are flavor additions and can go right in the kettle.

How much water will you have to add to your HLT? My HEX is in the HLT, so refilling it too much with cool water means that it'll be too cold to maintain my mash temperature. I start with my HLT full, and then add my salts/acids to the mash as per usual and then refill my HLT as needed (I only have a 15 gallon HLT so often have to refill it after pumping out the strike water).

What acid are you using for the sparge water and your water source? If you have alkaline water, you may have to add quite a bit of certain acids to get such a low sparge water pH and that could have a flavor impact.

Thanks, I don’t plan on using any of the HLT water for the mash. I’ll start the brew day with 17g in the MT and 20g in the HLT (enough to get over the HERMS coil). I have 30g kettles. Heat HLT while circulating strike water through HERMS until both are up to strike temp.

Thanks for the advice on adding salts to boil kettle. Considered that too.

I use lactic acid. Starting with RO water so, it shouldn’t be too alkaline.

 

[Blazinlow86]

I fill my mlt to the desired volume and add my salts/acid/camp tablet as calculated. I fill my HLT full and only add camp tablets and for good measure I also add acid to bring the sparge water down to 6.0ph. I add the additional salts to the boil kettle for flavor. Fwiw I heat my strike water using the Herms coil rather than heating it in the hlt then transfering. Cheers

 

[Gnomebrewer]

If you're using RO water for the sparge, you don't need to add acid (it has very low alkalinity).

 

[Blazinlow86]

If you're using RO water for the sparge, you don't need to add acid (it has very low alkalinity).

Good point. I use my tap water as it's only about 15ppm and use 30+ gallons a batch. Admittedly I've occassion forgotten to acidify my sparge water and my final runnings ph have always still been in range so it's not a huge deal. Cheers

 

[Yooper]

If you're using RO water for the sparge, you don't need to add acid (it has very low alkalinity).

I was just going to say that- you don't add acid to RO water if you're sparging with it. It's good to go, no matter what the pH meter says!

 

[BrewRunning]

Thanks for all of that info. Very helpful! I was unaware that I didn't need to add acid to RO water for sparging. It's just something I've always done.

As for the salt additions. Assuming that adding all of the salts to the mash does not drop my PH too low, are there any other adverse affects to doing it that way? According to Brun' Water, if I add all my additions to the mash my PH will be 5.52 which means very little acid addition to get the PH in range. If I add only the mash salts it would take more acid to get the PH down.

Thanks,

 

[Yooper]

Thanks for all of that info. Very helpful! I was unaware that I didn't need to add acid to RO water for sparging. It's just something I've always done.

As for the salt additions. Assuming that adding all of the salts to the mash does not drop my PH too low, are there any other adverse affects to doing it that way? According to Brun' Water, if I add all my additions to the mash my PH will be 5.52 which means very little acid addition to get the PH in range. If I add only the mash salts it would take more acid to get the PH down.

Thanks,

No, that's fine to do that. Occasionally, the additional salts will drive the mash pH lower than desired, and that's when you'd add them to the kettle.

 

[BrewRunning]

No, that's fine to do that. Occasionally, the additional salts will drive the mash pH lower than desired, and that's when you'd add them to the kettle.

Thanks!

 

[BrewRunning]

UPDATE:

I brewed this beer the night before last. Ended up adding all salts to mash and hit a mash PH of 5.33 with no acid additions! I realize this won't happen with every brew but, this one worked out perfect.

I also took your recommendations and did not add acid to the sparge water. Runnings never got over 5.5 PH.

Thanks again for all of the input!

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

Interesting. I always thought RO water didn't have enough buffering to alter mash or lauter pH when used untreated for sparging. Something worth checking.

 

[BrewRunning]

Interesting. I always thought RO water didn't have enough buffering to alter mash or lauter pH when used untreated for sparging. Something worth checking.

That’s what I always thought too and have always acidified my sparge water. I didn’t on this past brew based on the suggestions in this thread and it worked great. I’ll keep experimenting with it.

 

[Tbagger]

I adjust the hlt water even though I don't use it all. Minerals are pretty cheap when you buy them by the pound and a couple grams wasted never bothered me.

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

I've also adjusted my brewing water and used it for both mash and sparge with equally good results.