Verify my Bru’n water setup!

[treacheroustexan]

Hey guys. Just received my ward labs report back. I’ve read through a lot of threads and watched videos and think I have a decent grasp on things but still wanted to see if you guys could verify.

After inputting it in Bru’n water and entering my pale ale grain bill and water volumes, I got my mash PH down to 5.3 by adding 12.8g of gypsum and 2.1g of calcium chloride. It’s also showing for sparge 10.8g of gypsum, 1.8g calcium chloride and 2.2g of citric. Does this all sound right or did I screw up? Lol.

 

[VikeMan]

It's hard to say without knowing your grain bill and water volume.

But just a couple of thoughts...

- You may already know this, but the sulfate in your report is listed "as sulfur (S)," so you should multiply that by 3 and enter 27 as your sulfate number.

- Mash additions and sparge/kettle additions are different things. You targeted a particular mash pH with your mash additions. Sparge/kettle salt additions are really for flavor/mouthfeel. So you might want to figure out what you want your mineral profile to look like overall, then add the sparge/kettle salts needed (in addition to what's already in the water and what you added to the mash) to reach it.

I'm not very familiar with Bru'n Water, but there should be a row called "overall concentration" or something similar that shows the overall profile you have built.

 

[treacheroustexan]

It's hard to say without knowing your grain bill and water volume.

But just a couple of thoughts...

- You may already know this, but the sulfate in your report is listed "as sulfur (S)," so you should multiply that by 3 and enter 27 as your sulfate number.

- Mash additions and sparge/kettle additions are different things. You targeted a particular mash pH with your mash additions. Sparge/kettle salt additions are really for flavor/mouthfeel. So you might want to figure out what you want your mineral profile to look like overall, then add the sparge/kettle salts needed (in addition to what's already in the water and what you added to the mash) to reach it.

I'm not very familiar with Bru'n Water, but there should be a row called "overall concentration" or something similar that shows the overall profile you have built.

Thank you! I actually did know that about the sulfate but realized I still put it in wrong haha. Thank you for reminding me!

 

[mabrungard]

There is a reminder regarding the SO4-S issue in the Bru’n Water program. But there should have also been a warning about the ions being unbalanced. The good thing is that the sulfate content is fairly low.

 

[treacheroustexan]

Still waiting on my ph meter to arrive, but I brewed this batch yesterday so I had to use those brewers best ph strips in the mean time. I was targeting a 5.3 mash ph for this beer and did a few test strips and they matched the 5.0 color so I'd say it was a success! Obviously the digital meter will give better results but it was nice to see I'm at least in the ballpark.