Water prep

[frontiercdk]

Hey guys,


It is my first time to adjust water. I would like to treat a quantity of water a little more than required for the entire process (mash and sparge ) to meet my target profile. Then adjust the ph with acid to get it within the range for the mash and sparge.

My questions:

Is it ok to treat the entire quantity of water this way?

I know the mash needs to be around 5.2, but what would be a safe range for the sparge ph?

 

[ajdelange]

5.2 is a bit low for mash pH. At room temperature 5.4 - 5.6 seems to be the favored range.

The goal in water treatment is the same for mashing as it is for sparging: to have the water's alkalinity with respect to the desired mash pH be 0. Thus it is fine to treat the entire volume of water at once. Now do take note that most people have not accepted this philosophy as yet and continue to consider mash water and sparge water separately. Also note that it is not enough to set mash and sparge water to the desired mash pH. That takes care of the alkalinity of the water. But you must take the grain into account too. The way to handle this with the popular spreadsheets is to acidify the entire volume of water to be used to mash pH and then tell the spreadsheet that alkalinity is 0. In most of them that means entering 0 in a box labeled 'bicarbonate'.

 

[frontiercdk]

Man... I love this site!

Thanks ajdelange for the help.

To expand on what my plan is:

I purchased a rodi filter. I loaded the base water profile into beersmith with zeros and ph to 7. Entered the profile I want and beersmith gave me the additions. I am expecting the water ph to still be a little high after treatment. I plan to use lactic acid to reduce it. Sound ok?


Crap... I have been adjusting my mash to 5.2. My ph meter has temp correction. Should I adjust to 5.4-5.6 with this meter?

 

[ajdelange]

You don't need to go through the DI part of your system. This will save you the trouble of having to recharge the resins.

Unless you water is terribly terribly akaline you will not need to acidify it after RO processing. Almost all of the alkalinity wil have been removed. When alkalinity is low it really doesn't matter what the pH of the water is. It doesn't matter very much even when the alkalinity is high as long as the pH is between 7 and 9.5.

See the sticky on pH measurement for information as to what pH meter temperature compensation does and does not do. You should measure mash pH at room temperature and it should read between 5.4 and 5.6 unless you have some special reason for wanting it outside that range.

 

[frontiercdk]

ajdelange,

Thank you for the response. I feel like I am pretty much ready to go with my first treatment. I will check the sticky you suggested. Thanks for taking the time to advise me.