Water profile

[Nemanach]

I got a water test done and have the information below. The last couple batches I have been adding lactic to the mash water per Brewcipher but I was thinking I might go further and dilute or add minerals as necessary for a Sierra Nevada pale ale clone I'm doing this weekend. I also use campden for chlorine. Any suggestions on what to do?

73 Ca. 31 Mg. 12 Na. 14 Cl. 9 SO4. 367 HCO3. 7.4 pH

Recipe is 9.67 lb 2 row. 0.73 lb crystal 60L. 3.9 gallon strike water

I downloaded Bru N Water today and it is telling me 7.5 mL of lactic acid and Brewcipher is saying 9 mL to get to 5.35-5.36 mash pH. Maybe I have been putting too much acid in as well.

 

[jdauria]

Your water looks pretty good except for bicarbonate (HCO3) which is way too high, especially for a pale ale. For lighter beers, you would want that under 50. I am not enough of a water expert to be able to tell you how to reduce that besides diluting your water with RO or distilled water.

Before adding acids, I would play with your mineral additions, for a pale ale, basically gypsum and maybe a little calcium chloride. You want to get Ca up to around 100, Cl around 50 and So4 up to anywhere between 100-300 for a pale ale. Gypsum will raise Ca and SO4 while calcium chloride will raise Ca and Cl. Both of those minerals will lower pH and maybe get you in the right pH range without the need of acid.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

7.5 mL sounds about right for North American 2-Row. And 9 mL sounds about right for European. So the answer is: It depends.

I think your Ca and Mg are fine where they are, and I would not try boosting them. But I resoundingly have to agree that your water is much too highly alkaline. Your sparge water must also be acidified to bring it to 5.4 to 5.6 pH. So overall you are likely at a level where you will begin to be able to taste it.

So as to advice:
1) I would probably not use this water, but rather I would purchase RO water and build from scratch by adding minerals.
2) Purchase a pH meter if you don't already have one.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Should be able to lose most of that bicarbonate just by pre-boiling, saves having to faff with RO water.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Should be able to lose most of that bicarbonate just by pre-boiling, saves having to faff with RO water.

But for that case, wouldn't most of the Ca and Mg be precipitated out also?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Easily replaced if necessary.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Easily replaced if necessary.

I guess it comes down to which option is more economical. Purchasing RO, or boiling. Either way there is a need for mineralization.

10 gallons of RO is likely to cost about $3.50 (or at least that's what it costs around here), and for sufficient propane to boil 10 gallons it (propane) should cost less to perhaps about the same at most. For boiling via electricity, RO would likely be the more economical route.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Depends where you are though - the OP doesn't say what country they're in but in many parts of the world you can't just go to the supermarket to buy RO.

There's another benefit in that you're boiling out the air, which is handy if you're going down the low-oxygen route.

 

[Nemanach]

I'm in the US, Minnesota specifically, where water is virtually free. Buying it is probably cheaper than the propane to boil water then there is the time to boil and cool it.

Is my water useless across the board or just for hoppy beers?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

There's another benefit in that you're boiling out the air, which is handy if you're going down the low-oxygen route.

This positive aspect of boiling is beginning to seriously intrigue me.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I'm in the US, Minnesota specifically, where water is virtually free. Buying it is probably cheaper than the propane to boil water then there is the time to boil and cool it.

Is my water useless across the board or just for hoppy beers?

No, it's actually pretty good apart from the bicarbonate. And there is a) that terroir thing of using your local water b) having one less thing that needs to be remembered before you start a brew session c) just the principle of having to go to a store to buy water that would make me look at ways to modify what comes out of the tap rather than buy in RO. Maybe use a mineral acid like phosphoric rather than lactic?

 

[Nemanach]

No, it's actually pretty good apart from the bicarbonate. And there is a) that terroir thing of using your local water b) having one less thing that needs to be remembered before you start a brew session c) just the principle of having to go to a store to buy water that would make me look at ways to modify what comes out of the tap rather than buy in RO. Maybe use a mineral acid like phosphoric rather than lactic?

Do you think just using phosphoric acid instead of lactic acid would be enough to use my tap water? That would be much better and would be thrilled with that solution. Much better than RO or boiling.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Do you think just using phosphoric acid instead of lactic acid would be enough to use my tap water? That would be much better and would be thrilled with that solution. Much better than RO or boiling.

Phosphoric will work.

 

[Nemanach]

So below is my plan for Saturday. I wanted to get the Sulfates and Chlorides up.

To mash:
2.9g Gypsum
0.8g Calcium Chloride
4.7mL Phosphoric Acid

To sparge:
3.6g Gypsum
1.0g Calcium Chloride
6.2mL Phosphoric Acid

This will bring my pH to 5.35 and my mineral content to:
138 Ca
31 Mg
12 Na
120 SO4
48 Cl
64 HCO3

Attached is from Brun Water. Think it sounds good?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

What is the percent strength (concentration) of your phosphoric acid? Is it really 88%?

Typical strengths (in the USA at least) are 10% and 85%....

 

[Nemanach]

Thanks, I forgot to update that, 10%.

66.3 mL in mash. 88.4 mL in sparge.

I think I'm going to have to buy the concentrated stuff off Amazon and dilute it down for safety. That's half of a bottle of the 10% stuff.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

You might consider lactic acid in the strike water, and phosphoric acid in the sparge water.

 

[Nemanach]

I could certainly do that. I've just been batch sparging. I have read that pH doesn't matter as much for batch sparging. Do you think I could skip the acid in the sparge water?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I could certainly do that. I've just been batch sparging. I have read that pH doesn't matter as much for batch sparging. Do you think I could skip the acid in the sparge water?

If you were using RO water, its pH wouldn't matter much in the sparge, as its buffering capacity would be nill with respect to the remaining buffering capacity of the water soaked grist that will be sitting at somewhere around pH 5.4. But with the heavy alkalinity load that your sparge water will have you will need to acidify the sparge water, as otherwise your sparge waters alkalinity will overwhelm the buffering capacity (resistance to change in pH) of the water soaked grist and pH will rise above 6.0.

 

[Nemanach]

Sounds good. Thanks for the input

 

[Nemanach]

I did the additions but used 6.4 mL of lactic acid in the mash instead of the phosphoric acid. I took a sample of the mash 10 minutes in, let it cool and measured the pH to be 5.5. The sample was a mix of the wort and grain. My goal was 5.35 so I was still high.

How would I try and compensate for this next time to try and get closer?

By the time the sample cooled and I measured it the mash had been going for 20 minutes. Is there any point in trying to reduce the mash pH at that point? How would I calculate how much more acid to put in the mash to bring it down?

 

[ajdelange]

Any suggestions on what to do?

73 Ca. 31 Mg. 12 Na. 14 Cl. 9 SO4. 367 HCO3. 7.4 pH

You have calcium hardness of 73/20 = 3.65 mEq/L and alkalinity of approximately 367/61 = 6 (Note for the future that brewers don't care about bicarbonate; we want alkalinity. If you have alkalinity give us that. If you don't we have to calculate it from bicarbonate). Increase the calcium hardness to 7 mEq/L by adding 3.35 mEq/L calcium as the sulfate (288 mg/L gypsum) or the chloride (185 mg/L) or prefferably some of each. Going the whole distance with the chloride would leave you pretty heavy in that.

Now boil the water. Approximately 5 mEq/L alkalinity will precipitate carrying 5 mEq/L calcium with it.This leaves hardness at 2 mEq/L (40 mg/L) and alkalinity at close to 1 mEq/L (50 ppm as CaCO3). You will need only a little acid to neutralize this. You are a good candidate for this as your water, though low in calcium, has plenty of headroom in sulfate and chloride for augmentation of it with the salts of those anions.

Do be aware that one can only guess that decarbonation will take you to 1 mEq/L so it is a very good idea, if you adopt this approach, to measure hardness and alkalinity after treatment with test kits.