Water too fail for stouts...

[ChillWill]

You're probably not far off.

Is a starting pH of a little over 8 fairly high? Or is that fairly common for untreated water?

 

[BBL_Brewer]

My water runs around 7.4 from the tap, but that will vary from region to region.

Also, just a suggestion. You could consider steeping your darker grains instead of mashing them. I've found that my stouts come out much better this way and you don't have to worry about adjusting the mash pH to accomadate them. I steep everything 120L or higher. YRMV.

 

[ajdelange]

Is a starting pH of a little over 8 fairly high? Or is that fairly common for untreated water?

Believe it or not what sets that is the amount of CO2 to which the water is exposed. If the water is surface water i.e. from a lake, reservoir or river its pH will likely be close to 8.3. If it is bore water subject to the high partial pressure of CO2 from respiring soil bacteria it can be appreciably lower - in the 6's or 5's.

 

[ChillWill]

Brewing today, added calcium chloride and baking soda at a 5:1 ratio, then a small amount of gypsum (to bring the calcium up without overdoing the chloride).

Will this have much of an effect on mash efficiency? I've got 9% oats on this and it has been a real pain to get the mash and sparge out the tun.... I've done a 9% oat grain bill before, and a 40% wheat malt grain bill and have never had any issues with sparges but this is proving real troublesome. I doubt I'll get overall good efficiency as I've had to add a lot of sparge water to the mash as the 1st runnings just wouldn't budge.

 

[ajdelange]

You don't say what you are brewing but I'd guess, since you are using oats, that it is an oatmeal stout. Whether you can get away with the bicarbonate addition or not depends on the amount added per gallon of water and the grist composition. Generally you should not add bicarbonate or carbonate to brewing water but sometimes it is required. Whether it is or not can only reliably be determined by the use of a pH meter. So it might or might not have an effect on efficiency depending on whether it was needed or not. If it was, then efficiency will be increased. If not it will be decreased.

In any case it will not have much of an effect on runoff. The solution to runoff problems with viscous worts is rice hulls.

 

[ChillWill]

Update time!

The founders clone has been in bottles for 3 weeks and seems pretty good so far, hasn't got that weird 'twang', even with 13% roasted malts, although the coffee is quite strong at the moment so not sure if that's hiding anything.

Also, I've made a few changes to the way I mash and minerals I add and now I'm up from 65% efficiency to nearer 75% and the beer is better; better head, head retention, body and good attention.

I'm also now brewing at work which is nice

 

[ChillWill]

Also, I've been letting the mash sit for 5 mins for the bed to settle to stop the stuck sparges... seems to be working so far as I think I was rushing it before.

 

[ChillWill]

Well, further update time: Having brewed at the test plant (10bbl system), they mash at 2.5:1 Water:Malt (pretty standard). Looks like Bi-carb is needed for darker beers otherwise the pH goes really low. Infact, with some basic CaCl2 and CaSO4 additions the pH goes pretty low on pale beers as well (a few times, down to 5.20 which has meant I've had to make a few changes; moving some salts to the boil etc). This can only lead me to believe an overly acidic mash is where the weird 'twang' was coming from.... or something else haha. I'm pretty sure my water is the same as at the brewery; or very close at least and the pH numbers we're getting there aren't anywhere near as high as the easy water calc is suggesting.

Suppose the only way to know for sure would be to test my homebrew mash... but I've not done it for a while... maybe if I get a sample of my water, take it to the brewery, measure a small sample and mash it and test it there would be a good option.