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Last weekend I did a yeast handling presentation to Brew Free Or Die club members and I took the opportunity to conduct a lactate taste threshold experiment with 8 club members. While it had little to do with the topic of the technical session it is a subject where I wanted to do some...

I'm scrubbing the water profiles in Brewer's Friend and am noticing that many of them are out of whack with respect to ion balance. But that doesn't seem to be BF's fault, it only copied what was out there. I'm particularly puzzled by the Burton upon Trent profile. It seems that almost every...

I'm looking to add CRS support to the Brewer's Friend water calculator. Based on some numbers online I found that CRS is a mix of 6.75% HCl and 9% H2SO4. Does this sound correct? CRS (carbonate reduction solution) is apparently used in the UK a lot and it makes sense to support it...

When I started helping Brewer’s Friend as a technical adviser I couldn’t help but notice that the mash pH predicted by its brewing water calculator was way off. Since I have done extensive work on brewing water and mash chemistry already I took this as an opportunity to develop a new Mash...

I wrote this a while back and those of you frequenting my site may have seen this already. Simple Model for pH Buffers tries visualize the concept of pH buffers using columns of water. This explains how the actual pH of water matters less than its alkalinity, for example. Kai

A recent comment on my blog asks why we brewers are not using potassium carbonate or bicarbonate to raise mash pH? Wine and mead makers seem to use it. I didn't have a good answer for this. I guess it is because potassium is not a major water mineral and by adding it to the water we wouldn't...

I finally finished overhauling the water and mash pH spreadsheet that I have been maintaining. I started this work a few months ago when I realized that even the "basic" interface was not as intuitive as I thought it was. It seems nobody wants to enter salts as ppm even though that makes the...

Here is something I had been working on a while back but wanted to make sure its outcome matches what I'm seeing in my brewing: batch_sparge_simulator.xls It's a spread sheet that allows you to simulate an up to 3 run-off batch sparge (which includes no-sparge) and party gyle brewing. While it...

I have been busy over the last few weeks writing another article for braukaiser.com. This time about reducing water alkalinity by using slacked lime, which is a commonly used procedure in large scale brewing but rarely used by home brewers. Though I doubt that I’ll convince many of you to give...

I already posted this a wile back on the AHA board but didn’t get around posting it here until now. I did an interesting experiment aimed at indentifying what difference it makes if the brown Kraeusen gunk is not allowed to fall back into the beer: Should the Kraeusen fall back into...

I just listened to Chris Colby’s BBR interview about malt conditioning and his techniques for conditioning malt seem much more complicated than the spay and mix process that I proposed? Steaming in the mash tun or using a partner to sprinkle the malt with hot water? Is he just trying to avoid my...

I recently started playing around with water test kits that are available for aquariums. In particular the GH&KH tests are useful for brewers who want to get a beter understanding of their brewing water w/o having to send a sample to an lab like Ward Labs. I took some pictures, updated my...

This is in continuation of an off-topic discussion that was started in this tread (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/side-side-water-modification-test-139577). The last post is here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/side-side-water-modification-test-139577/#post1718157 I’m not sure if that...

A number of people have asked me to publish some of the water recipes I'm using. I guess b/c I talk so much about water. So I decided to do that here: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Various_water_recipes But don't get the idea that these are highly optimized and elaborate recipes...

I finally published the report about the use of undissolved and dissolved chalk in two batches of my Schwarzbier. As a background. A while back I noticed that most water spreadsheets don't handle chalk additions correctly when calculating alkalinity. That sparked some experiments including the...

All, Some may have already noticed it, but recently I found out that Jamil attacked me in one of his shows. He called me an arm chair quarter back who doesn't do his own experiments. This is a link to the episode: http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/564. The accusations were prompted by a...

I'm pleased to announce that I finally finished my paper on “The effect of brewing water and grist composition on the pH of the mash”. To this point, this is my most detailed work and it represents data collected in experiments that I conducted during most of this year...

I just checked and saw that my last interview with James Spencer is this weeks Basic Brewing Radio episode: http://www.basicbrewing.com/index.php?page=radio It’s about the old German brewing text from 1860 that I translated earlier this year...

I just got an e-mail that made me feel pretty good about the images that I have on braukaiser.com. A publisher is interested in using this photo: in an upcoming microbiology book. They sent me a release that they want me to sign. Granted, this pic is not that difficult to take and there might...

A while back I saw a great idea here where someone found inserts that fit into the dip tube and restrict the flow to reduce foaming. I can't find the link. Does anyone remember and can post the link. Thanks, Kai