Random Water Questions

[stewart194]

I have a few random questions. This water stuff still seems really complicated to me. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

1. I use RO water. I like the idea of building water from a "clean slate" instead of dealing with tap water. Just because our city water fluctuates so much. Is RO water truly a clean slate? When I enter my starting water profile in Beersmith should I enter all zeros?

2. For my next IPA, I'm trying to make my target water 119 Ca, 7 Mg, 11 Na, 227 SO4, 29 Cl, 52 HCO3. I'm making one of Denny's recipes and this is what he recommends. I will be using 18 gallons of water total for a 10 gallon batch. Starting with RO water, Beersmith says I need 24 g Gypsum, .8 g Table Salt, 4.8 g Epsom Salt, 3 g Calcium Chloride, 1.6 g Baking Soda, & 4 g Chalk. Does this look comparable to what the more complicated spreadsheets recommend? I've tried to use the spreadsheets online...but I guess I'm just too stupid to figure out how to use them. And I didn't see a "Start from RO water option" either.

3. Where do I find "Chalk" to add? Can I find it at a grocery store? Is it the same as "Pickling Lime"?

4. I've just been adding all of these mineral additions to my grain before mashing in and then using Lactic Acid to adjust the mash pH. I batch sparge in the same cooler mash tun, and once I add all of the mineral additions to the mash tun, I don't add any more to the sparge water or boil kettle. Is this OK to do or should I be adding these things to the strike water itself?

5. Should I be striving for a perfect pH of 5.2? I've been stopping at 5.3 just because I'm afraid of the lactic acid making my beer sour possibly...even though it only takes 2 to 4 ml for a 10 gallon batch of beer. (Starting with 18 gallons of water)

Thanks in advance for any information you guys can give me!

 

[zwiller]

Here's my take. You will find different opinions on it most of it.

1. RO water is only as good as the filter used. I actually had a buddy send his RO water into a lab for testing and it was worse than his tap water. He and I now use distilled for delicate styles.

2. Way too much going on IMO. I would only use gypsum to get proper mash pH and SO4 near 300ppm.

3. Forget chalk and use the pickling lime. They are not the same. However, lime is used for raising pH for dark beers and not needed in IPA.

4. Add all things to strike water before heating. I acidify sparge and add salts "for the sparge water" to kettle. You should be adding salts to kettle or your concentrations will be lowered.

5. For an IPA I recommend 5.4. The key to water with an IPA is 300ppm SO4/gypsum.

Hopefully others expound. I prefer Bru'n Water (BNW) myself and highly recommend reading AJ's water primer above and Martin's water knowledge page in BNW if I were starting out.

 

[stewart194]

Thanks for the reply! I didn't think about my RO system being faulty. I do have it serviced regularly though by a company who I believe is qualified to do it.

I'm also taking another stab at online spreadsheets as we speak. I'm tinkering with Martin's right now and seeing if I can figure it out. I was really lost regarding brewing in general the last time I tried it. Now I know a quite a bit more about brewing / water. The whole water chemistry thing is still way over my head though.

As far as adding minerals to the water, mash, sparge, and kettle...if I added everything to the grains...wouldn't all the water passing through it have the same effect as adding it to these things individually? After using lactic acid directly in the mash tun to get around 5.3...my sparge is always under 6 automatically.

 

[Pie_Man]

+1 to zwiller's comments.

I will add that someone in my club tested a commerical RO machine at a local grocery store, there are minerals in the RO, but they should be very low. With the tested RO water, all brewing related minerals were less than 10ppm.

I would not worry about any lactic acid taste if you reduce your pH to 5.2, especially if starting out with RO water, there will not be any lactic taste.

Add the brewing salts to your mash if altering your pH. You can add them to the BK if you are not trying to adjust pH. Acids should be added before heating the water according to Martin's Bru'N water spreadsheet. I cannot remember why that is exactly. I think it is something to do with its solubility at hotter temps.

Bru'N water is a little clunky, but does a good job. It is worth figuring out in my opinion. I tend to start with the tab four and work backwards. It seems weird to calculate sparge acidification before the mash acidification in my opinion.

 

[zwiller]

Adding "all" salts to grains does NOT yield the same results as individually. IE If you add gypsum for the sparge AND mash into the grains, the pH of the mash will be lowered too much. Just add sparge salts to kettle.

Yep, no need to add anything (acid) to sparge when using RO. Also, with RO I would think it would be quite easy to dial in mash without acid.

Another member here did a walkthrough of BNW and looks pretty good. http://accidentalis.com/archives/275

 

[stewart194]

+1 to zwiller's comments.

I will add that someone in my club tested a commerical RO machine at a local grocery store, there are minerals in the RO, but they should be very low. With the tested RO water, all brewing related minerals were less than 10ppm.

I would not worry about any lactic acid taste if you reduce your pH to 5.2, especially if starting out with RO water, there will not be any lactic taste.

Add the brewing salts to your mash if altering your pH. You can add them to the BK if you are not trying to adjust pH. Acids should be added before heating the water according to Martin's Bru'N water spreadsheet. I cannot remember why that is exactly. I think it is something to do with its solubility at hotter temps.

Bru'N water is a little clunky, but does a good job. It is worth figuring out in my opinion. I tend to start with the tab four and work backwards. It seems weird to calculate sparge acidification before the mash acidification in my opinion.

Thanks for the reply. I did a lot of searching online and found where someone, maybe Martin or Palmer, said they determined that you would need to use 1.4 ml of Lactic Acid per gallon of water in order to taste it. So the 4 ml that I used in my last IPA was definitely in the safe zone. (10 gallon batch / 18 gallons total water)

I also found a post where Martin said he had his RO water tested and it turned out to be Ca 1, Mg 0, Na 8, SO4 1, Cl 4, HCO3 16. I plugged these numbers into Beersmith and then also put all zeros in, and it didn't seem to make that much difference.

I spent a good chunk of time messing with Bru'N Water yesterday and finally figured out the basics I think. I also played around with the Brewer's Friend water calculator and it was a lot easier for me. Ultimately though, I think the one in Beersmith is the easiest to use. Bru'N Water has a lot more options but I don't think I'm ready to tackle those yet.

Adding the Lactic Acid to cool water is interesting though. I'll have to look into that.

Thanks again!

 

[stewart194]

Adding "all" salts to grains does NOT yield the same results as individually. IE If you add gypsum for the sparge AND mash into the grains, the pH of the mash will be lowered too much. Just add sparge salts to kettle.

Yep, no need to add anything (acid) to sparge when using RO. Also, with RO I would think it would be quite easy to dial in mash without acid.

Another member here did a walkthrough of BNW and looks pretty good. http://accidentalis.com/archives/275

Thanks for the reply! I'll have to look more into this also. So far I've added all of the mineral additions straight to my grains every time...and nothing to the sparge or kettle. The only time I've been too low on pH in the mash was while making a stout. With every other beer I've done so far, the mash is always slightly high...usually around 5.6.

I'll pay closer attention to this from now on though. Maybe I'll mash and sparge my stouts without any mineral additions and add everything to the kettle for those. I think I've read where someone said they like a little higher pH in the mash for stouts. 5.5 if I remember right.

Thanks again!