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Is this kiosk a stand alone vending machine that you bring your container, insert money, and it vends water? Maybe Glacier? If so these use RO systems that remove almost all minerals. Great for brewing as you have a blank slate that you can customise your water profile to suit the type of beer...

My guess is you are OK. I think temps that high are rarely good for beer but after most of the fermentation is over and for only a short period the effects should be only subtle or none at all. Do be careful bringing the temp back down. Remember warm liquids hold less gass than cold liquids. So...

I use Belgian Pilsner malt exclusively as a base malt, either Castle or Dingmans. Both result in a higher than predicted (Bru'n Water) mash pH. Similar to what you are seeing.

This had me curious so I ran your numbers through Bru'n Water. Assuming you are starting with RO water, with your grain bill and 6g of CaCl2 Bru'n water says you should need 5.5g of calcium hydroxide to hit a mash pH of 5.4. It also says the 6g of CaCl2 is providing 206 ppm of chloride and...

I like to brew Brett finished beers and believe part of what makes them so great is the flavors Brett can produce by utilizing lactate in the formation of esters. As you may know lactate is formed when alkalinity is neutralized by lactic acid. This can be achieved using commercial lactic acid or...

I too like a protein rest as I use Belgian Pilsner malt that is modified at the lower end of the well modified malt scale with 20% or so unmodified wheat and oats. But in addition I like that you get a chance to verify the pH before the Saccharification rest. As A.J. advised, I just shoot for...

To back up A.J.'s chloride comment. I used to show a lot of Belgian Pales, these are characterized by dry finish but with a significant malt backbone. Often the judges would comment that the beers were too dry without enough malt flavor. On A.J.'s advice, I lowered the SO4 (I chose 15ppm) and...

Thanks A.J and Martin. Come see us over on Milk the Funk (facebook group). We are all about alternative brewing yeast and bacteria. We have several microbiologist in the group but no water experts. We also have the wiki Dan mentioned above that perhaps has became the main go-to source for...

Many kettle sour brewers are lowering the pH of the wort to 4.5 prior to pitching souring bacteria in a effort to maintain head retention in the finished beer. The challenge is knowing how much acid (usually lactic) to add in order to achieve the desired pH. One such brewer is using EZ water by...

Thanks for posting this Indevrede. A coffee filter may be an alternative to a method I use to kick off the secondary fermentation in my Brettanomyces finished beers. I've been using pelleted hops to perform this function. A couple of days after pitching Brett into the secondary, I've been adding...

Hey dmcmillen, I've used the Milwaukee 102 for a couple of years now. One thing I've learned is to move the probe around in the solution you are measuring until you get a stable reading.

Is this the paper that's being discussed: "The role of oxygen in brewing, Technical Summary 3", Tim O’Rourke? and attached.

Hops are very effective in suppressing the growth of some lactobacillus species/strains. However some have adapted to a beer (therefore hop) environment. ClO2 is being used to "wash" yeast slurries destined to re-pitch in commercial breweries. Here is link to a bit of info on that...

I think Kia's table is simply converting Brix to Plato and SG while Sean's calculator is attempting to correct for alcohol in a FG refractometer reading. But I can't find where Kai has any detailed explanation of the table and I don't understand Sean's calculator (I've never used a...

Here is a link to a great video that discusses considerations for choosing a microscope for the amatuer.

For sure AJ is correct. In the image, each colony represents a single bacterial cell (perhaps more than one if clumped) that grew enough cells to be seen with the naked eye. And the number in each quadrant represents the number in 10 microliters of the sample. I did not mean to indicate that...

The storage container may harbor more microbes than the water itself. Don't forget to sanitize or sterilize if possible. Recently, I did a yeast (Brett) storage experiment. In an attempt to quantify the number of live cells I made a dilution of 1:100 using 1 ml of non-sterile RO water from a...

Interesting! While I can't argue with the taste, I sort of doubt the sample was infected. If it were infected with Brett or other wild yeast, it certainly would not have cleared. If it were infected with an LAB, the pH may have been much lower. My guess is the yeast may have pooped out due to...

Yooper, you may know that maize masa is made from hominy, which is dried corn soaked and cooked in an alkaline solution, usually lime water (slaked lime). While I've not used it in brewing, perhaps it could have an effect on mash pH.

Here in Monterey CA, our district gets its water from 4 different sources. Our QC person is also very good to work with. She told me the reports are not very useful as they take their samples from the source water before blending with what's on hand. So the report never matches what is sent to...