Adjusting light beer to hit target mash ph?

[hardrain]

Hey all, doing my first water adjustment on a very light beer, and my variables seem high to me. Using "primo water"

Ca+2 Mg+2 Na+ Cl- SO4-2 Alkalinity pH
0 0 0 12 8 0 (HCO3) 8

(Very close to RO, frankly)

Grain bill:
8.75 lb pils
0.5 lb flaked wheat

So in breunwater I'm playing around. Mineral additions seem optimized (for beer flavor) at (g per gal):

Gypsm - 1
Epsom - .25
Canning - .25
Baking soda - .25

I have 60% lactic acid dry powder. I do a 4g mash and additional 4g batch sparge.

Even at .5 ml/gal of lactic acid, my mash ph is only being calculated down to room temp ph of 5.5, short of the 5.2 I'm targeting. A full 1ml/gal only gets me to 5.4.

So: That seems like a lot of lactic acid, right? And kind of a lot of gypsum too. Removing the baking soda doesn't do much, plus even still I'm sitting with the famed 'negative bicarbonates', which from what I understand aren't a problem except I won't have any in the final brew.

I've played around and can't seem to make it work. Is there something about my salt additions that are causing the ph to be stubborn? Should I settle for a higher ph? Is there another tool I need (citric acid, acid malt, ect.)? Or another approach?

Thanks!

 

[Yooper]

First, take out any baking soda. That raises the pH and is the most important thing to NOT do. There really isn't any such thing as "negative bicarbonates", as that's really just a place holder so don't worry about that. The mash pH is the imperative thing.

I'd remove Epsom salts. No reason to increase the magnesium at all, and you don't need the sulfate.

I'd also take out the gypsum. I'd use just enough calcium chloride to get my calcium to 50+ ppm, and then use enough lactic acid to get to a mash pH of 5.3-5.4 (not 5.2).

I would not bother with canning salt. It's not enough sodium to matter in the flavor, and you can get the chloride from the calcium chloride.

 

[casualbrewer]

That is pretty much what I have been doing lately. Been using distilled water and adding 1/2 tsp of calcium chloride and enough acid blend to get my mash pH down. Seems to be working well.

 

[hardrain]

Thanks for the replies. It sounds like I need to pick up some calcium chloride. The only calcium option I have is gypsum so I might add enough to get to the 50ppm area and leave the rest out for next batch and get what I need for the future.

This leaves me with 6 mL of lactic acid to get to the 5.3-5.4 range. I'm googling that the taste threshold ("too much") is around 2 mL / gal, I'd be under that. Threshold sound right to you all?

 

[Yooper]

Thanks for the replies. It sounds like I need to pick up some calcium chloride. The only calcium option I have is gypsum so I might add enough to get to the 50ppm area and leave the rest out for next batch and get what I need for the future.

This leaves me with 6 mL of lactic acid to get to the 5.3-5.4 range. I'm googling that the taste threshold ("too much") is around 2 mL / gal, I'd be under that. Threshold sound right to you all?

What happens to your sulfate level when you add it to increase the calcium? What is your hop schedule? Increasing the sulfate may or may not be a good idea for this beer.

 

[hardrain]

What happens to your sulfate level when you add it to increase the calcium? What is your hop schedule? Increasing the sulfate may or may not be a good idea for this beer.

Sulfates go up, and interestingly I've had a hard time finding consensus on sulfates for a saison. I've seen under 50 ppm (several threads) to over 100 (farmhouse ales book). I can get to 50ppm Ca and 110 sulfate at .75g/gal, which might be close. Better option is probably to delay until I get CaCl2.

Hop schedule is ~.5 oz at FWH, ~.5 oz at KO, 5G batch. Is there a good way to think about hops and sulfates?

Thanks!

 

[Yooper]

Sulfates go up, and interestingly I've had a hard time finding consensus on sulfates for a saison. I've seen under 50 ppm (several threads) to over 100 (farmhouse ales book). I can get to 50ppm Ca and 110 sulfate at .75g/gal, which might be close. Better option is probably to delay until I get CaCl2.

Hop schedule is ~.5 oz at FWH, ~.5 oz at KO, 5G batch. Is there a good way to think about hops and sulfates?

Thanks!

I asked about the hops because AJ deLange always says that noble hops and sulfate don't mix. I don't use noble hops all that often, and when I do they tend to be in classic pilsners without much sulfate, but that is something to consider.

I'm no expert on saisons (I hate them) so I don't know how much sulfate you'd find acceptable. I'm a "less is more" kind of person, though, until I know for sure how much is good for me. You can start lower, and have a good beer. Too much may mean a harsh and unpleasant beer.

You don't "need" 50 ppm of calcium- it does help prevent beerstone in the kettle and it helps with yeast flocculation- but many fine beers are made with less than 50 ppm calcium in the brewing water.

 

[RCCOLA]

Hardrain, if you don't have a LHBS/source for CaCl2, you can go to your supermarket canning section and buy "Pickle crisp" which is CaCl2.

 

[hardrain]

Hardrain, if you don't have a LHBS/source for CaCl2, you can go to your supermarket canning section and buy "Pickle crisp" which is CaCl2.

Ah, thanks!

 

[ajdelange]

There really isn't any such thing as "negative bicarbonates", as that's really just a place holder so don't worry about that.

It is actually important information but given in a fashion designed to the confuse the user to the point that it is best to ignore it unless you have the chemistry background to understand it.

An analogy came to me the other day and here it is.

Obviously egg cartons are most informatively labeled "Eggs: 1 dozen large". But they could be labeled "Eggs: 1 pound as butter" on the basis that the contents of the carton is enough to bind with a pound of butter in making Bearnaise sauce (love it!). This would be of potential benefit to the Bearnaise sauce industry as a manufacturer would know just how many of these cartons to buy given the amount of butter he has on hand. Of course we could argue that butter could be sold with the contents labeled "as eggs" on the same basis. This would certainly confuse most of the world but the Bernaise sauce industry might like it.

In chemistry the 'egg' is a proton. They are sold not by the dozen but in groups of 6.03E20 which groups are called 'milliequivalents'. Obviously, the best way to describe proton quantities is in terms of milliquivalents but the water industry likes to quantify them in terms of the number of milligrams of calcium carbonate they will neutralize if the calcium carbonate is first dissolved with carbonic acid because thus is how most calcium carbonate gets into natural waters. Thus alkalinity is reported as 'mg/L as CaCO3' though when the analysis is done the chemist counts the mEq of acid he uses per liter and then multiplies by 50 to get the mg/L as CaCO3. This is moderately confusing to people in other industries but as it is common practice and as, fortunately, the molecular weigh of calcium carbonate is 100 it is pretty easy to remember that the conversion factor is half that with a value of 50 and as it is widespread practice (every town has a water works) it's easy to look up if we can't remember it.

Now back to the eggs. Along comes some enterprising guy who decides he doesn't think eggs should be sold as their butter equivalent in Bearnaise but as their chervil equivalent and starts labeling eggs "Eggs: Ounces as Chervil". We can get what we need to know from this but we have just added another layer of confusion, even for those familiar with the Bearnaise industry because it runs counter to established industry standard. And as if he hasn't confused the world enough already, he decides to save ink by dropping the 'Eggs as' part and simply marks his egg cartons "Chervil, Oz"

Clearly the chervil is the bicarbonate here.

There are further problems with reporting bicarbonate when proton deficit are meant such as the fact that the equivalence of bicarbonate depends on pH and that sometimes the protons deficit is entirely attributable to bicarbonate and sometimes not at all (as, for example, when adding lactic acid reduces 'bicarbonate', even to less than 0). So if you look at the bicarbonate number and remember any of this divide it by 61 and interpret the number as the proton deficit or surfeit (negative) in mEq. A chemist would ask "Deficit or surfeit relative to what pH?" I haven't been able to figure that out but think it is 8.3.

Most users should just ignore bicarbonate in this program and remember that...

The mash pH is the imperative thing.