Announcing 'Mash Made Easy', a mash pH adjustment assistant

[shetc]

Doh, I see that now. If the source water is RO, what would the suggested default values be for that on the water tab?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Doh, I see that now. If the source water is RO, what would the suggested default values be for that on the water tab?

If its good quality RO, you can get by with all zeros. For a bit more questionable RO you can go with 10-15 ppm alkalinity, and balance it on the other side with a smidge of cations. If it was softenned before going through the RO unit, the cations will be mainly sodium (Na). If not then it will have a few ppm Ca and perhaps a fraction of a ppm Mg also.

 

[shetc]

I buy my RO water from a well-maintained machine at the local Whole Foods. TDS has always measured at 15 PPM or lower so I guess I will use zeros. So I took the mineral #s I used for a full volume BIAB that I did the other day, and put them in the MME:

The suggested amount of lactic acid (2.92 ml) is over twice the amount that was required to reach 5.33 pH (1.3 ml). I measured the pH after a very thorough stirring and after about 8 mins of mash time.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Rahr 2-Row is often considered to be more acidic than most. Try changing your base malt selector to the 5.63 to 5.68 DI_pH setting. That will get you a bit more in the ballpark. You can also try changing the buffer value to read 32 rather than 45. Mash Made Easy is adjustable to your needs.

As a last resort you can apply a manual DI_pH override to the Rahr.

Some years ago it went around that Rahr 2-Row had a DI pH of about 5.5 to 5.55. But that was years ago, and may not apply to the current Rahr 2-Row.

But remember that software such as this is intended to get you only in the ballpark. That is why I generally set a mash pH target of 5.4, with the hope that my software will get me within 0.2 of the target, and thus keep me in the acceptable pH range. Never assume that software such as this will hit the nail on the head every time. My advice is to trust your own measurements as opposed to any of such software.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Try as I may I was not able to get my copy to give lactic acid results as high as yours did, so I'm a bit confused as to what might be happening. Here is what I get simply by changing the DI_pH range for the Rahr via the lower right hand selector as I mentioned above. And if I change the buffer value to 32 the required acidity addition for 88% Lactic Acid is even lower than seen here, at only 1.15 mL. Do my input values match yours across the board?

 

[shetc]

Try as I may I was not able to get my copy to give lactic acid results as high as yours did, so I'm a bit confused as to what might be happening. Here is what I get simply by changing the DI_pH range for the Rahr via the lower right hand selector as I mentioned above. And if I change the buffer value to 32 the required acidity addition for 88% Lactic Acid is even lower than seen here, at only 1.15 mL. Do my input values match yours across the board?

View attachment 579270

17.7 anticipated liters to fermenter?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

17.7 anticipated liters to fermenter?

That only impacts the predicted color of the beer.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I just downloaded a fresh copy of 'MME' and left all defaults as is, and my out of the box (default) output for your recipe looks like this. I'd be interested in seeing what your copies output looks like if you download another copy.

 

[shetc]

That only impacts the predicted color of the beer.

Ok, I have uploaded the spreadsheet -- you'll need to rename it back to Mash Made Easy 2.10 Metric.xlsx after you download it.

BTW, I am using LibreOffice on a Mac.

 

[enkamania]

I entered into MME, Bru'n Water and Beersmith. All were really close before the acid addition. (Beersmith is notoriously high and I know not to use their acid recommendations) MME has 4.11 lactic, Bru'n Water has 5.1 and Beersmith 6.6. I'll use your acid recommendation and see how it works. The only thing I would like added to MME is liquid calcium chloride.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Ok, I have uploaded the spreadsheet -- you'll need to rename it back to Mash Made Easy 2.10 Metric.xlsx after you download it.

BTW, I am using LibreOffice on a Mac.

Ah, there is a difference. You selected a target mash pH of 5.3 and I mistakenly left mine at the default of pH 5.4.

Try some of the readily available tuning or "dialing in" tricks I mentioned above and let me know if you can get it closer to your measured mash pH and acid adjustment. I see 2.07 mL for Lactic when doing them (and without resorting to a manual DI-mash pH override). But I match your spreadsheet exactly if I leave it at the defaults sans for properly targeting 5.3 pH as you did.

Did your actual measured mash pH for this batch hit precisely 5.30? Perhaps it would have risen if you had measured it again at the tail end of your allotted mash time.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

The only thing I would like added to MME is liquid calcium chloride.

I'll have to think about that one. Sometimes after I think about suggestions such as this one long enough I finally can't resist the urge to tinker, and eventually I get cranking on user suggestions such as this one. I already have a separate spreadsheet for liquid calcium chloride for my personal use, so porting it into MME should not be all that difficult. Stay tuned, but for now I need a rest from playing with it until more user feedback such as is being discussed here presently rolls in. I've already seen first hand where my changes made in one area can affect another area, and where I may not even notice it without quality end user feedback. Also, the more I add, the more I fear that it will turn into a Swiss army knife of complexity that becomes more and more difficult to fix when bugs do appear, and also becomes less and less intuitively easy for the end user to properly utilize.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

shetc, I just noticed that your batches actual measured post lactic acid mash pH was 5.33, but to mock it up in Mash Made Easy you selected 5.30. I just went in and made these changes to the very spreadsheet you just sent through the forum to me (and to all of us):

1) Changed the target mash pH to 5.33, to match your actual measured mash pH
2) Changed the lower right hand 'drop down' selector to a notch lower DI_pH range for the Rahr base malt
3) Changed the buffer to 32

And hopefully this is a bit closer, as the output of the spreadsheet now becomes:

I hope the above is closer to what you actually experienced. The last suggested change would be to manual override the DI_mash pH for the Rahr, and insert a value of around 5.63 (give or take) for this malt. Have you actually measured its DI_mash pH?

Would you happen to recall the mash pH result you measured before adding the lactic acid to adjust the mash pH?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

It appears that for my next upgrade I should offer a drop down selector for low Lovibond (low EBC) color base malts which falls within a DI_pH range of 5.58 to 5.63. And also one which spans from 5.53 to 5.58. These would "perhaps" better accommodate malts the likes of Rahr 2-Row and also Briess 2-Row Brewers. The latter for which generally appears to hover at around an average of ~5.57 DI_pH per some (ever aging) Briess data which I have on hand. As opposed to Briess Pilsen malt which can fall into the general DI_pH range of ~5.8 (give or take a bit).

Perhaps a broad and sweeping generalization can be made that the most common of the North American sourced 2-Row brewer malt types will often hover generally within a lower DI_pH (and thereby higher acidity) range than do many of the UK or European 2-Row offerings. And also that "in general" (regardless of their source nation) Pilsner malts will typically fall within the very highest range of DI_pH's, and "Pale" classed base malts will generally fall in-between the witnessed lows for brewers malt and highs for Pilsner malts, and fall within perhaps a general 5.68 to 5.77 pH range. But in the end all of this is merely generalizations, and exceptions (some seasonal, local, regional, or national) from generalizations for any types or sources of base malts can and will broadly occur.

The impact to both a softwares output validity and the end users real world need to acidify more or less than the output of said software can (as seen, and as is being discussed here) be huge, as any of such software simply can not know the true measured DI_pH for your recipes primary low colored base malt(s) (or for that matter, any other of your recipes malts) unless you actually test them, or unless the manufacturer actually provides this information. Software can only respond to its programmed generalizations, unless perhaps for the case wherein it provides for manual DI_pH override. And even for this case the software is still making generalizations.

 

[brewgar]

What does DI mean? Like a definition?

 

[Big Monk]

What does DI mean? Like a definition?

De-Ionized or Distilled water pH. The pH registered when a malt is mashed in a volume of DI water and no other materials that influence pH.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Yes, DI by itself means de-ionized water, which goes well beyond distilled water in its purity. De-ionized water has close to zero buffering capacity, where buffering capacity is defined as the measure of a mediums ability to resist change in pH when acids or bases are added into to it. All malts are acidic, but some are well more acidic than others, and some (mainly those referred to as base malts) can for all practical purposes be treated as bases (as opposed to acids) with respect to any desired target mash pH which is lower than said malts DI_pH.

And DI_pH is shorthand for DI mash pH, which is the pH a malt or unmalted grain (or more properly the wort generated by it) exhibits when 50 grams of it are mashed within a carrier of 150 mL of pure DI water.

With respect to a mash pH target of 5.4, for example, a malt with a DI_pH of 5.8 will require noticeably more acid to be added to the mash to bring it down to the 5.4 target than would a malt with a DI_pH of 5.65. And visa-versa.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I live near a bottled water company for which their bottled RO more often than not has a lower TDS reading than does their distilled, but the distilled costs much more. The general presumption however is that distilled should be a step higher in purity than most RO water(s). Their RO water has ranged from 3 to 7 ppm on my TDS meter. Distilled is simply not always that good.

OTOH, my homes under the sink RO unit can only bring my nominally about 811 to 876 TDS well water (truly bad stuff) down to about 38-42 TDS.

But DI water should be better than the best examples of distilled or RO.

 

[brewgar]

How come cell H16 is always #NAME? in my v2.10 copy of MME? Examples shown on this thread have values in that cell. Mine does not.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

How come cell H16 is always #NAME? in my v2.10 copy of MME? Examples shown on this thread have values in that cell. Mine does not.

brewgar, what version of Excel are you using. I'm not at all confident that Mash Made Easy will run within Excel for versions earlier than 2007, and my guess is that it will not. Did you try downloading another copy? Are you attempting to use the standard or the metric version?

I develop it in LibreOffice, with my latest upgrades using their latest version 6, so you could download LibreOffice (which is free) and see if it behaves differently for you within that spreadsheet environment. I believe LiberOffice Calc runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Unix operating systems. I run Linux.

 

[brewgar]

I am running Apache Open Office Calc v. 4.1.5 released Dec 30, 2017, latest Java, under Windows 10.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I am running Apache Open Office Calc v. 4.1.5 released Dec 30, 2017, latest Java, under Windows 10.

I suggest that you give LibreOffice version 5 or 6 a chance. As I recall (from memory) LibreOffice and Apache both forked off from the original "Open Office" a number of years back (when someone, Sun Microsystems perhaps, took over Open Office and decided to make it proprietary, and also planned to add a price tag to it), and have traveled different (but still completely free of charge) office suite coding and development paths ever since. LibreOffice is far and away the more popular of the two since they forked.

I believe that LibreOffice version 6 is the somewhat more advanced, though also somewhat more potentially unstable version, and that the tried and tested latest version 5 is likely more stable (at this juncture), if that is important to you. If you go to their website and ask for a free download and you get version 6, that would mean they now consider it their stable branch.

 

[brewgar]

Ah ha! I downloaded LibreOffice 6, and MME works like a charm for me now under that program. Thank you very much for MME, and for your patient counsel to get me started with it. Best wishes for MME.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Announcing the release of 'Mash Made Easy' version 2.20 in both the Standard and Metric formats.

Major changes include:
------------------------------
1: Improved model for buffering.
2) Acid Malt (also referred to as acidulated malt, or as Sauermalz), when added directly into your recipes grist as a Malt/Grain "drop down" selection now functions properly in conjunction with the strength values which you also input via the "% Acid Malt Strength" button. 3% should be a good nominal starting point for most acid malts concentration of lactic acid by weight. If your particular lot of acid malt is consistently giving you mash pH's on the high side of your target pH, you can work this percentage down to 2.4% as needed, as this will increase the called for weight of acid malt. Or you are free to select any strength ranging from 2.4% to 3%. Modern acidulated malt is effectively a low Lovibond color base malt that has been sprayed with lactic acid. Roughly 3% lactic acid by weight is the norm.
3) Baking soda additions now reflect quantities adjusted slightly to reflect A.J. DeLange's recent discovery (and his math model) of their nature (associated with baking soda being a weak base) within (and with respect to) the selected Target pH vicinity of mashes.

All users are advised to transition to this new version.

 

[Big Monk]

Announcing the release of 'Mash Made Easy' version 2.20 in both the Standard and Metric formats.

Major changes include:
------------------------------
1: Improved model for buffering.
2) Acid Malt (also referred to as acidulated malt, or as Sauermalz), when added directly into your recipes grist as a Malt/Grain "drop down" selection now functions properly in conjunction with the strength values which you also input via the "% Acid Malt Strength" button. 3% should be a good nominal starting point for most acid malts concentration of lactic acid by weight. If your particular lot of acid malt is consistently giving you mash pH's on the low side of your target pH, you can work this percentage down to 2.4% as needed. Or select any strength ranging from 2.4% to 3%. Modern acidulated malt is effectively a low Lovibond color base malt that has been sprayed with lactic acid.
3) Baking soda additions now reflect quantities adjusted slightly to reflect A.J. DeLange's recent discovery (and his math model) of their nature (associated with baking soda being a weak base) within (and with respect to) the selected Target pH vicinity of mashes.

All users are advised to transition to this new version.

The problem I always had with Sauermalz is that to hit my numbers I often had to set the acid % to upwards of 6%. It wasn’t until A.J. pointed out that it doesn’t acidify like a Lactic that that made sense.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

The problem I always had with Sauermalz is that to hit my numbers I often had to set the acid % to upwards of 6%. It wasn’t until A.J. pointed out that it doesn’t acidify like a Lactic that that made sense.

There are potentially two ways to understand your 6%. One would be to presume that your lot is weak and you need to double it, and the other (the more likely of the two) is to presume it to be way stronger than normal, and you have to cut it in half.

I followed the Kai Troester model for acid malt strength at 3% nominal in Mash Made Easy. I just edited my comments above for acid malt.

 

[Big Monk]

There are potentially two ways to understand your 6%. One would be to presume that your lot is weak and you need to double it, and the other (the more likely of the two) is to presume it to be way stronger than normal, and you have to cut it in half.

I followed the Kai Troester model for acid malt strength at 3% nominal in Mash Made Easy. I just edited my comments above for acid malt.

Or that Sauermalz doesn’t behave like Lactic Acid and therefore cant be modeled using its percentage of Lactic acid by weight effectively. My number ranged between 4.6-6% acid across 2 years.

EDIT #1: As an example, I ran some numbers today and to take a Grist pH of 5.8 ish down to 5.4, the β version of the “brewing engine” was estimating just above 4% Sauermalz. That’s on the nose for Weyermann recommendations.

EDIT #2: It’s also important to note that it’s nominal Lactic acid % doesn’t come into play for Weyermann’s recommendations. They only state that 1% Sauermalz should yield a -0.1 pH Δ.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

EDIT #2: It’s also important to note that it’s nominal Lactic acid % doesn’t come into play for Weyermann’s recommendations. They only state that 1% Sauermalz should yield a -0.1 pH Δ.

In the end, this is how Mash Made Easy models its acid malt, so regardless of how one perceives its acid nature (and we do perceive it differently), all is well. This simplistic pH drop to grist percent ratio is precisely why Weyermann is listed in my credits. Weyermann is to be trusted on this for their "nominal" (or nominal spec) lots of Sauermalz. This ratio corresponds to 3% acid malt strength in 'MME'.

 

[Big Monk]

In the end, this is how Mash Made Easy models its acid malt, so regardless of how one perceives its acid nature (and we do perceive it differently), all is well. This simplistic pH drop to grist percent ratio is precisely why Weyermann is listed in my credits. Weyermann is to be trusted on this for their "nominal" (or nominal spec) lots of Sauermalz. This ratio corresponds to 3% acid malt strength in 'MME'.

Right. I get that. What I’m saying is I modeled it the same and at 3% for a while until I realize that my low pHs I was seeing were due to the Sauermalz being more powerful. Theoretically that is. 3% DOES correspond almost exactly to the 1%/0.1 pH ratio in calculations, but empirically has proved in my brewery to not represent the actual acidifying power of Sauermalz.

Do you use Sauermalz much? I just want to make sure that you don’t have a latent issue in your sheet by recommending the percentages you use. Maybe allow the user to input a wider range (2-6% maybe?)

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Do you use Sauermalz much? I just want to make sure that you don’t have a latent issue in your sheet by recommending the percentages you use. Maybe allow the user to input a wider range (2-6% maybe?)

Are you implying by this that Weyermann's advice that 1% moves the pH downward by 0.1 point is not "generally" valid advice? I'm aware that acid malt may have lot to lot strength consistency issues, but I've made MME conform to this Weyermann principle as the norm. If for some lots 1% moves the pH down by 0.2 points, then I will need to expand my range to 6% in a future upgrade release.

 

[Big Monk]

Are you implying by this that Weyermann's advice that 1% moves the pH downward by 0.1 point is not "generally" valid advice?

No. What I am saying is that Weyermann's recommendation isn't tied to the Lactic Acid % by weight of the Sauermalz. For instance, yesterday I was toying around with the new sheet and it required ~4% Sauermalz to take a grist pH of ~5.8 to pHz of 5.4. Since I am modelling Sauermalz by titration statistics and not by nominal Lactic Acid % by weight, this aligns perfectly with Weyermann's 1%/0.1 pH rule and does it independently of acid %.

I'm aware that acid malt may have lot to lot strength consistency issues, but I've made MME conform to this Weyermann principle as the norm. If for some lots 1% moves the pH down by 0.2 points, then I will need to expand my range to 6% in a future upgrade release.

This is what I'm driving at. Above we see pretty good preliminary results for the 1%/0.1 pH guideline that is independent of acid %. In my trials I found that when modelling by acid % and weight, that theoretically (in the calculations), using 3% Lactic Acid content as a baseline matched perfectly with Weyermann's recommendations. In practice, however, I found that you need to model the Sauermalz with almost double the acid % (thus lowering the amount used) in order to match the numbers in the "field".

Having a user field that was not restricted to certain values for acid %, so that the user could change the number in order to match what they see in the field would be a useful troubleshooting tool. It was for me at least. It also exposes the issue, which I long struggled with, of trying to rectify what we know the actual acid % for Sauermalz is, nominally, with how it actually performs in the brewery. This leads one to believe what A.J. pointed out some time last week: modelling Sauermalz by weight and Lactic Acid % is troublesome at best and wildly innacurate at worst.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Well, in all of this I did go back and try acid malt via the drop down in Mash Made Easy version 2.20, and I do have a glaring math error (multiplying where I should have been dividing) that I've just fixed. Mash Made Easy version 2.30 will be up on my website shortly.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Announcing the release of 'Mash Made Easy' version 2.30 in both the standard and metric formats.

Critical bug fix for acid malt via the grist drop down. My error all the way.

All users are urgently advised to transition to version 2.30.

 

[enkamania]

Not sure if this happened to anyone else with 2.3, but the tabs weren't showing. Not sure why the show sheet tabs was shut off for this file. So if you can't see the tabs, click File > Options > Advanced—in under Display options for this workbook—and then ensure that there is a check in the Show sheet tabs box.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Not sure if this happened to anyone else with 2.3, but the tabs weren't showing. Not sure why the show sheet tabs was shut off for this file. So if you can't see the tabs, click File > Options > Advanced—in under Display options for this workbook—and then ensure that there is a check in the Show sheet tabs box.

Is anyone else seeing this issue. There should be 4 required tabs visible across the bottom left for:
1) Mash pH
2) Water
3) Sparge Water Adjustment
4) Phosphoric Acid %

If you are seeing the anomaly whereby these tabs are not present, please let me know, and also let me know your computers OS, spreadsheet, and spreadsheet version. And see if enkamania's fix works for you. I developed this version (version 2.30) under LibreOffice 6.x. Formerly I had used the 5.x versions, and I did not have any mention of this problem for Excel users. Perhaps I need to go back to version 5.4 of LibreOffice.

 

[oldwhiskers]

I use LibreOffice 6.x on Linux, no problem here with the sheet tabs using version 2.3.

 

[Big Monk]

I checked in Excel 2007 and 2013 yesterday. No issues that I can see.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Thanks Oldwhiskers and RPIScotty!!!

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Announcing the release of 'Mash Made Easy' version 2.40, in both the standard and metric formats:

The major improvement is that 3 coefficient quadratic regression replaces simple linear regression for the 'Caramel/Crystal' class of malts, for a superior math model fit to hard data with respect to this malt classes Lovibond (EBC) color and its match to DI_pH. Since this particular class of malts is so highly acidic with respect to its color, gaining the best statistical fit possible to actual hard data here is critical.

Plus a couple other more minor internal improvements which also impact the spreadsheets output.

All users are advised to transition to version to version 2.40

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Announcing the release of Mash Made Easy version 2.50 in both the Standard and Metric formats:

The 3 changes made within this version are:
-----------------------------------------------------------
1) Discovered and corrected a grievous error present within exclusively the Metric version, whereby it was failing to internal handle EBC colors properly.
2) Added two additional base malt DI_pH drop down selectors, to permit a wider range of DI_pH choices for this class of malts. The main benefit here is to provide two lower DI_pH options to accommodate North American 2-Row Brewers type malts, which often exhibit lower overall. DI_pH's than other base malts. Also added a comments field for this cell to assist you in making your best initial primary base malt DI_pH selection. This Drop Down selector is located in the lower right hand corner.
3) Slightly lowered the default DI_pH value applied to base wheat malts.

Metric version users must immediately make the transition to version 2.50, but all users will ultimately benefit from making this transition.