Bru'n Water Grain Color Selection

[Sudz]

Recently upgraded to v5.5 and continue to be impressed with this software. But must admit I've discovered I may not know how to handle the grain color selection on the Grain Bill input page.

I built up a Belgian Tripel and brewed it this weekend. Totally blew it with my pH. Targeted 5.32 and it came in at 5.57! Normally I'm always within a few hundredths. I climbed back through my Bru'n analysis and couldn't find anything amiss. Searching online suggested some folks select an alternate grain color to deliberately shift the pH results. I went back and selected "Wheat/Oats" for my Belgian Pilsner malt instead of the "Base Malt" originally chosen. This one change immediately recalculated the program's pH to 5.59 ideally matching my actual results. Adjusting the acid addition permitted me to reestablish the 5.32 originally targeted. The total acid now is what I would expect for this big beer. The original number appeared light from the start based on my gut.

So it would appear I should have chosen the wheat/oats as the color for this recipe. Question is, how do you know when building a recipe which color to use? Obviously the wheat/oats doesn't fit a Belgian Pilsner grain so how does one know which color will correctly yield the correct pH value?

 

[mabrungard]

While Wheat and Oat grains have shown tendency for higher pH, that does not mean that selection should be used for barley malts. A problem with the simplifying assumptions in Bru’n Water is that grains and malts can vary from batch to batch and year to year.

All you can do is monitor and adjust when things like this occur. If you have a sack of that pils malt, it should be fine to select wheat/oat in the future since it has proven to be true. Just be aware that that response is not typical and could vary in the next sack.

 

[Sudz]

Thanks for putting me back on track Martin. I did consider the Belgian Pilsner may have made a difference but I didn't think any difference would be that significant from a light grain. So moving forward I'll go with the program and if shifts occur, I'll make notes to correct on any repeat brew.

Cheers