Changes to my water

[thezepster]

I just moved to Texas and I'd like to get my water chemistry right the first time around. This is the first time I'm using Bru'n Water (which is awesome!) and I'd really like someone to check my math. As a side note, I'd like to avoid using RO water and stick to my tap water since I don't have RO or distilled readily available all the time.

Water Report:
Bicarbonate - 183 ppm
Calcium - 38 ppm
Magnesium - 22 ppm
Sodium - 27 ppm
Carbonate - 1 ppm
Sulfate - 34 ppm
Chloride - 50 ppm
Total Alkalinity as CaCO3 - 150 ppm
pH - 7.5

Volumes:
Mash - 10.5 gallons
Sparge - 13 gallons (added a little extra just in case)
Start of boil: 15.5 gallons
End of boil: 12 gallons

Recipe:
Porter (Black malty)
Vienna - 28 lbs 6 oz
C-40 - 1 lb 8 oz
C-120 - 1 lb
Debittered black - 11 oz
Chocolate Wheat - 8 oz

Water additions:
Mash - 63 ml 10% Phos. acid and 2.1 grams Gypsum
Sparge - 107 ml 10% Phos. acid
Boil - 2.6 grams Gypsum

I've never had to use Phosphoric so it's totally new to me. I added gypsum with the phosphoric in the mash because I don't want to use too much, but let me know if that's pointless. Any help is appreciated!

 

[mabrungard]

Seems reasonable. That water has significant alkalinity and the recipe doesn't have a lot of roast malts and its possible that you need a bit of acid to keep the pH in the proper range. Since this is a Porter, I do recommend you target a pH in the 5.4 to 5.5 range. The roasty flavors are smoother that way.

 

[thezepster]

Things didn't turn out like I'd hoped. I wasn't able to take a reading on my mash cause I was using strips and the color made it unreadable, but when I added 8.2 ml/gallon of 10% Phos. acid to the sparge water the pH went below 4.6, which is the lowest the strips will go. I drained 1/3 and added water back to it which got it up to 6.0. I made sure to use fresh strips and cool the sample to room temp. This makes me very worried my mash pH was also way too low. I added 6 ml/gallon Phos and .2 g/gallon gypsum to mash water. I'm going to be getting a current water report from Ward just in case the 2014 water report is way off, but I doubt it. The alkalinity is consistent year to year.

In the future I'm thinking of making up all my water in bulk (mash and sparge water together) to a pH of 6.0 to avoid any hassle during the brew. Does this seem reasonable? Based off my current alkalinity of 150 I can add 6.75 ml/gallon of 10% Phos to all my water to get a sparge pH of 6.0 and a mash pH of 5.4.

 

[thezepster]

If anyone is interested I did a little experiment to see why my sparge pH was way lower than expected.

First, I got a water report from Ward which is below:

pH - 7.7
TDS - 289
Na - 22
K - 4
Ca - 43
Mg - 21
Sulfate - 10
Cl - 40
Bicarbonate - 200
Alkalinity - 165

I bought some 10% Phos. Acid from my LHS and used the same ratio that was given to me by Bru'n Water to make a 1 L batch of "sparge water". The ratio that was given was 2.4 ml per 1 L of water. I made that mixture which gave me a pH of 3.3 using my new, calibrated pH meter. So... way off from the 5.6 that was estimated which is what happened during my brew. I then diluted to a total volume of 1.25 L which gave me a pH of 4.5. Then, diluted again to 1.5 L which gave me 5.6.

I suspected that the 10% Phos. acid I got from LHS was not exactly 10% so I ordered some online from a chemical supply company assuming that it is exactly 10%. I did the exact same thing. Mixed 2.4 ml to 1 L of water and it gave me a pH of 4.4... still too low. Diluted it down to 1.25 L and I got 5.6.

I can't seem to be able to predict my water pH and I'm at a loss as to why, so I've come to the decision that I'm going to create a batch of all my brew water (strike + sparge) to a pH of 5.6 (after a few times I'll learn how much it takes), then add salts/acid malt to my mash to offset my grist's buffering capacity as needed. This is pretty much the last thing I have to dial in on my beers so I want to get it right, and I don't want to use RO.

 

[mabrungard]

It sounds like you need another alkalinity test to determine what your water's alkalinity is at that moment. All the software in the world can't do you any good if the inputs it uses are not correct.

In a way, the Sparge Acidification calculator is a double check on water alkalinity. If the resulting sparging water pH is way out of wack from the prediction, that alkalinity value wasn't right. If your water varies much, you should probably pick up one of those aquarium alkalinity test kits to help determine what the alkalinity is at the moment.