Mash pH vs. Water Profile

[Crimsonwine]

I have a question about Mash pH and brewing with a specific water profile (e.g. Burton on Trent).

I had my water tested by Ward labs. And I put the results into EZ water calculator and that tells me the additions to make to get my Mash pH based on malts used. I understand that...

Now if I want to brew an English ale and want to use the water profile from Burton on Trent...Beersmith will tell me the additions I need based on my water profile I put in....

So now the confusion...which one am I trying to attain? Perfect mash pH or try and brew with water profile from the region of the beer...

I am assuming I want to "treat" my water in the hot liquor tank and use that water all the way through the mash, sparge, and brewing...

Can any one clarify?

Thanks
Edward

 

[ajdelange]

So now the confusion...which one am I trying to attain? Perfect mash pH or try and brew with water profile from the region of the beer...

This is a very important question. I think we will agree that you are trying to make better beer. But what does 'better' mean. It could mean
1)more likely to win a ribbon in a competition
2)tastes better to you
3)tastes better to your S/O
4)sells better (commercial operation)
5)is more authentic

You have to decide which of these 5 represents your personal criterion for optimality. Mash pH is a sine qua non. You can't make good beer under any of those criteria if mash pH isn't in the proper range. So you must insure that. Now as to which of the 5 you shoot for - you can only determine that by experimentation. 1) obviously means that you need to please a panel of judges and as you don't know who they are about the best you can do is study the BJCP guidelines and try to tweak for that. A twist here is that the judges have their own criteria. I've dinged very tasty (criterion 2) beers because they were not to style (and heard back from angry entrants for doing it). Another guy might have awarded the ribbon because the beer was good even though it wasn't really an Export.

With respect to 5) - the styles evolved to match the available water. It is often possible to make a better beer than would be possible if you had, for example, the water of Burton before you. It is even possible to do this and retain the character of the style.

I am assuming I want to "treat" my water in the hot liquor tank and use that water all the way through the mash, sparge, and brewing...

Assuming you chose criterion 5 (authenticity) for a Burton beer you might decide to proceed by synthesizing Burton water. None of the calculators or spreadsheets I am aware of will tell you how to do this properly which is a good thing really because to do it you have to suspend chalk and bubble carbon dioxide through the water for a day or more while stirring. Then as soon as you turn the heat on all that chalk you went to so much trouble to dissolve will drop right back out again and you will have wasted a lot of time, effort and CO2. Why didn't this happen to Burton brewers? If they heated water to strike temperature before mashing in it probably did and they may have done this intentionally to lower the mash pH. The real point here is that preparing authentic water may lead you farther from an authentic beer than closer if you do not know how the original brewers treated that water if at all.

But I think you really wanted to know whether you should treat the whole volume of brewing water the same way at one time. That's certainly the easiest (if you have an HLT big enough to hold the whole volume) but there are cases where sparge water alkalinity can be high enough to raise runoff pH to the point where phenols are sparged from the grain husks. In these cases the sparge water needs to be acidified separateiy.

 

[Crimsonwine]

Beersmith lists water profiles for locations all over. It will tell me what additions/subtractions I need to my current water profile to match a specific water profile..like Munich, Germany..

All the water calculators just tell you what you need to achieve a specific pH range for mashing...

My question is... could that affect my mash pH?

 

[ajdelange]

Beersmith lists water profiles for locations all over. It will tell me what additions/subtractions I need to my current water profile to match a specific water profile..like Munich, Germany..

As I said in #2 you usually do not want to do that because it's a waste of time and can lead you farther from your target. Take Munich. Will you synthesize Munich water only to have to undo the carbonate addition in order to brew Helles? Why not skip the addition and removal steps and just go with a low mineral water (Munich water that has be decarbonated)?

All the water calculators just tell you what you need to achieve a specific pH range for mashing...

My question is... could that affect my mash pH?

I must be reading this wrong. Does something you do to change the pH of the mash have an effect on the mash pH? Yes!

 

[Crimsonwine]

I must be reading this wrong. Does something you do to change the pH of the mash have an effect on the mash pH? Yes!

I meant to say...take it out of the 5.2 to 5.6pH range...

 

[ajdelange]

So now I have

"All the water calculators just tell you what you need to achieve a specific pH range for mashing... My question is... can this take it out of the 5.2 to 5.6 pH range...?"

I'm still not sure how to answer this. The calculators are telling you what to do to get the mash ph into the 5.2 - 5.6 range so clearly if they take you out of the 5.2 - 5.6 range that is not the intention though it can happen when the calculator models the malt acidity incorrectly.

Are you perhaps confusing mash pH with water pH? The former has everything to do with brewing performance. The latter little. The only place the calculators/spreadsheets talk about water pH is when dealing with sparge water acidification. O/W they are trying to help you set mash pH.

 

[mabrungard]

Mash pH should be the primary goal of your water treatment. But, incorporating the flavor ions needed to help produce a particular historic water profile can still be accomplished after the pH goal is met. I place a strong caution on using historic water profiles.

The first reason is as pointed out by AJ, the brewers in those locations probably did some treatment to their water to make it more suitable for their brewing. Aiming for the 'raw' water profile is probably a mistake.

Second, a huge number of water profiles published in print or on the web are full of errors and will create problems for you in trying to duplicate them. To my knowledge, Bru'n Water is the only resource with researched and verified historic water profiles.

Third, using a relatively strongly mineralized profile like the Burton may produce stronger flavor effects than you might be looking for. A less mineralized profile is known to produce better pale ales. All the professional brewers I know of that make great PA and IPA do not use a water profile mineralized to the degree that the Burton profile is. Bru'n Water includes a Pale Ale profile that is based on Mosher's Pale Ale profile.

Forth. The bicarbonate recommendations contained in any water profile may not be suitable for your grist. In Bru'n Water, there are recommendations for bicarbonate, but there are recommendations that the actual value used be based on the predicted or actual mash pH. Bru'n Water has a feature that turns certain cells green when the final water's ionic content is within recommended range. For the bicarbonate cell, it will never turn green since there is not a true and perfect range to shoot for.