Water Profile question

[MadGus]

Got my ward's lab report today, and am trying to determine adjustments for a 15 gallon batch clone of Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale. My HLT holds 24 gallons, so I've used Beersmith2 to calculate the additions for this volume of water.

My tap water (from Chesterfield County, Virginia) has:

pH 7.4

Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est, ppm 110
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 0.18
Cations / Anions, me/L 1.6 / 1.7

ppm
Sodium, Na 19
Potassium, K 2
Calcium, Ca 8
Magnesium, Mg 4
Total Hardness, CaCO3 37
Nitrate, NO3-N < 0.1 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 8
Chloride, Cl 12
Carbonate, CO3 < 1
Bicarbonate, HCO3 48
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 39
Total Phosphorus, P 0.38
Total Iron, Fe < 0.01

If I want to match the water profile of Vista, CA (which some thread research on hbt seems to suggest may be slightly less bitter than Mosher's), Beersmith2 says I should add the following to my HLT (which again holds 24 gallons):

Gypsum 9.3g
Table Salt 6.5g
Epsom Salt 16.6g
Calcium Chloride 5.8g
Baking Soda 7.9g
Chalk 1.7g

The additions will result in a profile of:

Ca 57ppm
Mg 22ppm
Na 71ppm
SO4 136ppm
Cl 88ppm
HCO3 122ppm

I have never played around with water chemistry before, as I usually brew dark beers and have been happy with their taste. My IPAs are not as "crisp" as I'd like for them to be, so I started reading up a little and got a water test.

Appreciate any thoughts/suggestions.

 

[mabrungard]

Well if you follow that advice, the beers are likely to be less crisp. That amount of alkalinity is excessive for most brewing.

That tap water is very good. Most ions are low and there is modest alkalinity that is easily neutralized with acid. As long as there is no iron or manganese, this is an excellent starting point.

 

[mchrispen]

That is also a lot of sodium being added.

You will want to research up on how Sierra Nevada treats their water in the brewery. They have one of the most sophisticated approaches in the market, particularly on the recovery side, but also in matching liquor between facilities. NPR did an article on brewing water - particularly as SN setup the plant in North Carolina and faced the challenge of matching their home brewing liquor. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/20...-craft-beer-business-the-secrets-in-the-water

You may distill additional information by digging deeper. Regardless of whether you went with Chico or Vista, SN does modify the water hardness for their recipes ("a little"), but I cannot find any specific data that says to what extent, citing Sierra Nevada directly. Someone may have that information.

Since Martin didn't mention it - I will. Take a spin with the Bru'n Water spreadsheet and look particularly at the Pale Ale profile (similar sulfate levels to Mosher's). It will also allow you to split your additions between mash and sparge to help control mash pH, as well as make recommendations on acidification. I am not a fan of how Beer Smith manages water additions as it's recommendations typically will require me to add larger amounts of lime or soda than necessary. There is a link to a walkthrough for Bru'n in my signature.

Before you commit 15 gallons, you might want to play around with sulfate levels in finished beer to determine what YOU like. You can make a solution of gypsum and DI water at the ratio of 1 gram to 1 liter (1000 ppm solution), and dose up a carefully measured amount of beer (I use a graduated dropper) that you like until it achieves the "crisp" hop flavor you like or to the point the beer tastes minerally. Better if you use a beer you have brewed and you know the ion levels, then you can calculate the additions you prefer directly with a bit of math. You could also do this with Calcium Chloride as a separate solution.

 

[MadGus]

Thanks for the advice, guys. Played around with the Pale Ale Profile in brun' water, and have come up with the following for mash (13.5gal):

Gypsum (CaSO4) 13.5g
Epsom Salt (MgSO4) 6.8g
Baking Soda (NaHCO3) 1.4g
Calcium Chloride (CaCl2) 4.7g
Pickling Lime (Ca(OH)2) 3.4g
Lactic Acid 88% 4.7mL

and for sparge (10.7gal)

Gypsum (CaSO4) 10.7g
Epsom Salt (MgSO4) 5.4g
Calcium Chloride (CaCl2) 3.7g
Lactic Acid 88% 5.5mL

This will give me a mash pH of 5.5 (which I've read is what SN does), and will create a final water profile which is pretty close to the Pale Ale Profile in Brun' Water.

Calcium 130.3ppm
Magnesium 17ppm
Sodium 26.2ppm
Sulfate 222.9ppm
Chloride 56.6ppm
Bicarb 111.2ppm

So, my next question: Should I really take my Sulfates from tap of 24ppm to this profile of 222ppm? I realize the "acceptable range" goes up to 300, and that the water profile in brun' suggests 300. This may be the part where you guys reiterate that I should experiment on several smaller batches to determine what I personally like.

 

[mchrispen]

A couple of things...

A. focus primarily on the sulfate, chloride and calcium levels. For a pale-ish or amber beer, you don't win much using Epsom or adding too much sodium (Baking Soda), and alkalinity is fighting with the acid you are adding with the lactic acid. With alkalinity at 39, I am guessing you can get away with much less acid.
B. You can post the recipe, if you would like, to allow us to confirm the numbers
C. For the sparge water (volume?) shoot just for 6.0 pH, and not lower. This should prevent the rise of the pH at sparge and the potential for tannin problems.

Should I really take my Sulfates from tap of 24ppm to this profile of 222ppm? I realize the "acceptable range" goes up to 300, and that the water profile in brun' suggests 300.

Well yes, you are at the cross roads of "Do I trust Martin's proposed profile", and from personal experience, I would submit a resounding yes. But purely from a personal point of view. There is no right answer besides it is what you like. That would then lead to your correct supposition of smaller batches to dial it in before brewing a large batch.

It does sound like you like Sierra Nevada (as do I) and I can confirm that following Martin's Pale Ale profile will get you into the ballpark. I suspect that SN's APA uses a slightly higher sulfate level or I am missing something process wise in cloning side by side. I just brewed an APA with the Pale Ale profile and I cannot wait (forcing myself to go slowly) to get this carbed and into a glass. It is similar to SNPA, but slightly different hop bill (but still with cascades) with a two week double dry hop addition. Right now, best APA I have ever done, and will be ready for Christmas and a New Year's celebration!

 

[MadGus]

Excellent! Made some adjustments to eliminate Epsom and Baking Soda. For B) my recipe is 29# 2-row US Pale, 4.75# Crystal 60L (scaled up from the SNCA recipe in BYO a few issues back).

See below for the current additions, based on your feedback from A and C.

As a complete aside, I can't help but think back to an undergrad class I took, which made extensive use of the "solver" function in microsoft excel. Ever have people ask you about incorporating that into brun', Martin?

Must say, the spreadsheet is quite an awesome tool. :rockin:

 

[ajdelange]

Eliminate the bicarbonate and carbonate. You are blessed with low alkalinity water. Why try to increase alkalinity? Especially since you want a crisp beer? SN removes the alkalinity from their water by the use of phosphoric acid in many of their beers. Adding chalk/bicarbonate/lime and then adding acid is like digging a hole and then filling it up again (unless your object is to get the anion of the acid into the mix).

Your water is good enough that all you need to do is add a bit of calcium chloride (say half a tsp per 5 gal) and a like amount of gypsum and include a percent or 2 suermalz in the grist (or the equivalent in lactic or phosphoric acid in the water). That will give you a good or very good beer (provided you do everything else right). Once you have it you can experiment with tasting it adding bits of additional gypsum to the glass to see if you think that makes it better. If it does, then brew with more gypsum next time.

Don't get too hung up on following a particular water profile. What is important is controlling mash pH and getting broadly correct sulfate and chloride levels. These can, of course, be fine tuned as indicated above. A cook would say 'correct the seasonings'.

 

[MadGus]

Makes sense aj, and thanks to all three of you for the feedback. I also recently bought a pH meter, and will be breaking that in on this next brew.

Off to the homebrewshop to gather supplies this morning. It's going to be 77* in Richmond this Sunday... can't beat that weather for a brew session in December!

 

[ajdelange]

Makes sense aj, and thanks to all three of you for the feedback. I also recently bought a pH meter, and will be breaking that in on this next brew.

It isn't the meter that needs breaking in so much as the operator. If you have never used a pH meter before, or even if you have, take a look at https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/ph-meter-calibration-302256/ for some tips. Before Sunday go about the house checking pH on things like soda, fruit juices, milk, your tap water, bleach, vinegar. Be sure to rinse thoroughly between sample and buffers and blot dry.

It's going to be 77* in Richmond this Sunday... can't beat that weather for a brew session in December!

And my wife wonders why I don't want to stay in Canada this time of year.

 

[mabrungard]

When hardening water to the degree that the Pale Ale profile recommends, some alkalinity in the mashing water is needed to avoid reducing the residual alkalinity and mash pH too much. At a 100+ ppm of calcium, the RA will be very low if there is little alkalinity in the water. That low mash pH will echo into the kettle wort pH and Colin Kaminski and I agree that keeping the wort pH around 5.4 is VERY important in creating the hop expression that the brewer is obviously seeking (since they are using the Pale Ale profile). Brewers starting with waters like RO or distilled water will probably find that their hoppy beers don't quite hit the mark if they load them up with gypsum and don't add that touch of alkalinity to provide the balance needed for a proper pH.

 

[ajdelange]

That low mash pH will echo into the kettle wort pH and Colin Kaminski and I agree that keeping the wort pH around 5.4 is VERY important in creating the hop expression that the brewer is obviously seeking (since they are using the Pale Ale profile).

That is probably bad advice and I say probably because tastes are distributed in Gaussian fashion as are most things in the universe and Martin and Colin are on the tails. Colin readiliy admits that if he brewed beers the way he likes them his customers wouldn't buy them. OP is probably not on the same part of the curve as Martin and Colin but he might be.

Most brewers/drinkers do not want this harsh hop expression but prefer, to quote Kunze 'a better, cleaner tasting hop bitterness at a lower pH'. Higher pH extracts more bittering principal but it also extracts more tannins that lead to the harsh unpleasantness most seek to avoid. Most authors (Kunze, deClerck, Priest and Stewart,...) seem to agree that 5.0 - 5.2 is the appropriate range for wort pH at the end of the boil with 5.2 seeming to be the most commonly cited number. Many brewers add salts or acids to the wort to insure that kettle pH is in this range if it doesn't fall there automatically. In my experience it will if you manage mash pH properly, one aspect of which is reducing rather than increasing the alkalinity of the water.

There are several advantages to lower kettle pH such as the reduced harshness, presenting the yeast with an environment where they can put more of their energy into alcohol and flavor formation and less into acid production, less deepening of color in the kettle, better coagulation and precipitation of tannins (which are less at lower pH to begin with) and proteins. While the yeast pretty much ignore the pH of the wort and set it where they want it a more acidic wort will result in a slightly more acidic beer which is more biologically stable and favors the conversion of acetolactate to diacetyl (which, while that may seem counter intuitive is what you want to happen - you don't want residual acetolactate going into your package because that's where the diacetyl that spoils your beer forms).

The only 'advantage' to a higher pH is that you get better solubilization of alpha acids but the bitterness gets spoiled because of the extra tannin extraction. For Colin, who has to make a profit, going to a higher pH to get more bitterness per pound of hops may make sense especially as the negative effects at 5.4 are not as dramatic as they would be at 5.6 or higher. For a home brewer using a bit of extra hops to get a higher level of finer bitterness is, IMO, justified.

It is important to note here that we are talking pH at the finish of the boil here. pH in the kettle normally decreases from 0.1 - 0.3 pH so that if you go into the kettle at 4.5 - 5 you should wind up pretty close to the ideal 5.2. If you don't then you can add some gypsum if you are after assertive hops or calcium chloride if you want a finer bitterness or some acid if you don't want to increase mineralization.

To end up with knockout pH of 5.4 implies that mash pH would have been 5.5 - 5.7, given the normal drop. You probably don't want to mash at a pH much higher than 5.5 as this results in duller flavored beer. But then if what you are looking for is a hop blast at the levels I gather folks sometimes want then the other aspects of the beer flavor probably aren't that important.

Brewers starting with waters like RO or distilled water will probably find that their hoppy beers don't quite hit the mark if they load them up with gypsum and don't add that touch of alkalinity to provide the balance needed for a proper pH.

That is probably not true but I don't wish to discourage anyone from experimenting with higher wort pH. I would still encourage mashing at proper pH but then perhaps the wort could be boiled and the normal drop allowed to take place at which point, after a pH check, lime or bicarbonate could be added to raise the pH to 5.4 (or higher) and the hops then added. At the conclusion of the boil then acid could be added to get pH down to where the yeast are happier (5.2).

 

[mchrispen]

I guess as as counterpoint here... purely based on my last brew. AJ, your points are well made, but I maintain someone should just pick a starting point, and work from there to determine what they may or may not prefer, and track the pH throughout the brewing process, not just the mash. The Pale Ale profile is as good as any, and I suspect more center than extreme compared to some of the profiles brewers may choose (Burton is supposedly over 600 ppm!). The OP is also just as likely to want significant sulfate levels as not. I have not seen empirical data on this - and the scale for a triple blind study would be difficult for any real coherency. I suppose some determination can be extrapolated from craft beer sales.

I brewed an APA with 85% 2-Row, 6% Vienna (or Munich), 6% Biscuit, and 4% Dextrine. This is my new house base APA and the recipe I have been working to refine for 10 batches. It features 148 grams of hops, mostly late kettle and whirlpool with 38 grams at hot break (60 minutes)... Bravo, Cascade, Zythos. A couple of ounces of Cascade added dry hopping in 5 day intervals into 10 gallons. Nothing too extreme here. Was looking for a snappy bright hop quality and not what I have felt was a very mineral heavy expression when I tried to match other "Burtonesque" bitter profiles in the past, or my last very "soft" pale ale that was just past 100 ppm sulfate (this got judged harshly as an APA with the suggestion that I should consider Burton levels of sulfates).

I very carefully built my R/O up to the 300 ppm Sulfate levels (55 chloride) the Pale Ale profile specs, and was quite nervous about the amount of the additions. However, I followed the doses very carefully. I hit my mash pH at 5.4, and I added a tiny amount of pickling lime to the boil as the pH had dropped to around 5.2/5.3. This returned it to 5.4. It seems the change occurred around the time of the first strong hot break and when I added my bittering hops. I was frankly quite worried I had over mineralized the wort - as the wort into the fermenter was bitterly harsh. pH into the fermenter was 5.3. I should add - the hot break was thick and soupy - very interesting to see so much, and blocked up my filter.

I have not checked the pH of the final beer, which I need to do. I just racked into cornys this morning, but this is hands down the best pale ale out of the 10 batches I have made. Strong but not harsh bitterness right away, followed by the classic CTZ/Cascade flavors and aromas nicely balanced with the malts. Beersmith puts this at 55+ IBU, yet it drinks like a surprisingly less bitter beer, which may indicate my utilization is lower, rather than higher as would be suggested by the sulfate and boil pH.

I am also willing to strike this as good luck, as I have not yet brewed a second batch. That will come early next year. That said - I just spent a week in Sheffield drinking some VERY fine bitters, pale ales and "Celebration" ales, and almost all of them were extremely soft, round and fully flavored. I think I like my real ale sparkled (heresy to some) like they pull in the north, but few of ales were brewed with apparent extreme hardness. So I might rethink this position, but I do see APA and a British Pale Ale as significantly different beers.

Knowing intimately the water profile of my beer, I am going to run the test with a solution of gypsum in measured doses and see where I may prefer this to go relative to sulfates. Beer is carbing now - so will be ready for the test after Christmas.

 

[mchrispen]

MadGus,

So I ran your recipe into the free version of Bru'n and got the following:

Unless I am missing something - your mash pH should come right in at 5.2 without an alkaline addition (set the alkaline addition aside separate from the other salts). You can add a bit of pickling lime and bring that up to 5.4 (2.7 grams) which is what I would do, with a pH meter to monitor progress. I would avoid baking soda, unless you have no alternatives as it adds sodium, and chalk will not dissolve properly. Alternatively, you could add the lime to the boil kettle after sparging. I would personally acidify my sparge water to 6.0, but you may wish to avoid that - it's a very small amount of lactic relative to the 10 gallons.

I am only using gypsum and calcium chloride to hit the profile otherwise. Best of luck!

 

[ajdelange]

I guess as as counterpoint here... purely based on my last brew. AJ, your points are well made, but I maintain someone should just pick a starting point, and work from there to determine what they may or may not prefer, and track the pH throughout the brewing process, not just the mash.

I enthusiastically agree, hence the last paragraph in my post which, while rather specific to the question under discussion will, I hope, be interpreted more broadly. One should also, for example, do experiments to determine whether a mash pH of 5.3 gives a better beer than 5.4 etc., etc. The problem is, of course, that we have limited time and resources at our disposal. A commercial brewer can do things like this as he may brew the same gyle hundreds of times a year.

The OP is also just as likely to want significant sulfate levels as not.

He probably does but he probably does not want the harsh astringency that comes with higher kettle pH. I personally do not like the effects of harsh hops but when hops bitterness is extracted with attention to control of phenols I can enjoy those beers - often to my surprise.

I have not seen empirical data on this - and the scale for a triple blind study would be difficult for any real coherency. I suppose some determination can be extrapolated from craft beer sales.

That tells you something about the public's perception of what good beer is and certainly explains Colin's position. He said in an e-mail that he has to go to 5.4 to get salable beer in his market but privately admits he'd personally like the hops even more assertive than that.

Our brewer (at Mad Fox) cannot understand why our customers prefer the beers they do. They are not his best beers. He has said he never thought he'd be brewing beers like the ones he does but he's smart enough to brew what sells (and if he weren't he knows he'd be hearing from us). Right now the thing is if its bitter that's good if its crazy bitter that's better. There's a hot sauce which is just tomato paste and capscaicin. It's awful. I think its much the same here - almost a macho thing.

I very carefully built my R/O up to the 300 ppm Sulfate levels (55 chloride) the Pale Ale profile specs, and was quite nervous about the amount of the additions. However, I followed the doses very carefully. I hit my mash pH at 5.4,..

Good.

..and I added a tiny amount of pickling lime to the boil as the pH had dropped to around 5.2/5.3. This returned it to 5.4.

Probably not good but as I noted above going up 0.1 - 0.2 is probably not going to do too much harm.

It seems the change occurred around the time of the first strong hot break and when I added my bittering hops.

The mechanism is the same. An acid (in the most general sense i.e. a partially deprotonated protein) gives up some of its remaining protons and coalesces with calcium to precipitate out etc.

I was frankly quite worried I had over mineralized the wort - as the wort into the fermenter was bitterly harsh.

That's quite normal. The yeast actually take a lot of bittering out when they flocculate.

pH into the fermenter was 5.3.

Not bad. The addition of the alkali didn't hurt you much. 5.3 is acceptable.

I should add - the hot break was thick and soupy

That's good. Might have been even better if you hadn't added the lime.

- very interesting to see so much, and blocked up my filter.

There seems to be some downside to any benefit.

I have not checked the pH of the final beer, which I need to do. I just racked into cornys this morning, but this is hands down the best pale ale out of the 10 batches I have made.

You don't strike me as a 'better is the enemy of good enough' sort of guy so..

I am also willing to strike this as good luck, as I have not yet brewed a second batch.

Brew a second batch and do it sooner rather than later. Skip the lime in the boil. No promise that you'll like the result better, but you might and, will, whatever the result, learn something about the subject under discussion. In fact you should try acidifying the wort in another boil. This is what most brewers would do if they do anything with wort pH. Again no guarantee except that the result will be beer that is either better than, worse than or the same as the control.

...extremely soft, round and fully flavored. I think I like my real ale sparkled (heresy to some) like they pull in the north, but few of ales were brewed with apparent extreme hardness. So I might rethink this position, but I do see APA and a British Pale Ale as significantly different beers.

Gosh yes (from a guy that doesn't know squat about ales). You can bet that those soft, round beers didn't come from liquor loaded with sulfate nor high kettle pH's.

 

[mabrungard]

AJ, you make me chuckle! I'm impressed that a brewer who wouldn't even dream of brewing (or drinking?) a beer such as a hoppy IPA has such definitive opinions. Having made or tasted hundreds of beers in these categories, I have to suggest that I may have a bit more of an appreciation and understanding of the cause and effects. But, thank you for your observations!

Wow! I would have never considered a mash or wort pH of 5.4 high. But I suppose I'm still learning. I think Colin hit it on the head with his observation that hop-focused beers are better when brewed at around 5.4 and non-hop-focused beers are better around 5.2. I don't think there is controversy or deviation from current thinking in that statement.

 

[BackAlley]

This may be my all time favorite thread. I tuned in with interest because my water is almost identical to the OP's. I learned so much from this guys so thanks and my hats off. I also learned that there can be a very significant disagreement without making it personal. I also learned that AJ is a Canadian too??? That makes a lot of sense.

 

[ajdelange]

AJ, you make me chuckle! I'm impressed that a brewer who wouldn't even dream of brewing (or drinking?) a beer such as a hoppy IPA has such definitive opinions. Having made or tasted hundreds of beers in these categories, I have to suggest that I may have a bit more of an appreciation and understanding of the cause and effects.

The literature is pretty clear that lower kettle pH is preferred. I hit many of the high points in #11. The science is what it is, experience and preferences aside. I have little doubt that your experience with these beers is vastly broader than mine but that is because you like them and I don't. Thus you need to recognize that when you declare in capital letters that going to a pH higher than recommended by an echelon of world renowned brewing scientists, living and dead, that you know better than they do you need to either justify your position or indicate clearly that it is based on personal taste and recognize that not everyone's taste is the same as yours. If I say Quantitative Easing has been a disaster I had jolly well better say that this is my opinion and tell readers why I think that it a valid one. That my neighbor agrees with me really isn't sufficient.[Note: if anyone thinks that illustration is an invitation to discuss the merits of QE or lack thereof please be advised that I will politely ignore any attempts to start such discussion].

But, thank you for your observations!

Hope they stimulate some thought.

Wow! I would have never considered a mash or wort pH of 5.4 high.

Mash pH - no. Kettle pH, yes, but not seriously so.

But I suppose I'm still learning.

The literature is there for you. Perhaps you will interpret it differently than I have.

I think Colin hit it on the head with his observation that hop-focused beers are better when brewed at around 5.4 and non-hop-focused beers are better around 5.2. I don't think there is controversy or deviation from current thinking in that statement.

Well, yes. You will find that the literature seems to prefer a lower pH for the reasons I gave in my previous post.

Then this brings up the criterion of optimality. You can't say 'better' without saying what it means. Colin was pretty clear in his e-mail that his is 'sells better' which would be, if I were invested in Downtown Joe's exactly what I would want it to be. I'm invested in Mad Fox and that is exactly the criterion we want our brewer to use though we all, including our brewer, agree that the beers that sell best are not the 'best' beers in terms of flavor, adherence to style... This is, of course, as perceived through our palates (my fellow investors are bye and large the senior members of my brewing club and I have tremendous respect for their palates). But it isn't our palates that we must gratify. It is the 20-somethings. They may not have the refined palates that we do but they do have money to spend on Friday and Saturday night.

They want the insanely hopped stuff (e.g. Molotov Hoptail if that gives an idea) and our brewer delivers that but he does it without the harshness that I expect would result if he increased alkalinity of the brewing water or took steps to increase kettle pH. AFAIK he does neither. To be honest I don't know exactly how he packs that much hops flavor and fine bitterness into the beers but our water is pretty low in sulfate and he doesn't hesitate to use extracts for the really heavy ones. Perhaps the extracts pull out the bittering and oils without pulling out the tannins to the extent that normal kettle hops additions do. And the 20-somethings lap it up so even in the commercial world I don't think you have go against the general 5.0 - 5.2 rule of thumb.

 

[ajdelange]

This may be my all time favorite thread. I tuned in with interest because my water is almost identical to the OP's. I learned so much from this guys so thanks and my hats off. I also learned that there can be a very significant disagreement without making it personal.

I think it most important that people understand that brewing is firmly based in science but that it is an art. A statement that it is very important that you have a kettle pH of 5.4, or 5.3, or 5.2 or whatever number will always get a knee jerk reaction from me. It is very important that you have a kettle pH that gives you the best beer according to your criterion for goodness.


Such reaction often lead to discussions which, while they may get vigorous, do, I think, get aspects of the question which might otherwise get brushed under the rug, aired.

I also learned that AJ is a Canadian too???

Only by VSWR (that's an electrical engineering joke which I shall not explain further).

 

[BackAlley]

If I could make an observation guys. Many (actually most probably) use Martin's wonderful tool. However it is structured such that the mash,
sparge and kettle are all mixed up with each other. This tends to leads neophytes like me (and I suspect the OP) to do things like wanting to add salts for the sulphates, chlorides and calcium then believe we should add alkalinity to the mash because we have low alkalinity water and the pH forecast is too low. Having used it enough now I recognize how to not do that.

Would it make sense to structure the tool to emphasize the unique objectives of the mash, sparge and kettle? I have to admit, I thought the battle was over by getting the mash in the 5.2-5.6 range and gypsum and chloride to taste!

 

[ajdelange]

In fact it is - unless you want to do something out of the ordinary and of course home brewers do want to do things out of the ordinary and that is fine but I often say don't try to play the Goldberg Variations until you have mastered the Two Part Inventions. For the vast majority of beers if you get the mash in the 5.3 - 5.5 (or 5.6) band kettle pH will be 0.2 - 0.3 below that and thus in the 5.0 - 5.3 band which is, according to the accepted brewing texts where it should be. That may not be the end of the discussion but it should cover you in most cases.

When it comes to using spreadsheets the user has to recognize that spreadsheets model malts, carbonates and acids in ways that are not necessarily terribly robust nor are they consistent between spreadheets. In a recent comparison of 3 spreadsheets I found mash predictions ranging from 5.1 to 5.57 for the same mash. When Martin made this mash he measured 5.0. When I made it I measured 5.46 (and estimated 5.44). How can this be? Well the 80L Carmel malt he used certainly wasn't the one I used. Bru'n water's model is based on malt color. Mine is based on detailed measurements on the malt. Making the detailed measurements on each malt is clearly more robust but not very practical. I'm thinking of trying to convince maltsters to make a greatly reduced set of measurements and publish the data as part of their spec sheets but the simplified model reduces potential accuracy to closer to 0.1 than 0.02.

Anyway, if you are using one of these models to predict malt pH and get 5.1 as an estimate you'll add alkali. If you see 5.57 you'll probably used acid. Which should you do?

The neophyte looks at one of these spreadsheets and says 'Wow - that looks pretty neat and the guy that put it together is a smart guy. It must be right and I'm going to trust it'. You shouldn't for the reasons just given. That doesn't mean you shouldn't use it - you just shouldn't trust it and by that I mean you should check up on what it tells you with a decent pH meter.

 

[BackAlley]

AJ do you offer your spreadsheet?

 

[ajdelange]

I assume you mean the one for mash pH prediction. It isn't very refined at this point. I was giving a presentation on my technique for estimating mash pH and when the previous speaker illustrated his presentation with a spreadsheet I thought 'I should do that too' and cobbled it up during the rest of his talk. I've added a few things since then, though. It's at http://wetnewf.org/pdfs/Brewing_articles/MashpH.xlsx and be sure to download the slides from my presentation so you'll understand how it works. It's really great for showing you which parts of your mash contribute and absorb protons.

Don't get too excited about razor sharp pH predictions though. If I make a test mash with malts for which I have complete data it works really well, unsurprisingly enough. But if you try to use it to predict mash pH with a malt I haven't measured in detail you can get results that are way off. This whole thread is built on an unreasonable prediction, based on malts of the same color that I have measured, of mash pH by Bru'n water which obviously bases its prediction on different malts.

As I've only measured 4 malts at this point there aren't many beers you can model. To allow you to play around a bit I have taken Kai Troester's data and derived the average buffering capacity over the range he measured. You can use this as an approximation to the first of the three coefficients my model requires and probably get a fair prediction in many cases. You can even interpolate values of this first coefficient between colors as given in Kai's data but there is no reason to expect that the prediction will be any better than any other one that tries to do this based on malt color.

Put another way, my model is robust but the data you will have to put into it, other than for the 4 malts I have measured, isn't. So at this point I really think the value is more in that it will show you about where the protons flow than in its pH predictions.

 

[BackAlley]

Thanks AJ. All caveats are noted. I do measure pH and don't just rely on the estimates.

 

[MadGus]

Off topic, but had to post.

Had dinner and a flight of beers at Mad Fox tonight.

Simply awesome. Great beer, great food, very reasonable prices.

Nice work, AJ!