Mash pH and water composition

[beerboymark]

Hello All, this is my first thread!

I will be brewing my first AG brew in a couple of weeks and have some queries on hitting mash pH. Im planning on a single hopped pale ale around 12 SRM/24 EBC.

Here is my current recipe
http://brewgr.com/recipe/22062/cascade-single-american-pale-ale-recipe?public=true

I have a comprehensive water quality report from my supplier however mineral concentrations are very varied. The 2015 report states min and max tested levels of the following:

Ca - 64-84
Mg - 8-10
SO4 - 52-121
Chloride - 28-71

Alkalinity - 138 (not on the report to phoned my supplier and they said this is quite a stable number)

I was planning on using salt additions to reduce residual alkalinity and balance the SO4:Cl- ratio for my designated beer style but I feel my time could be wasted given the mineral ranges.

I cannot afford a water test kit to determine mineral levels on my brew day so here was my idea to hit mash pH:

Add grain to strike water
Check pH level
Adjust pH level with lactic acid to get to 5.2-5.5 (probably by adding a little bit at a time unless there is handy calculator?)

How does that sound?

Thanks in advance!

 

[HisDudeness]

Your mineral levels will be within a working range wherever they are in those measurements and unless you get a more accurate estimate I wouldn't see much point adjusting with salts as its a bit of a shot in the dark! Alkalinity however will have an impact especially for a pale ale so worth treating for that, I haven't used lactic myself but I'm sure there are calculators that will allow you to work out how much to add rather than trial and error approach (brewersfriend maybe?). This thread is based around me using CRS to treat my water and might be helpful.
http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=59231

 

[beerboymark]

Thanks for the reply Dudeness and pointing me towards your experiment - was a good read and seems that CRS is more widely used. I like the idea that you require a greater volume of CRS to achieve the same neutralising effect as lactic acid - more room for measuring error!

So I think I will look into the CRS option. You reported fluctuation in Alkalinity in your thread and no doubt you check alkalinity before each brew now. Do you know what kind of % deviation do you find from the average?

And your water report looked very familiar as I live in Northampton and am supplied by Anglian too! If you need any further information from them they are very helpful. I requested info on my Alkalinity level and got a call back from their technical department within the hour.

 

[HisDudeness]

Thanks for the reply Dudeness and pointing me towards your experiment - was a good read and seems that CRS is more widely used. I like the idea that you require a greater volume of CRS to achieve the same neutralising effect as lactic acid - more room for measuring error!

So I think I will look into the CRS option. You reported fluctuation in Alkalinity in your thread and no doubt you check alkalinity before each brew now. Do you know what kind of % deviation do you find from the average?

And your water report looked very familiar as I live in Northampton and am supplied by Anglian too! If you need any further information from them they are very helpful. I requested info on my Alkalinity level and got a call back from their technical department within the hour.

No problem, agree anglian seem quite good for providing water profiles the report off the website had all the important information and more and at least in terms of alkalinity has proven to be pretty accurate. My alkalinity seems to be fairly stable around 200 usually but I have had it measure up to about 220 a couple of times so 10% is the most change I have seen so far. The water calculator on this site has proven pretty successful for me in terms of dosage for CRS so try plugging your numbers into that to get a starting point. If you overshoot and mash PH drops too low you can bring it back up with a pinch of bicarbonate of soda.

 

[duncans]

Hi

Your recipe looks good.

For water treatment consider that just adding calcium salts can lower the mash pH without the addition of acid.

If you added 1 heaped teaspoon (about 10g) to 25l water, then you should see a touch lower mash pH than with just water alone. Using calcium sulphate (gypsum) would suit your chloride/sulphate ratio for this beer too.

Lactic acid or crs will work, no doubt, but this is just another way. It sounds like you have lactic to hand though.

 

[Brew_Mike]

Those that are having difficulty with water treatment should have a look at this post http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showpost.php?p=432580, as I feel it contains a lot of information (if you can get through the appalling formatting), it's completely different from what we get in the US, and since changing my approach to what Aleman suggests my beers have improved considerably, from a bit meh to distinct 'clean' flavours.

 

[Covrich]

Those that are having difficulty with water treatment should have a look at this post http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showpost.php?p=432580, as I feel it contains a lot of information (if you can get through the appalling formatting), it's completely different from what we get in the US, and since changing my approach to what Aleman suggests my beers have improved considerably, from a bit meh to distinct 'clean' flavours.

I have started treating my last few brews.. most of which is using camden tablet and CRS to strip back the alkalinity ( I do add some epson and gypsum depending on style but its not a lot at all)..

I have found a jump in the cleanliness as you describe and my brews are actually much clearer..

 

[beerboymark]

I feel the issue i have is that my mineral levels appear pretty unpredictable so pre treating the water based on the report may be a shot in the dark. Especially if using Ca salts since untouched the SO4:Cl- ratio ranges from 0.8 to 2.8.

Do you think it would be acceptable to start mashing with unmodified water (apart from a campden tab) then check mash pH and adjust directly with CRS?

Problem here may be reaction times. How quickly does the mash hit stable pH? How quickly does CRS react to lower the pH?

I havent investigated the range of residual alkalinity yet based on extreme values of minerals. Maybe there will be a small SRM range which falls in both scenarios and i can spec CRS quantity based on that.

Alternatively there is the 5 star 5.2 stabilizer but i dont read many good reviews...

 

[Bunglebrewsbeer]

I've not really knowingly treated my water ever. Always lob a bit of gypsum In but no idea what effect that has or what it was before I did. What is the most important thing to be achieving by tearing water?

 

[dan125]

+1 for CRS to reduce the alkalinity & I'd be tempted to keep it as simple as that for the first brew and adapt & improve your methods once you've tried the beer.
I like the look of the recipe - can't go wrong with cascade -are you going to dry hop as well?
10% dark crystal is quite a lot IMO and you may want to use a bit less in the 1st brew and add more next time if you think it needs it.

 

[TartanSpecial]

Like others, I'd go for CRS first an see how your mash efficiency goes. If the alkalinity as CaCO3 is 138 and fairly stable, then for pale ales and bitter you should use 0.6ml CRS /ltr brewing liquor (ie mash plus sparge water) and for porters and stout half that (0.3ml/ltr)
So for a pale ale or bitter, if you are brewing 23ltrs and have...eg 35 ltrs of total brewing liquor for the mash and sparge you'd add 21ml CRS to the water in the hot liquor tank. Do a brew using that and see how the mash efficiency works out.
Although your sulphate and chlorides fluctuate...a simple approach would (for a 23ltr batch size) would be to add 10 grams gypsum (Calcium Sulphate) , and for porters/stouts to add 10grams of Calcium Chloride.

 

[Bunglebrewsbeer]

I'm totally lost.

 

[MyQul]

I'm totally lost.

To simplify what tartan has said; Once you know what the alkalinity of your water is (mine for e.g. is 188parts per million/ppm the last time I tested it.) you need to reduce the alkalinity to a particular value for certain styles. Pales: Below 50ppm (lagers below 30ppm) stouts/porters between 100ppm and 150ppm.
What tartan has done is do the calculations on how much CRS acid (which strips back the alkalinity) for the OP based on his stated alkalinity of 138ppm. Plus how much other salts he needs to add to tweek the flavour profile (gypsum to bring out the hoppiness flavours, calcium chloride to bring out maltiness). Well at least that's whatI think tartan has done (I'm by no means an expert on these things)

 

[Bunglebrewsbeer]

So is alkalinity the main thing to mess about with you'd say?

 

[MyQul]

So is alkalinity the main thing to mess about with you'd say?

Yes. The alkalinty f your water effects the mash PH which is, as far as my reading goes, is the most important thing when it comes to faffing about with your water. Then comes the tweaking other salts

 

[Bunglebrewsbeer]

So would that improve efficiency?

 

[MyQul]

So would that improve efficiency?

I'm not sure tbh. I only started to read up on water adjusting as my pales had a sort of hop astingency aftertaste. As my efficiency has never been a problem I never looked into whether water adjustment will be effected/improved.

My opinion of efficiency is that as long as it's consistant you shouldn't really need to worry too much about how high or low it is. I get about 72% from my set up (give or take) but I am able to improve it up to 80%+ by doing an overnight mash. However this isn't consistant as sometimes I still only get 72% which means that I'm unsure of my hop additions/final IBUs, so have stopped doing overnight mash as I cant rely on it's consistancy

 

[Covrich]

So would that improve efficiency?

Tartan seems to think it should, I have done 3 brews 2 big one smaller (the big ones my water numbers were slightly higher so it could skew the figures somewhat) I haven't noticed a huge bump on the bigger brews, maybe I will when I get water figures better but my smaller one I think it was possibly better..

For me I think it has cleaned and refined the brews a bit.. I could have carried on without it but its just "fine tuning" I guess and I am happy with the changes.

I don't do a lot either just CRS mostly and a little bit of gypsum/ epsom salts depending on the style.

 

[Bunglebrewsbeer]

What's CRS?

 

[HisDudeness]

Carbonate reducing solution, a blend of acids used for reducing alkalinity you can buy it from most of the homebrew shops online. Other acids such as lactic or phosphoric can also be used.

In my experiments I didn't see a jump in efficiency but in theory this can happen and is certainly reported by others such as TS, since I started stirring a couple of times mid mash though I have seen about a 5-6% jump but cant be sure whether this is also aided by the treatment. Cant be arsed doing another test to find out either!