# Calcium Lactate



## Bribie G (8/3/16)

Reviving an old topic. I just ordered a tub of Calcium Lactate from Brewman.

Until now I've been using Calcium Chloride for Yorkshire / Northern ales and a "Burton" mix of Magnesium Sulphate and Calcium Sulphate for most other brews including Southern Ales, Aussie Ales and lagers and to a lesser extent Euro Lagers.
Nice soft water here, haven't got a printout from the Council as yet but it's way soft.

I know MHB was doing experiments with Calcium Lactate and Brewman has obviously inherited a fair supply.

Any hints on how it will benefit the mash / fermentation and what quantities to use?


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## MHB (8/3/16)

Unless Brewman has changed the label, there should be an equation on there that shows you how to calculate the amount needed for any given Ca addition.
It works best used in conjunction with Lactic Acid (and a decent pH meter) as the two together form a really powerful buffer complex.

The original idea came from looking at how chalk works in water chemistry, chalk is relatively insoluble, about 90% of the acidity in a mash comes from bacterial Lactic Acid on the malt, combine Lactic Acid and Calcium Carbonate and you get Calcium Lactate and CO2, so I started having a play with how Ca-Lactate acts in the mash. Turned out to be a good way to adjust Ca without adding too much Cl- or SO42- If you like you can add as much chloride or sulphate as you need for the style of beer you are making, then add more Calcium as CaLac if you need more Ca and adjust the pH with Lactic acid to the ideal range.

I am pretty sure Steve has had to top up his stock of Calcium Lactate, quite a few brewers are finding it very useful.
Mark


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## wobbly (8/3/16)

Bribie

Check out post #23 in this topic http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/89071-calcium-in-water/page-2 where I reference one of Martin Brungard's talks on water. 

Towards the end of the pod cast he comments that the "secret" to brewing Munich style beers is "Lactate" and to achieve this he treats Calcium Carbonate with Lactic Acid to produce Lactate and adds this to the brew. 

Now Dr Google tells me here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_lactate that Calcium Lactate is a mixture of Calcium Carbonate (chalk) and Lactic Acid 

So I would be using it to produce authentic Munich style beers such as Helles etc

Wobbly


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## Bribie G (8/3/16)

Thanks, I don't have lactic acid but have some acidulated malt, might have a play with that. I'm still pretty much a tsp of this and a tsp of that water "mechanic" but intend to get up to strength in this area with the comps season fast approaching.


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## klangers (8/3/16)

Pour lactic acid on chalk and they will react. One of the products is calcium lactate (you'll also get hydrogen and water).

To me, the only advantage with calcium lactate is that you can get additional calcium without the sulphate or chloride ions in a readily soluble salt. Unlike chalk (calcium carbonate), which is pretty much insoluble (79 g/L vs 0.013 g/L).

Again, it's not a magical formula - just another salt along with calcium chloride, calcium sulphate that you use as necessary to get the target chemistry. If your source water has plenty of sulphate and chlorides but needs a calcium boost for your target style, then adding calcium lactate would help with this and actually dissolve.


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## MHB (8/3/16)

Just a word of warning, the reaction can be very vigorous and is quite exothermic, it cost me a 5L beaker to learn that it foams like buggery gives off a cloud of steam and sets into something resembling foamed cement.



It's way simpler to buy it than try to make it.
Mark


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## Alex.Tas (9/3/16)

If you do decide to DIY, FFS use goggles.
I did something similar to this last year, but we were using sulphuric acid (and associated precipitated metal sulphates) and ag lime (CaCO3). Oh yeah and we used an excavator to do the mixing....

Gave off a fair bit of heat and like MHB says, bubbles like crazy.
Just buy it.


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## wynnum1 (9/3/16)

Alex.Tas said:


> If you do decide to DIY, FFS use goggles.
> I did something similar to this last year, but we were using sulphuric acid (and associated precipitated metal sulphates) and ag lime (CaCO3). Oh yeah and we used an excavator to do the mixing....
> 
> Gave off a fair bit of heat and like MHB says, bubbles like crazy.
> Just buy it.


What quantity did you mix was looking at Calcium Carbonate from produce store 25 kg for $20 and mix with some acid to use in the garden did you dilute the acid.



Calcium Carbonate


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## Alex.Tas (9/3/16)

wynnum1 said:


> What quantity did you mix was looking at Calcium Carbonate from produce store 25 kg for $20 and mix with some acid to use in the garden did you dilute the acid.
> Calcium Carbonate


Around 50t or so. I can't remember exactly. 

This wasn't a brewing related enterprise, we were decommissioning sulphuric acid tanks, and blending up the residual H2SO4 (and associated sludge) with ag lime. We used the Ag lime to neutralise the acid to pH 5ish and also to create a blanket over the sludge so the oxy torch slag (from cutting the tanks) didn't mix with the acid, which would react and liberate hydrogen, which would lead to an explosion.

I'm not sure ag lime bought from an agricultural supplier would be free from other contaminants (cadmium for example). So it may not be safe to use in your beer. It might be okay, but I won't advocate it.


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## TheWiggman (9/3/16)

MHB said:


> Just a word of warning, the reaction can be very vigorous and is quite exothermic, it cost me a 5L beaker to learn that it foams like buggery gives off a cloud of steam and sets into something resembling foamed cement.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I didn't want to make it before I read this post, but now I do.


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## MHB (9/3/16)

I didn't say it wasn't fun! Remember in high school chemistry adding conc Sulphuric to sugar, makes a big black foam mass stinks and thankfully someone else has to clean up later. Just be careful, the heat and steam means there is quite a bit of vaporised acid in the fumes.
Old saying around welders, _"there is nothing worse than getting flux in your eyes - except getting hot flux in your eyes" _Same with acid fumes, very low fun rating.




wynnum1 said:


> What quantity did you mix was looking at Calcium Carbonate from produce store 25 kg for $20 and mix with some acid to use in the garden did you dilute the acid.
> Calcium Carbonate


I wouldn't go that way, I doubt the acid is Lactic Acid and I'm absolutely sure they wont be food grade chemicals.

One of the things I like about Calcium Lactate is the power of the buffering action, especially when mixed with Lactic Acid, in my experience it can do what 5.2 claims and rarely achieves.
Mark


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## wynnum1 (9/3/16)

Sulphuric to sugar probably only needs another ingredient to go bang from reaction and some react with metal to make shock sensitive compounds so keep away from metal containers.
The fumes you get also have the heavy metals that are worse then the acid fumes .


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## wobbly (9/3/16)

So if you had a bottle of Calcium Lactate such as Bribie reportedly has how much would you add to say a standard mash for 23lts of wort and I understand that this would depend on grain bill and measured pH of the mash. My question is about understanding the "strength/concentration" of the product.

As the product adds both Calcium and Lactate to the mash/wort what would be the concentrations in say "ppm or mg/l" be per gram or milliliter of added salt

How would you account for the Calcium and lactate in the mash liquor/water because neither EZ Water or Bru'n Water have the facility to include Calcium Lactate as one of the salts to be added to the mash.

Wobbly


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## MHB (9/3/16)

It's a salt so we are working in ppm or mg/L (same thing)
Calcium Lactate pentahydrate is 13.00% WW Calcium (Calcium Sulphate.2H2O is 23.3%, Calcium Chloride can be 36%, 27% or 18% depending on the hydration)

If you wanted to add 100mg/L of Ca to 23L, 23L X 100mg/L = 2,300 mg (divided by 1000 to give grams) = 2.3g of calcium
The amount of CaLac would be, Add Mass = 2.3g/13% or 2.3/0.13 = 17.7g of CaLac

Its exactly the same process used for any other salt and I think both the Ca% and a sample equation are on the bottle.
Mark


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## Brewman_ (9/3/16)

That's correct Mark, The label has the same calculation but based on a 25L batch. And no the label hasn't changed.

Cheers Steve


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