# Confused.... mash pH and mineral content vs beer style



## Gosling (6/3/15)

I am a little confused after trying to wade through the water chemistry section of Palmers "How to brew" book.... would be grateful if someone can shed some light.

I refer to his nomograph for predicting and adjustment of the mash pH. I get the concept of residual alkalinity and how you can adjust the pH of the mash. I have also played with EZ water calculator to see what additions I might need to get to the desired pH.

The only thing I can find in Palmers text is "The fact of the matter is that dark beer cannot be brewed in Pilsen, and light lagers can't be brewed in Dublin without adding the proper type and amount of buffering salts".

What I dont get is why I cant make a decent pale beer with hard water or a decent dark beer with soft water, nor why the pH of the mash is important to the style. All I understand is that the correct pH is required for a decent starch conversion at the target mash temperature. 

The way i see it is that if I have a water with high alkalinity I could theoretically reduce pH with lactic acid and not additional minerals and hit the target pH for a pale beer as per the Palmer nomograph. If so why would the beer taste bad ?

Hope I am making sense...


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## srm (6/3/15)

Without specifically answering your question, I have found that the Bru'n Water Site (https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/water-knowledge) explains things well.


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## Black n Tan (6/3/15)

The run water knowledge page is excellent. So you understand residual alkalinity so you are well on your way. The ideal mash pH is 5.2-5.6 as measured at room temperature (typically 5.2-5.4 for lagers, and 5.4-5.6 for ales): this is the pH at which the enzymes are most happy and will result in a beer with the right acidity. Firstly dark grains drive the pH of the mash lower (more acidic) than pale grains.Therefore for a pale beer such as a pilsener, hard water (or technically accurately water with high residual alkalinity) will drive the pH of mash above the ideal mash pH range. For a dark beer, soft water (or more accurately water with low residual alkalinity) will not have enough buffering capacity to offset the acidity of the roasted grains and will drive the pH below the deal mash pH. Neither of these situations are ideal. However if you have soft water you can add carbonates to increase the residual alkalinity to make dark beers. For hard water things are a little more difficult as you need to remove the alkalinity, which can be done with using filtered water (such as RO water). For more detail read the Brun water information.


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## TheWiggman (6/3/15)

Also worth noting that the author of Bru'n Water is mabrungard on this here forum. Exceptionally valuable to this community.



Gosling said:


> What I dont get is why I cant make a decent pale beer with hard water or a decent dark beer with soft water, nor why the pH of the mash is important to the style. All I understand is that the correct pH is required for a decent starch conversion at the target mash temperature.
> 
> The way i see it is that if I have a water with high alkalinity I could theoretically reduce pH with lactic acid and not additional minerals and hit the target pH for a pale beer as per the Palmer nomograph. If so why would the beer taste bad ?
> 
> Hope I am making sense...


The reason you can't make decent dark beers with very soft, acidic water is because the dark grains will lower the pH of your mash significantly. This obviously can't be offset by adding acid, you need something to alkalise it.

I raised a thread about adding [lactic] acid instead of using acidualted malt with my quite hard water at a pH of around 7.8. The result was a very tart and unpleasant beer that was not worth drinking, and I tipped the keg. I recently used acidualted malt to the same effect and it's completely different. Lagering now, may even do a sample when I get home...

The pH of the mash is important to _all_ styles. As you say the correct pH of the mash is required, and different grain bills will produce different pH.


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## antiphile (6/3/15)

Howdy Young Goose

It's not an instant solution, but if you have 50 minutes, there are 2 YouTube videos that will help you *a lot*. So grab a glass, a bottle of home brew, and watch these (ignore the bits you may not understand, but most is easy to follow even for me):

John Palmer's youtube video on  (30 mins); then
The  (20 mins) as srm mentioned.


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## anthonyUK (6/3/15)

If you fully understood RA you wouldn't be using terms 'hard' and 'soft' 
I don't fully understand it and have read that it is a contentious subject whether it actually exists but I know that hard/soft and high/low alkalinity are not always interchangeable.
It is often the case though that hard water has high alkalinity and vice-versa.

My local water which is from a boreholes in chalk aquifers means you wouldn't consider using lactic to reduce the alkalinity to an acceptable amount as the taste perception for this acid is fairly low and the amounts required are large.
I can't really use AMS/CRS either as the sulphate/chloride increases are too much (>150ppm) which also has a flavour impact.
Some people like that and Buton was well known for its unique water profile.
For mainly pale grists I tend to use a low alkalinity bottled water to 'dilute' the local supply which adds around £1/5l to the cost of a brew.

Interestingly, my town is well known for brewing for the past 300 years and Molson Coors still (just about) has a brewery here so I'd love to know how they treat the water they use but as they are brewing 100,000l batches, industrial water treatment wouldn't be surprising.


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## mckenry (7/3/15)

anthonyUK said:


> If you fully understood RA you wouldn't be using terms 'hard' and 'soft'
> I don't fully understand it and have read that it is a contentious subject whether it actually exists but I know that hard/soft and high/low alkalinity are not always interchangeable.
> It is often the case though that hard water has high alkalinity and vice-versa.
> 
> ...


anthonyUK,
Not sure about the UK but imagine its the same world wide for the megas. They all have reverse osmosis plants of their own. This basically turns their water into 0 for all parameters then build up with salts to exactly what they want. For the megas, this is the only reliable way to ensure repeatability. Some places in the USA have water drawn for up to 5 supplies, depending on the season. They wouldnt be able to make the same beer over and over with that variablity.
There are some guys on this forum that have under sink RO devices.


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## waggastew (7/3/15)

One interesting slightly OTT point is that typical water profiles reported for a particular beer are not always accurate. Case in point, typical Dublin water is reported to be quite hard but Guinness is apparently brewed with soft water from another source.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/water-used-brew-guinness-soft-water-according-guinness-476312/

Main thing is that the 'rules' are only general in nature and some trial and error may be needed to dial in a recipe with YOUR water. Another point is that your water may not be the same as the council report, and may change day to day/ week to week etc.


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## peas_and_corn (7/3/15)

anthonyUK said:


> If you fully understood RA you wouldn't be using terms 'hard' and 'soft'
> I don't fully understand it and have read that it is a contentious subject whether it actually exists but I know that hard/soft and high/low alkalinity are not always interchangeable.
> It is often the case though that hard water has high alkalinity and vice-versa.


Hardness is a reference to mineral content- calcium ions, magnesium ions and so on. It isn't a measure of alkalinity, though it can influence it


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## Dunkelbrau (8/3/15)

The idea is to get your pH in spec then add the other salts (never alkalising salts) to the kettle to increase the concentrations of flavour ions for the final beer.

The main flavour contributions come from the sulfate and chloride levels, but others will have an effect.

Generally pale beers need acidifying and mashing darker grains will need alkalising. Cold steeping or adding those darker colour grains at the end of the mash can influence the flavour without changing the pH for conversion or you can add bicarb soda or chalk (the two more common options) to increase pH, however chalk is very insoluble without acid to dissolve it, so you need to add it to the mash, or dissolve it in some co2 water to get better utilisation of its pH changing properties. I usually add around 1.8 x the amount calculated on brunwater if I use it.

I found re reading the book sections and tasting changes helped me to a better understanding.

There is a lot of misinformation around, so start with basics and learn to taste the differences with trial and error! Good luck


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## Gelding (9/3/15)

anthonyUK said:


> If you fully understood RA you wouldn't be using terms 'hard' and 'soft'


 

Nonsense. Are you saying that anyone that understands the RA concept doesn't think or talk about about hardness ? Though you have qualified your statement with:



> " I don't fully understand it"


 
To quote from excellent site referenced in this thread "Residual Alkalinity (RA) is brewing-specific value that is derived from both the water's Hardness and Alkalinity to help evaluate potential mashing pH conditions." Therefore you can adjust RA by adjusting water hardness by adding minerals or by processing, or adjusting alkalinity with acid or alkali compounds.

It reads to me OP is asking why he cant make a decent pale beer with water of high alkalinity by adding acid in order to keep mineral concentrations down. To know the RA the hardness also needs to be known. If hardness is low then lactic acid would do the trick though others say it comes through in the beer if used in excess. If hardness is also high then that would imply also high concentrations of chloride and sulphate which can also impact on the flavour style undesirably.


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## anthonyUK (9/3/15)

It is best to avoid using the terms hard or soft when talking about water for brewing as I mentioned it is OFTEN the case that hard water = high alkalinity and vice-versa but not always. Any decent article on water treatment for brewing will not substitute these terms without qualification and my comment regarding its use in the OP was related to the context it was used in.



> From BYO - http://byo.com/hops/item/1545-understanding-residual-alkalinity-ph-advanced-homebrewing
> 
> It's the alkalinity, stupid
> It's often convenient to discuss brewing water in terms of its hardness. In general, it can be said that soft water (with fewer dissolved minerals) is better for brewing lighter colored beers, while hard water favors darker styles. However, this is not quite accurate from a scientific point of view. The important value is really the water alkalinity, which — as mentioned in the discussion above — is related to the level of bicarbonates or carbonates.





The best practice which Dunkelbrau mentioned is one that I subscribe to.



> The idea is to get your pH in spec then add the other salts (never alkalising salts) to the kettle to increase the concentrations of flavour ions for the final beer.


Get a best efforts water report from your supplier and an Alkalinity test kit as used for aquariums. In UK these are from Salifert.
I use BruNWater for calculating what additions are required and it works out pretty well for me (post treatment alkalinity testing and mash pH bears this out).
For Pale Ales though my water has far too high an alkalinity to remove with an acid without impacting the flavour which is where using a known low alkalinity water comes in useful.
So as I say, I don't fully understand it but I know a little for my requirements even having read Palmers Water book.


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## /// (9/3/15)

Consider why the pH drops. The calcium that disassociate in the solution will bind with phosphorous (or is it phosphates ... will try and check) to make phytic acid to drop the pH.

Not all calcium can disassociate, and the pH of the starting water has no correlation to how much buffering potential the water will give due to the mineral makeup.

There is more to consider apart from just pH adjustment, but the wider affect of calcium on yeast health, trub formation and yeast floculation. As a metal calcium forms an ionic bridge to bind the yeast together to assist on the floculation.

Scotty


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## anthonyUK (9/3/15)

Cheers Scotty

I'm not a chemist and don't really have the desire (some say capacity) to learn 
I'm guessing like a lot of other brewers we need to know enough to meet our aims without getting in too deep.


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## Dunkelbrau (9/3/15)

/// said:


> There is more to consider apart from just pH adjustment, but the wider affect of calcium on yeast health, trub formation and yeast floculation. As a metal calcium forms an ionic bridge to bind the yeast together to assist on the floculation.
> 
> Scotty


True, calcium aids in flocculation, but mash pH isn't adjusted to aid flocculation. Thats a reason to add more calcium minerals to the kettle.

PH is the main concern when working out mash salts (and acids). You can add flavour and beneficial ions to the kettle post mash and pre boil. 

If the question is about what beers go with what water, brew it both ways (water wise) and see what the difference is!


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## /// (9/3/15)

Dunkelbrau said:


> True, calcium aids in flocculation, but mash pH isn't adjusted to aid flocculation. Thats a reason to add more calcium minerals to the kettle.
> 
> PH is the main concern when working out mash salts (and acids). You can add flavour and beneficial ions to the kettle post mash and pre boil.
> 
> If the question is about what beers go with what water, brew it both ways (water wise) and see what the difference is!


A simple addition into the mash tun is much easier than adding salts into the boil or whirlpool. Chasing your tail putting salts into the whirlpool or boil is just making things harder for yourself.

Approx 100ppm is the target for good yeast health and pH reduction. Approx a teaspoon of cal chloride and sulfate will get you there for most water on the east coast for 25l. For Sydney water in 2000l we use approx 300 of each with varying amounts to accentuate different characters. Hackbarth has an easy ratio of 1.5:1 or vis versa for each salt in his research for residual alkalinity. 

Scotty


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## Dunkelbrau (9/3/15)

I'd prefer to target specific amounts for mash adjustment and then flavour in the kettle. I find it easier to achieve the right amount of minerals for flavour when I'm not concerned about pH. 

Chasing your tail? I call it fine tuning and seasoning.

Batch size isn't important, ive brewed 200hL batches, and 10L batches. There is no difference in the way I approach my water additions, pH for mash, boil for flavour. There's not too much else to do when you're waiting for the lauter on one end and mashing in on the other so I don't think its so hard at all ;-)


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## sterzlr (2/5/15)

waggastew said:


> Case in point, typical Dublin water is reported to be quite hard but Guinness is apparently brewed with soft water from another source.


To clarify - Dublin water, depending where in Dublin you are, has a number of sources. Guinness does not use RO water, it uses the same water as the central city water. They do modify it so it is the same each batch. The water is tested for every brew and adjusted. They do a brew every two hours.

I live in Dublin, and my water is very soft, same water source as the Guiness brewery. I brew both dark and helles lagers - no water adjustment and they come out fantastic. 

The information about Guiness - well, a mate of mine here is now an ex-master brewer from Guiness - over 20 years with the company, and a brewing font of knowledge as you would expect.


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## mabrungard (3/5/15)

As pointed out by sterzlr, Dublin does have multiple water sources. The southern area of Dublin typically receives it's water from reservoirs in the Wicklow Mountains and it is indeed soft. Most other parts of the city get their water from River Liffey and that water is hard and alkaline as most brewers have been led to believe.

Unfortunately, it appears that sterzlr's information is slightly dated since St James Gate brewery does now have an RO system in place. I'm assuming its mainly to provide a consistent low mineralization like they typically receive from the Wicklow sources. Apparently, Dublin can experience droughty conditions and I expect that the Wicklow sources run low and the city delivers Liffey water to more parts of the city in that case. That water would not suit dry stout brewing and the RO system is likely a backup in that case.


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## Jack of all biers (6/6/15)

I don't do much water treatment, but have been studying the topic in some detail as I am curious as to whether it is worth it for me. I am an All Grain brewer with some 9 years AG experience and the most I do is pre-boil my water prior to mashing. 

Some of the above threads that compare what commercial brewers do to their water are interesting, but hardly relevant to the home brewing sphere in general I think. Yes, most commercial brewers treat their water and yes it is mostly for consistency and mash efficiency (the bean counters win again). But is the time and money spent in adding minerals (ie Calcium Sulphate CaSO3 {aka Gypsum}) to reduce the affects of other minerals (ie - Calcium carbonate CaCO3 {aka Chalk}) as well as the boiling and transfering of water from the resultant deposits really worth it?

So when should we treat our water in the AG environment;

(a) If it's to emulate a beer style or clone a commercial beer , then we may want to treat our water to emulate theirs for Mash pH reasons right? However, as has been pointed out above by *Mabrungard *and *Sterzir,* Guinness likely use soft water (not what we have all be led to believe by Palmer and others) which they treat anyway. So what is the make up of the water Guiness and other commercial brewers use??? 


Gosling said:


> The only thing I can find in Palmers text is "The fact of the matter is that dark beer cannot be brewed in Pilsen, and light lagers can't be brewed in Dublin without adding the proper type and amount of buffering salts".


I find statements such as this as questionable, as not only do Guinness likely use soft water, but there are many historical and current Czech and German black lagers (Schwarzbier) from areas with similar water profiles as Plzen and they are not sour or acidic as Palmers statement would suggest. Maybe some of the mashing techniques they developed over the centuries (acidification rests, use of appropriate malts) should be paid close attention to as they worked prior to knowledge of water chemistry.

Back to the modern worlk, we should probably all be looking at what our water make up is and what the main effects are on the pH of the mash as the original question seems to show some confusion about where the pH is important. After all, knowledge is power. Back to the original question;



Gosling said:


> What I dont get is why I cant make a decent pale beer with hard water or a decent dark beer with soft water, nor why the pH of the mash is important to the style. All I understand is that the correct pH is required for a decent starch conversion at the target mash temperature.
> 
> The way i see it is that if I have a water with high alkalinity I could theoretically reduce pH with lactic acid and not additional minerals and hit the target pH for a pale beer as per the Palmer nomograph. If so why would the beer taste bad ?


Gosling, to answer your question I am going to quote from Graham Wheeler (p.52 Brew Classic European Beers at Home, Wheeler & Protz, CAMRA Ltd 2001)
_"One of the biggest myths, that dark beers prefer carbonate water and pale beers prefer gypseous water, simply is not true. What is true, from the scientific perspective at least, is that carbonates are detrimental to beer and sulphates are beneficial, but they are theoretical benefits, mostly only of importance to commercial brewers. In practice it does not seem to make a ha'porth of difference to the majority of home brewed beers, *from the flavour perspective*, whether the water is treated or not."_ Wheeler goes on to say that he is sceptical that cloning commercial brewers water mineral make up will assist the home brewer, as the commercial brewers change their water make up to bring their mash pH to the theoretical optimum of 5.3 (or at least below 5.6) (Wheeler & Protz 2001).

Also, you should just about forget the actual pH of your water unless it is extreme (over 8.5 or under 5.5 which aren't relevant in most municipal water supplies in Australia). Wheeler states _"Do not fall into the trap and think that the pH of your brewing water and the pH of the resultant mash are equivalent - they are not"_ (p.53 Wheeler & Protz 2001). The importance of water treatment is all about the influence of the buffering mineral ions (ie calcium carbonate) on the various ions in the grains and how they interact to create an environment that is optimal for sarrification enzymes (iAlpha-amylase and Beta-amylase). One should aim to have the mash pH (not strike water pH) between 5.2 and 5.6 for the enzymes to work at at their optimum.

(b) Secondly we may want to treat our water if we are noticing bad efficiency (anything less than 55% could be improved) in the mash or more importantly, strong astringent flavour profiles that are undesirable. The reason taste as opposed to efficiency is the biggest issue is two fold. Apart from mash pH your efficiency could depend a lot on your lautering technique, so you could be stuffing around trying to change your water mineral profile, when the real problem lies elsewhere. It is when the flavour is effected that we home brewers should be taking action and we should test the pH of our mashes to see where we can change things to improve beer taste (and to a lesser extent efficiency, as grain is cheap lets face it). I live in Adelaide (reputedly the hardest municipal water in Aust.) and our average hardness (Calcium carbonate) in 2013 was 123 mg/L (considered hard water, but acceptable as it is less than 200 mg/L) and in 2014 it was averaged at 90 mg/L (Melbournes highest is 60mg/L and the average for many suburbs is around 20 mg/L).

Now when we think about it, water is a medium that allows the ions in the grain to react with the ions in water (and it's minerals) and the quantity of buffering "akaline" ions (ie Calcium carbonate) effects how the grain pH in the mash changes when the grains react with the water (and how much acid is produced). It has very little to do with the pH of the original water and everything to do with how the dry grain acidifies when it reacts with the water. The make up of the minerals in both the water and the grain have a big effect on that reaction. So, it is easier for pale malt grain mashes to reach optimal pH range of 5.2-5.6 when the minerals in the water aren't stopping acidification (lowering of pH). When the water contains more carbonate minerals (ie harder, like Adelaide) minerals like calcium carbonate buffer the acidification ions making pale malt mashes less acidic. 
Now both soft and hard waters could have the same pH, but the effect on the mash pH is completely different. Because darker malt is more acidic than pale malt it counteracts this mineral pH buffering and the optimal pH range is easier met in harder water. Within the optimal pH range, extraction of astringent characters from the grain husks is also reduced so improving flavour (as well as efficiency so it's a double win). So, if you have soft water (ie melbourne) and want to use a lot of black malt, roasted barley or other dark grains then you should consider adding anywhere between 4 gm (London) to 13 gm (Burton) of calcium carbonate to 30 Litres (I got this from Vicbrew Brewing Almanac 2002) and maybe some calcium sulphate (gypsium) too (3 gm for Dublin or Yorkshire and 18 gm for Burton!). This will reduce the chance of strong astringent flavours being drawn from the grain and create a better tasting more rounded Porter, stout etc...

My suggestion for harder water areas (ie Adelaide) though is don't treat your water. We have a good mineral hardness profile for dark beers and if you want to improve efficiency or flavour by bringing your pale malt mash into the optimal pH range consider using some of Weyermann's Acidilated malt (3EBC) or similar acidic malts or some of pH5.2 by Starsan (they guarantee it will bring your mash to 5.2 and hold it there). Both will save a lot of time and effort in boiling, adding minerals, cooling and removing your water from the chalk sediment (time, hassle, energy! I'd rather be drinking beer). Interestingly, if Palmers stats on minerals in the various brewing cities of the world are correct both Munich (359 mg/L CaCO3) and Vienna (686 mg/L) (which I doubt as they seem extreme) both have higher water hardness levels than Adelaide (123 mg/L) and both produce excellent pale beers. (these calculations are relying on Palmers calcium and magnesium stats and are run through a water hardness calculator at http://www.lenntech.com/ro/water-hardness.htm )

In the home brewing environment, it appears the consensus of Palmer, Graham Wheeler and many experienced bloggers is that water pH readings have very little to do with the resultant pH of the mash (In Adelaide the municipal water pH is consistantly between 7 [neutral] & 7.5 [bairly akaline], exactly the same as Melbourne). 

So in summary, I would only play around with water treatment if you are finding the pH of your mash (ie you have tested mash pH and it's 4.5 or something way out)is interfering with saccharification efficiency, or more importantly the flavour of your beer (ie astringency extraction) . You should experiment and test different brews with what water you have before you expel energy (and money) on changing your water mineral make up. If water treament is going to be easier for you than acid rests or additions of acidulated malt (I don't see why) I would begin by trying a bit of water treatment on some pale malt mashs by adding some calcium sulphate to reduce carbonates (in hard water) or the addition of calcium carbonate on dark malts (in soft water). If it improves the flavour of the beers as opposed to brews where the water hasn't been treated I would continue. Otherwise I wouldn't bother.


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## drsmurto (6/6/15)

Try this.

In google search for 'residual alkalinity brewing'

Do the same search in Google Scholar.

Cut and paste the peer reviewed references from the brewing science literature in this thread.

Once you've done that you might come to the conclusion that residual alkalinity is a made up concept by homebrewers.

Then look up the defintion of a buffer and whilst doing so remember that malt naturally contains buffers.

Then measure pH rather than calculating it and work out under what conditions it is measured outside the ideal range.


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