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My homebrew shop had one of the Crankenstein 3 roller mills and had nothing but problems with it. When you think about it, getting one idler roller going is no problem. But introducing another idler roller makes the job of getting all the parts turning tougher since the second idler roller has...

Educational sessions started today. I've met 2 Aussies at the convention, so far. I sure am glad those guys made the trek.

The life of an activated carbon filter is dependent upon several factors: what contaminants you are trying the remove, their concentrations, and the flow rate through the filter. If you are just aiming to remove chlorine and/or chloramine, those compounds are destroyed through a reaction with...

Unfortunately, that listing of references doesn't put the whole story together. Those forum members that are members of the Brewers Association or American Homebrewers Association will get to read the whole story in the July/Aug issues of Zymurgy and New Brewer. While the thermal protection of...

Here is the reference list for the upcoming article that will be published by the Brewers Association in the AHA magazine "Zymurgy" and the BA magazine "New Brewer". Many of these are available on the web. 1Bertoft E, C Andtfolk, and SE Kulp, Effect of pH, Temperature, and Calcium Ions on...

Well, even myself and John Palmer were taken in by the myth that brewing water HAS to include at least 50 ppm calcium. There are a number factors that are cited and yeast health and flocculation are primary. Apparently, nobody ever really did the research to confirm those factors. It turns out...

That result is right in line with my experience and this is also documented in Braukaiser's (Kai Troester) paper on mash pH on his website. Chalk is not suitable for increasing mash or wort pH in a timely manner.

10 ppm from a RO unit is fine and is typical. As pointed out above, the inclusion of a de-ionizing stage (DI) will take out that remaining ionic content. For brewing, the DI stage is unneeded and unnecessary since you will typically want that minor mineral content in the brewing water anyway...

Be very cautious regarding any water profiles reported for historic brewing cities. They are often incorrect and almost always don't reflect what those local brewers has to do to those waters to make them more suitable for brewing. For instance, you would not find any beers brewed with the water...

No, RO does not strip all ionic content out of water. Up to 10 percent of some ions (typically mono-valent ions) make it through the membrane into the product water. As much as 4 percent of the di-valent ions make it through the membrane. So there is a bit of ionic content in the product water...

Interesting. I just conversed with Chris White a day ago and he mentioned that his San Diego water had 160 ppm Ca and they use RO water for their yeast production. I understand that there are multiple water sources for San Diego, so it should not be a surprise that there is a discrepancy...

Unless you are going to use a large portion of RO or distilled water in your brewing, the recommendations of the Primer that dicko points out may not be very useful. It appears that Adelaide has a bit of ionic content in it based on the 5 yr spreadsheet that was linked. It should be a decent...

In the case of that pale ale profile, it is loaded with calcium and magnesium which drive the residual alkalinity (RA) of the water down. RA would be far too negative if the water's alkalinity were very low. So having a bit of alkalinity in the case of that water profile is OK. That helps keep...

This should work, but I wouldn't perform the heating in the tin. Move it to another vessel. At 180C, that should be high enough to create the caramelization. However, I caution against overshooting the temperature. I suppose if the oven is used, the temp should be relatively constant as...

With out special measures, chalk is essentially insoluble in water or the mash. It will dissolve, but it takes a long time...far longer than a mashing session. Ray Daniels is quite wrong about Burton water. It does have significant alkalinity (aka: carbonate or bicarbonate). It is needed in...

If you have decarbonated the water already and the calcium content has fallen to 25 ppm, then there is little chance that the alkalinity is very high. It's quite unlikely that proper dosing of lactic acid for that water will produce a taste effect. The median taste threshold for lactate in...

Yeah, those pH values are typical for finished beers. Not mash pH. There are a few slides later in that presentation that seem to target the more typical mashing pH range of 5.2 to 5.6. I think the author just mis-labeled the title of the table, it should have read 'beer pH'.

I've never seen a listing per beer styles, but I've included a broader guidance in Bru'n Water. Tart styles: 5.2 to 5.3, Pale styles: 5.3 to 5.4, Darker styles: 5.4 to 5.5.

At mashing temperature, the pH is lower. However, we have standardized on measuring and reporting mash pH at room temperature for a multitude of reasons. A 5.2 pH may be low depending upon the beer style. The more typical 'average' mash pH target is around 5.4. You may want to boost the pH...

Fermentation always drives down beer pH. Wort is typically in the low 5 range after the boil and the fermentation process takes it into the 4 range. Some yeasts are more acid producing than others and the resulting beer pH can differ for that reason.