Epsom Salts/Magnesium Sulphate from Woolies

[manticle]

I'm flummoxed as to the logic.
Firstly magnesium sulphate can be a useful salt because both parts (well more than two but pretend- magnesium and sulphate) have a function. Magnesium drops mash pH and helps with yeast function. The sulphate part helps brighten hop profile.
Pretty tried and true, although most all malt, grain based worts should provide sufficient magnesium anyway.

You've taken a product that is used on the garden and according to something you've read somewhere is ok for horses. The only similarity is that it has magnesium in it. By that logic, sodium hydroxide should be fine to add to my chips.

I'm at a loss as to why you would think your gardening product that is totally different chemically would compare to the product being discussed.

 

[wynnum1]

I asked a question and do not think you have answered and its not just a garden chemical its used as a supplement .

 

[manticle]

Supplement for what though?
What would be the intended purpose for use in the mash?

 

[welly2]

So what has the brewer done to this water profile to get it in the ballpark ?

You don't know so that's why its not a good thing to follow water profiles from around the world
but thats my take on it I could be wrong definately not a gun on water chem

I've been treading lightly doing Brun yellow full balanced & dry but must have a go at his pale ale profile

I like Ducatiboystu's advice for too much mg buy shares in sorbent :lol:

I'm assuming that the guy who wrote beersmith got the water profile for Burton water from the official source. Either way, it would be easy enough to check up on and create my own Burton profile based on my local water profile.

 

[manticle]

Burton is a place that has existed for a long time.
There's no guarantee that either the water profile has remained exactly the same at all points in history nor that local brewers used the water as is, without treatment and/or dilution.

Better to tailor the mash pH to your preferred and add salts based on desired results/flavour than emulate a dubious and alleged water profile.

To answer your original question though - yes that particular product is fine.

 

[TimT]

As to magnesium oxide, I suppose why not? The ions will separate out as it dissolves in the water and you'll get magnesium to aid the mash and, well, the oxygen won't do any harm.

The only qualm I'd have with using products that are not sold as food (eg Epsom Salts) is maybe there's something in the production process that normally a food authority wouldn't let happen.

 

[welly2]

Burton is a place that has existed for a long time.
There's no guarantee that either the water profile has remained exactly the same at all points in history nor that local brewers used the water as is, without treatment and/or dilution.

Better to tailor the mash pH to your preferred and add salts based on desired results/flavour than emulate a dubious and alleged water profile.

To answer your original question though - yes that particular product is fine.

Cheers manticle! I don't disagree with you but this is me just dabbling and seeing what difference additions to water makes. And for a particular beer style (English bitter or IPA), I could do worse than using a Burton water profile as a starting point, even if it's not historically accurate. Or perhaps even a Tadcaster (in North Yorkshire) water profile where one of my favourite bitters comes from (Sam Smiths Old Brewery Bitter). It's a place to start and learn from and then I can go on from there.

 

[manticle]

Of course. Have a crack. Just be aware of the whys and wherefores.

TimT - for a start magnesium sulphate will drop mash pH; as far as I'm aware, magnesium oxide will raise it. I'm still not sure what the intended purpose of adding it would be from wynumm's perspective besides 'magnesium'. Chemistry doesn't work that way.

 

[wynnum1]

As to magnesium oxide, I suppose why not? The ions will separate out as it dissolves in the water and you'll get magnesium to aid the mash and, well, the oxygen won't do any harm.

The only qualm I'd have with using products that are not sold as food (eg Epsom Salts) is maybe there's something in the production process that normally a food authority wouldn't let happen.

The fertilizer grade is about $15 a 25 kg bag and the food grade about $50 would suggest a difference .How the grain is grown i would suggest that if the barley or wheat had all the nutrients needed then they would already be in the grain.

 

[TimT]

The fertilizer grade is about $15 a 25 kg bag and the food grade about $50 would suggest a difference .

Yeah maybe though to me the difference that suggests itself is market incentives - people are happier to pay a premium for stuff that they're going to eat or drink - understandably.

But I struggle to see what conceivably could be the difference between the product you get in brew stores and the product you get in the shops.

for a start magnesium sulphate will drop mash pH; as far as I'm aware, magnesium oxide will raise it.

Hm, hadn't thought of that.

 

[wynnum1]

The brew stores buys the 25 kg bags and repackages and woolies get theres already packaged in a trade name box.
If its food grade its all the same like buying home brand sugar.

 

[klangers]

The problem with magnesium oxide is that it's extremely stable - it takes a lot of energy to break the bond between the oxygen and magnesium. It's the chemical that results when you burn magnesium, and oxides of highly reactive metals are very stable (hence the use of passivation etc to make our lovely stainless steel covered in chromium oxide).

Stable compounds tend to be difficult to dissolve. Wikipedia places the solubility at 0.0086 g/100 mL (30 °C).

 

[MHB]

Personally I don't think there is any need to use MgSO4, a little Magnesium is necessary but as Manticle mentioned there is generally enough in the malt to supply what enzymes use as cofactors and yeast needs for various synthesis processes.
Too much has well known laxative effects and we know that more Calcium is beneficial so I would be much more inclined to use CaSO4, there is also a very real upper limit to the amount of Sulphate we want in a wort so if you use MgSO4 it just means you cant use as much CaSO4 as you might want without getting too close to the Sulphate limit.
If you really think you need to add MgSO4 to your beer I cant see any objection to the supermarket version, the stuff I looked at last night at woolies was BP (British Pharmacopeia) better than food grade

I would also be very careful using MgO, although its pretty unreactive, in an acidic environment you can get a conversion to Magnesium Hydroxide, there is a very powerful buffering reaction pushing toward about 8pH exactly the opposite of what we want as brewers.
Mark

 

[Weizguy]

Traditionally, the distinctive mineral "nose" on Burton beers is called "The Burton Snatch".

Of course somewhat different connotations nowadays as I said to my Aunt Fanny.

Not exactly the bouquet I'd be looking for in my beer...

Depends if you are brewing Berliner Weisse, which (to me, at least) has strong notes of the lady-parts.

 

[kaiserben]

Ahem, Wayward do a Berliner Weiss called Sour Puss.

 

[mabrungard]

With as little Mg as we need or want in our wort, I suggest that the typical Epsom Salts from the druggist is fine for our use. As already mentioned, you don't want to overdo it with Mg. The beer flavor will suffer. I recommend keeping Mg below 40 ppm, but while we were writing the Water book, John Palmer found a resource that said a higher Mg content was OK. I personally never go above 30 ppm. Mg is good in all pale ales and IPAs. Its not so good in other styles. The main benefit of using MgSO4 is that you get the SO4 without boosting Ca too much.

I did a big research article on Burton water that was published in the American Homebrewers Association, Zymurgy magazine. The brewers in Burton eventually found that using a combination of the highly mineralized deep groundwater and the lightly mineralized shallow groundwater (which was essentially River Trent water), produced the best beers. While those highly mineralized Burton profiles are accurate, they aren't what the brewers used.

 

[MHB]

Brings up an interesting question. What is the upper limit for Ca. I have seen 400ppm mentioned but that has been the amount you can get by the time you have added as much SO4 and Cl as you can - not the amount of Ca.
Really just a curiosity question, haven't seen much written on the effect of high Ca.

I really liked the treatment of salt additions in Water. I think its high time we moved away from trying to copy famous brewing water and toward a functional approach where we add the salts we need to achieve the desired flavour effects in the beer we are making, which is the direction Water appears to take (good book cheers).
Mark

 

[Bribie G]

Town brewing waters aren't necessarily what the breweries use. Years ago back in the days of Speedie, Yasmani and The New Darren, I did a project with Butters (kitten strangler) to try and recreate the old Websters Pennine Bitter - his granny used to work there.

After getting the local water info from the council and contacting a new micro that's started up the valley from the original brewery, It just came down to "who knows, it was just bore water".

 

[Bribie G]

I stopped using EZ water calculator as it was assuming that my system was a mash plus sparge setup and I couldn't get any handle on whether they meant I should add xyz salts to the mash water, then sparge with plain water, or halve the quantity for a full vol BIAB mash, as if I was treating the entire water volume that goes into mash then sparge ... So now I just chuck in a tsp of this and that to be on the safe side. I'd like to get back to a more MHB approach.

Does anyone know of a water calculator that takes full volume into consideration?

 

[GalBrew]

I stopped using EZ water calculator as it was assuming that my system was a mash plus sparge setup and I couldn't get any handle on whether they meant I should add xyz salts to the mash water, then sparge with plain water, or halve the quantity for a full vol BIAB mash, as if I was treating the entire water volume that goes into mash then sparge ... So now I just chuck in a tsp of this and that to be on the safe side. I'd like to get back to a more MHB approach.

Does anyone know of a water calculator that takes full volume into consideration?

I thought one of the options on EZ water was to add all your additions to the mash or split it up with the mash and sparse? That being said I switched to the Brewers Friend water calc as I find it to be more accurate.