KegLand Questions and Answers

[BrewLizard]

For sure, I get that there can be variations in water profile (though minerality and RA matter, as opposed to water pH). Was just curious if they’ve ever been a significant enough swing that it throws your mash pH out.

 

[RRising]

Source water pH varies, you'll see a range of pH on the water reports - min/max/average.

Yep, i tested my tap water and the report from SA water says that its an average PH of 7.5 but testing it comes at around 6.8.

 

[kadmium]

It's hard to get an accurate PH reading of tap water without a very good PH meter. The cheap ones don't give a very accurate reading. Mine shows 5.6 for tap water which isn't possible. Not sure how soft SA water is but the softer and less minerals the less accurate the reading, is my understanding.

 

[RRising]

It's hard to get an accurate PH reading of tap water without a very good PH meter. The cheap ones don't give a very accurate reading. Mine shows 5.6 for tap water which isn't possible. Not sure how soft SA water is but the softer and less minerals the less accurate the reading, is my understanding.

How "inaccurate" is inaccurate? i know you aren't going to get the precision from a sub $50 meter whether its a Beverage Doctor, a clone or chinesium crap from Aliexpress.

 

[theSeekerr]

The pH of the mash ends up dominated by the buffering effects of various things in it anyway, the source water pH has a very small effect. Pull up your water calculator of choice, pop in a recipe, and fiddle with just the water pH. You'll see what I mean.

 

[kadmium]

How "inaccurate" is inaccurate? i know you aren't going to get the precision from a sub $50 meter whether its a Beverage Doctor, a clone or chinesium crap from Aliexpress.

My tap water averages 7.6 but shows 5.something because it has very low minerality. Same reason you can't get a reading from distilled water etc

 

[Engibeer]

I work FIFO and myself and a few guys have set up a brew society on site, brewing every second week, 20L BIAB batches, got a keggle and a gas burner. K.I.S.S. method.

We have our own water treatment plant on site and the pH swings wildly. Was 6 pH a month ago, next brew, the one we just did, it was 8 pH.

 

[philrob]

ph of your water doesn't really matter much. What matters is the pH of your mash.

 

[RRising]

The pH of the mash ends up dominated by the buffering effects of various things in it anyway, the source water pH has a very small effect. Pull up your water calculator of choice, pop in a recipe, and fiddle with just the water pH. You'll see what I mean.

Hey you are right, i was playing around with Brewfathers tools and was going from the 7.5 to 6.8 PH in the source water profile and it didn't affect the recipe PH level.

 

[kadmium]

Hey @KegLand-com-au I just noticed you guys have an R0 water tap at the pick up area. First of all, great idea and thanks heaps. I like that alot.

Secondly, what's the kind of flow rate if you happen to know? Like if I wanted to fill 2 x 20L cubes?

 

[KegLand-com-au]

I've got your digital pH meter and I've been stuffing around cooling the mash down to measure the pH to try and protect the probe / calibration etc.

Really it's mainly to protect the calibration - and I don't know if this is a legitimate concern?

I know I really shouldn't have to do this as it has ATC.

A replacement probe is only $12.

Am I better off just dipping it straight into the mash until it's stuffed? It would be a lot quicker and less stuffing about on brew day.

If it the probe only lasted a couple of years because of this I'd be more than happy to purchase a replacement, just because of the convenience.

Cheers,

We do get a lot of customers dipping them directly into the mash when hot and they still seem to handle this level of abuse. With that said the supplier that supplies the probes to us specifically say to not immerse the probe into hot liquid as it reduces the life of the probe. I have dipped mine into hot wort maybe 20 times so far and it still seems to be ok.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

Hey you are right, i was playing around with Brewfathers tools and was going from the 7.5 to 6.8 PH in the source water profile and it didn't affect the recipe PH level.

Yes I would totally recommend Brewfather. For the majority of beers no need to adjust ph but for the dark beers or really light beers I think it's really a very good idea.

Historically I also did not adjust my sparge water but through my own experiences I am convinced that acidifying my sparge water does help.


Either way every time I use Brewfather the amount of salts or acid I need to add are pretty damn accurate based on the calculators in the Brewfather software .As a result on a few instances that I have not taken a pH reading I just follow the Brewfater calculations as to what to add and would have no issue recommending other customers to do the same thing. I really think it's the best software by far so if you guys have not tried it just get the free membership.

 

[Keano16]

Has anyone had any experience with the fermzilla dry hopping ball valve? Any tips on setup or how to best purge hops before dry hopping?

 

[bobsledboy]

Has anyone had any experience with the fermzilla dry hopping ball valve? Any tips on setup or how to best purge hops before dry hopping?

I was looking at this yesterday and it seems to me the most thorough way to purge the hops would be to daisy-chain a second tee onto the side in the photo there. That way you can have a keg line into the container with the hops from one carb cap and a purge outlet on the other cap to push the air out.

 

[Keano16]

Assuming you could also just loosen the hops bottle to purge with gas connected to side t-piece?

 

[DTee]

Hi KegLand. Just watched the webinar after seeing it mentioned here, and wanted to register my interest in the the benchtop 2 x 8L kegerator.

If that was on Kickstarter I would have signed up as an early adopter already. 8L kegs and small format is the perfect solution for me. (Would not replace my keg fridge, but I would buy one to have in addition to my corny keg setup).

If you end up selling prototypes/want field testers/trial the 8L PET kegs, please let AHB'ers know - I would happily buy a pre-production unit, it just ticks so many boxes. Also if you want feedback/feature requests from potential customers (like with the next gen Brewzilla), I'm definitely part of your target market!

Cheers,
DT.

 

[Fry]

100L brewzilla is interesting. What kind of power outlet would be required to run it?

 

[MHB]

ph of your water doesn't really matter much. What matters is the pH of your mash.

Yes but - the pH of the water plays (or can play) a big role in the mash pH.
I have a fair idea of your water, and we are spoilt around here.
Where people run into problems is if there is a fair amount of Carbonate in the water, you will never get to ideal mash pH's with just salt additions. Carbonate is just too good a buffer but not in a good way.
Mark

 

[ozdevil]

100L brewzilla is interesting. What kind of power outlet would be required to run it?

i dare say getting up around that mark your going to look at 3 phase power and i reckon ya gunna have to be very serious with ya brewing to warrent equipment that takes 3 phase

but i am only guess there

 

[KegLand-com-au]

Assuming you could also just loosen the hops bottle to purge with gas connected to side t-piece?

Yes that is absolutely right. You fill the bottle with CO2 then loosen one of the fittings and this will let some gas out. If you do this a few times you will be able to purge almost all the O2 out of the hops.