Please Check My Water Additions

[aaronpetersen]

I'm planning my first attempt at mucking around with water additions. I'm a BIAB brewer and planning on doing Jamil's Oatmeal Stout. I have plugged my grain bill and the Melbourne water profile from Tony Wheeler's article "Key Concepts In Water Treatment" into the EZ Water calculator and then added 7g of CaCl to lower pH and increase calcium. The EZ water output is shown below.
Should I be adding sulphate to bring the Chloride/sulphate ratio down and bring the sulphate levels into range? From what I've read sulphate isn't needed in this style. Does it matter that Mg is low?
Any other comments from any water chemistry experts are greatly welcomed.

 

[katzke]

I'm planning my first attempt at mucking around with water additions. I'm a BIAB brewer and planning on doing Jamil's Oatmeal Stout. I have plugged my grain bill and the Melbourne water profile from Tony Wheeler's article "Key Concepts In Water Treatment" into the EZ Water calculator and then added 7g of CaCl to lower pH and increase calcium. The EZ water output is shown below.
Should I be adding sulphate to bring the Chloride/sulphate ratio down and bring the sulphate levels into range? From what I've read sulphate isn't needed in this style. Does it matter that Mg is low?
Any other comments from any water chemistry experts are greatly welcomed.

View attachment 45061

I always add Epsom Salts to get the Magnezium up to 15 for my water.

I think you are one sided and out of whack on your addition. Do you know what you want your water to look like? that is the first place to start. Do not believe the first thing you read. Not all water profiles are true. Just because some expert walked into a brewery and took a sample from the bath room does not say the brewery uses that water.

Read as much as you can before you start dumping stuff in your water.

I would tell you more but I do not have a proven profile for a stout yet.

 

[Steve@PMF82]

You are brewing a stout so i would not be using any sulphates at all.
I would split my calcium additions into a 50/50 mix of calcium chloride and calcium carbonate.
I would then be checking the mash PH and if it ends up to high adjusting with Phosphoric acid.

 

[aaronpetersen]

You are brewing a stout so i would not be using any sulphates at all.
I would split my calcium additions into a 50/50 mix of calcium chloride and calcium carbonate.
I would then be checking the mash PH and if it ends up to high adjusting with Phosphoric acid.

I don't understand why you would put carbonate in, which will raise the pH, and then add acid to bring it back down, when you could simply add CaCl and get the right pH (according to the EZ water calculator). Is the carbonate doing anything in particular? My understanding is that carbonates are undesirable, but I'm knew to this and could be wrong.

 

[aaronpetersen]

I always add Epsom Salts to get the Magnezium up to 15 for my water.

I think you are one sided and out of whack on your addition. Do you know what you want your water to look like? that is the first place to start. Do not believe the first thing you read. Not all water profiles are true. Just because some expert walked into a brewery and took a sample from the bath room does not say the brewery uses that water.

Read as much as you can before you start dumping stuff in your water.

I would tell you more but I do not have a proven profile for a stout yet.

I'm not trying to recreate a water profile of a particular brewery or location, I'm simply trying to make good beer! I have read a fair bit, although I'm sure I could always read more. Based on my reading, I decided to add calcium because Melb water is deficient and calcium is supposed to be good for just about everything from enzyme activity in the mash to yeast health. I added chloride because, based on what I've read, it doesn't do any harm and is good for dark beers. I haven't added any magnesium because my understanding is that the malt will provide adequate Mg to the mash.

 

[Steve@PMF82]

Your starting carbonate is not that high. It is hard to know exactly what the water on the day will be like.
Carbonates buffer against acidity of the dark grains, it can also help produce more mellow malt flavours, dark grains can have that acrid taste esp if water is high in sulphates.

You can use all Chloride by all means, it is the most benine of all the salts imo. Your mash might end up too low?
Until you mash in and measure your PH you wont know for sure whats going on.

 

[aaronpetersen]

It is hard to know exactly what the water on the day will be like.

You are quite right, in the water report I saw, the variation between the minimum and maximum values for certain ions was huge

Carbonates buffer against acidity of the dark grains, it can also help produce more mellow malt flavours,

Do carbonates produce mellow malt flavours simply because of their effect on pH or is there more to it than that? In other words, if the pH is within the right range without adding carbonates, will the addition of extra carbonates have any effect on the malt flavour (assuming I maintain the same pH with acid as you suggested).

 

[Steve@PMF82]

Do carbonates produce mellow malt flavours simply because of their effect on pH or is there more to it than that? In other words, if the pH is within the right range without adding carbonates, will the addition of extra carbonates have any effect on the malt flavour (assuming I maintain the same pH with acid as you suggested).

This is starting to get a bit out of my leauge :unsure: adding salts to help adjust / buffer PH in the mash is one thing.

adding salts - some type of calcium because the water is lacking to begin with
Calcium in general is beneficial for the mash enzymes and also good for fermentation.

Some brewers will also add extra salts to alter the flavour profile, to try and replicate the water of specific brewing regions
as was mentioned earlier i think.

The taste difference of using one salt or a mix of the two or three is up to you, i am still very much in the early stages of my brewing life and playing with different salts in different beers, all about the experimentation.

Some other more experienced hands might chime in and put it in better terms for you.

 

[aaronpetersen]

Anybody else out there able to help with my water additions?

 

[geoffd]

Hi Aaron, if you read Tony's article it explains the use of carbonate in stout.
It's primary function is to raise the Ph to offset the lower Ph of the dark roast malts, it's just an added bonus that carbonate will also accentuate the malt profile, I dont belive this flavour change is a Ph issue, though you are right in thinking a more acidic beer will taste less malty, just like an IPA cut through the fat in a big juicy steak.

If you're not reading your Ph accurately & just guessing, try 120ppm of carbonate, should be enough unless you're very heavy handed with roast barley or black patant malt.

 

[clarkey7]

Anybody else out there able to help with my water additions?

AaronP,

This spreadsheet is driven by formulas that assume linear response to mash thickness within certain limits...
Outside of these limits the relationship is not linear.

It was not designed for BIAB where you use the entire water volume as the "mash".

Note the text in the bottom RHS of the top blue box within the EZ water spreadsheet......your water to grist ratio is too high according to the author's own formula.

I doubt the mash pH will come out anywhere near 5.36 with all that Roast Barley in Melbourne (nearly distilled) water (I guess it could depending on water spits out your tap on the day). Wow that's a high percentage of RB :unsure:

The CaCl addition to Melbourne water pushes it even further (too low) resulting in a negative Residual Alkalinity.

See Palmer how to brew ch15.3. Palmer Residual Alkalinity

I'd go with with mainly CaCO3 and have baking soda (NaHCO3) handy to add if your mash pH is too low.

You could add little amounts of CaCl and CaSO4, but I don't think it's necessary.

I tried a stout done by the Melbourne boys @ ANHC last year with CaCO3 in the mash and boil only.

It was great and much better than the Melbourne water with no additions stout.

As you can see from my signature, I've just brewed 3 identical stouts with different water profiles to give to people at the next BABBs meeting. Should be interesting...the ph readings certainly were!

Good luck with your stout :icon_cheers: ,

PB

 

[aaronpetersen]

AaronP,

Note the text in the bottom RHS of the top blue box within the EZ water spreadsheet......your water to grist ratio is too high according to the author's own formula.

Yes, I did see that. Would I be better off doing a thicker mash and adding the extra water after mashout? If I mash with 14 L then my pH is 5.33. I can then add 2 g each of CaCl and CaCO3 to get 101 ppm calcium, 80 ppm CaCO3, 81 ppm Cl, residual alkalinity 7, and pH 5.34.

I doubt the mash pH will come out anywhere near 5.36 with all that Roast Barley in Melbourne (nearly distilled) water (I guess it could depending on water spits out your tap on the day).

I was surprised too when I plugged the numbers in. That's why I added CaCl to bring the pH down. It was 5.50 without the CaCl.

Wow that's a high percentage of RB :unsure:

That's the total amount of roasted grains, including amber and chocolate malt and roasted barley.

The CaCl addition to Melbourne water pushes it even further (too low) resulting in a negative Residual Alkalinity.

This is where I get confused. If the pH is within the right range then how can residual alkanility be too low??

I'd go with with mainly CaCO3 and have baking soda (NaHCO3) handy to add if your mash pH is too low.

But, according to the spreadsheet, the pH will already be too high. Even if I do a thicker mash I still can't afford to add much CaCO3 before it'll get too high.

 

[geoffd]

that my last stout additions, water grist ratio 2.5 for 4.8kg of malt about 25l batch
I just realised that my water is preboil volume instead of post boil for the salt concentrations.

Too lazy to check the ph reading but should be ballpark

 

[nala]

I'm planning my first attempt at mucking around with water additions. I'm a BIAB brewer and planning on doing Jamil's Oatmeal Stout. I have plugged my grain bill and the Melbourne water profile from Tony Wheeler's article "Key Concepts In Water Treatment" into the EZ Water calculator and then added 7g of CaCl to lower pH and increase calcium. The EZ water output is shown below.
Should I be adding sulphate to bring the Chloride/sulphate ratio down and bring the sulphate levels into range? From what I've read sulphate isn't needed in this style. Does it matter that Mg is low?
Any other comments from any water chemistry experts are greatly welcomed.

View attachment 45061

I have just inputted your water profile into the EZ water calculator and your grain bill.

All you need to do is to add 15grams Calcium Chloride
5grams Epsom Salts (Calcium Sulphate)
60grams Acidulated malt

Your mash pH will be5.3 which is perfect.

 

[manticle]

I'm far from expert but 15g seems like a lot to me and I wouldn't be adding sulphate at all to this brew. I can't imagine that acidulated should be needed with a stout either.

I was going to leave the recommendations to others but this doesn't sit right.

Are you sure you've got that right nala?

 

[felten]

epsom is magnesium sulphate, not calcium sulphate just FTR

 

[aaronpetersen]

I have just inputted your water profile into the EZ water calculator and your grain bill.

All you need to do is to add 15grams Calcium Chloride
5grams Epsom Salts (Calcium Sulphate)
60grams Acidulated malt

Your mash pH will be5.3 which is perfect.

When I plug those water additions into the spreadsheet I don't get 5.3 pH, I get 5.17. The calcium and chloride values also go outside the recommended range.

 

[vic45]

What about .5 grams gypsum, 7 grams cal chloride and 2 grams epsom salts?

Looks ok on EZwater

 

[aaronpetersen]

What about .5 grams gypsum, 7 grams cal chloride and 2 grams epsom salts?

Looks ok on EZwater

Those additions look OK to me. The residual alkalinity comes out at -69 but I'm not sure if that matters. As I said above, if the pH is correct then why worry about RA? Can someone help me out with that?

 

[nala]

I'm far from expert but 15g seems like a lot to me and I wouldn't be adding sulphate at all to this brew. I can't imagine that acidulated should be needed with a stout either.

I was going to leave the recommendations to others but this doesn't sit right.

Are you sure you've got that right nala?

I have used the information provided and inputted that to the EZ Water calculator programme,this is what was asked for,
whether this will make a good brew I am not sure.
The addition of acidulated malt is used to get the mash pH to the required level 5.2 - 5.4 pH.
The error that I made was describing Epsom Salts as Calcium Sulphate instead of Maghnesium Sulphate, the additions are as recommended in the EZ Water calculator programme.
The only comment I would make is this, if you use the EZ calculator for adjusting the water profile and the Mash pH, then that is what you should do,otherwise guesswork comes into play.