Water Chemistry Question

[NickB]

Hi all,

Not long ago I bought myself an RO filter for my brewing, and have been pumping out some pretty nice lagers with straight RO water.

Now I'm looking to doing some of my tried and true recipes, but have become a little stuck on the water adjustment thing.

Firstly, when working out the g/L of your salt additions, do you use final batch volume, or total water volume for the batch?

Also, I assume it's better to err on the side of caution with extreme additions to styles like Burton Ales - I was looking at half the recommended additions for the first batch, and adjust as necessary...

Also, apart from How To Brew, is there any easy to understand chemistry pages around that are worth reading?

Cheers

 

[argon]

Nick, check out the EZ Water Calculator

Demystified alot of things for me with a bit of playing around. It calculates the ph as well as your ratios and is relative to your particular ingredients, with base, crystal and roast malts having their associated effects.

Also on the spreadsheet is a link to Braumeister's experiments... which is always a good read.

 

[QldKev]

+1 on the EZ water calculator. Also have a look on my web site, I've got some notes I've chucked together, including a link to "Key concepts in water treatment" which is a great resource.


QldKev

 

[mfeighan]

the ez water calculator is good, when i check against measured and predicted ph values etc it is always within .1 ph, so thats good enough for me

Sorry for the thread hijack,
i currently have 50l of rice lager finished and another 50l on the way (been brewing pretty heavy for engagement party) and i realised that the water additions i did for the the first batch
was 15g MgSO4 and 10G CaSO4, rookied it and i was planning on 15g CaCl2 and 10G CaSO4

The first batch seems quite sharp and bitter for only being 20ibu
The second batch has the right additions and is tasting more balanced and malty

Can i modify the water chemistry post fermentation, i was thinking of balancing the Cl/SO4 ratio to 1:1 by adding a bit of table salt and CaCl2 (boiled/cooled etc) or wont it make a difference
or if that wont work should i blend the 2 (will be a PITA)

also is 15g /50l of epsom salts enough to give ppl the squits (i am estimating the boys to have ~6-10 pints )

 

[mfeighan]

bump for the pm crew

 

[felten]

Aye, you can alter the mineral balance post fermentation. Try it out in a small volume first.

 

[manticle]

NickB:

the Wheeler article Kev mentioned does a great job of demystifying. Keep additions as simple as you can (I stick to small additions of Calcium Chloride and Calcium Sulphate to mash and boil).

If you use the ez water calculator (download the metric version), you can enter your volume of mash water and sparge water separately. Fiddle a bit and see if you like the results.

@Mikey: Most of what I've read recommends avoiding epsom salts and I'm not sure how beneficial they'd be in a pale lager. However if you are getting a bad result from too high an addition of brewing salt, I don't think adding more salt to balance is the best idea. That said, try very careful measurements into a glass or jug of the beer and see what happens. No need to does the entire beer based on a hypothesis or on someone else's opinion.

That seems like a hell of a lot of sulphate to me. I regularly use 4-6g Calcium sulphate total in a single batch and there's not a lot of sulphate or calcium in my water to begin with.

 

[mfeighan]

@manticle: yeah i accidentally added mgso4 instead of cacl2,
it was RO water

cheers felten, will try alter it to a small batch first... where is my drug scales...

 

[eamonnfoley]

Be careful, start simple
For 20L batch:
Try a teaspoon of Gyspum in mash for hoppy ale styles.
OR
Teaspoon of calcium chloride in mash for lagers
OR
Teaspoon of each in balanced ale or lager styles.

Ensure mash PH measured at room temp is 5.5 - 5.6. The quoted 5.2-5.4 is at mash temp (and there is a correction factor of about 0.3). Adjust down with acid if necessary. Play with pale styles to begin with - adding chalk for darker beers requires good knowledge of residual alkalinity.

This is a good starting point. If you launch straight into spreadsheets you could come unstuck very quickly.

 

[DKS]

Be careful, start simple
For 20L batch:
Try a teaspoon of Gyspum in mash for hoppy ale styles.
OR
Teaspoon of calcium chloride in mash for lagers
OR
Teaspoon of each in balanced ale or lager styles.

Ensure mash PH measured at room temp is 5.5 - 5.6. The quoted 5.2-5.4 is at mash temp (and there is a correction factor of about 0.3). Adjust down with acid if necessary. Play with pale styles to begin with - adding chalk for darker beers requires good knowledge of residual alkalinity.

This is a good starting point. If you launch straight into spreadsheets you could come unstuck very quickly.

Agree foles, simple is me, or maybe just too scared to go to hard at it as Im just starting with water addions.
Is it sensible to add the 5.2 ph powder along with adding Gypsom and\or Calcium Chloride? or am I wasting 5.2 powder in that case?
I am using beersmith and getting no*s as close as I can in my recipes but I havent put into practice as yet.
Daz

 

[eamonnfoley]

Agree foles, simple is me, or maybe just too scared to go to hard at it as Im just starting with water addions.
Is it sensible to add the 5.2 ph powder along with adding Gypsom and\or Calcium Chloride? or am I wasting 5.2 powder in that case?
I am using beersmith and getting no*s as close as I can in my recipes but I havent put into practice as yet.
Daz

The 5.2 may work but I would suggest adding after salt additions. Actually salt additions can goIn before grain is added to mash liquor. But your better off getting a ph meter if you can, and using salts and acid rather than the 5.2 product.

The 5.2 is solely to adjust ph and doesn't affect the mineral profile of final beer. However it's effectiveness is often questioned. Will prob be ok for RO water and small amount of salts. It can struggle with alkaline or hard water.

 

[felten]

this is a good general guide http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/brewing-w...-primer-198460/

5.2 is pretty useless by what I've read, but YMMV.

 

[manticle]

Be careful, start simple
For 20L batch:
Try a teaspoon of Gyspum in mash for hoppy ale styles.
OR
Teaspoon of calcium chloride in mash for lagers
OR
Teaspoon of each in balanced ale or lager styles.

Ensure mash PH measured at room temp is 5.5 - 5.6. The quoted 5.2-5.4 is at mash temp (and there is a correction factor of about 0.3). Adjust down with acid if necessary. Play with pale styles to begin with - adding chalk for darker beers requires good knowledge of residual alkalinity.

This is a good starting point. If you launch straight into spreadsheets you could come unstuck very quickly.

I agree on keeping it simple and the summation of when to add what to what but a teaspoon is a really inaccurate way of measuring salts (and too much salt is often worse than none at all). I have many different size and shaped teaspoons, the salt crystals are different shapes and densities and I put a different amount on each time. Doesn't matter so much with sugar in a cup of tea but brewing salts, I prefer 9and think it's better practice) to be more accurate.

Get digital scales capable of measuring 0.1g increments and use them. I bought some for 99c on ebay once - still going strong (and accurate - regular calibration)

 

[eamonnfoley]

I agree on keeping it simple and the summation of when to add what to what but a teaspoon is a really inaccurate way of measuring salts (and too much salt is often worse than none at all). I have many different size and shaped teaspoons, the salt crystals are different shapes and densities and I put a different amount on each time. Doesn't matter so much with sugar in a cup of tea but brewing salts, I prefer 9and think it's better practice) to be more accurate.

Get digital scales capable of measuring 0.1g increments and use them. I bought some for 99c on ebay once - still going strong (and accurate - regular calibration)

Fair point, accuracy is good. However i just use the estimations from Palmers how to brew: 1 tsp gypsum = 4g and 1 tsp cacl2 = 3.4g. So 1 teaspoon of either or both will work well.
Mineral profiles need not be an exact science

 

[drsmurto]

Fair point, accuracy is good. However i just use the estimations from Palmers how to brew: 1 tsp gypsum = 4g and 1 tsp cacl2 = 3.4g. So 1 teaspoon of either or both will work well.
Mineral profiles need not be an exact science

Au contraire. Adding salts is an exact science but not if you use volume measurements such as Palmer recommends.

Weigh out your salts with 0.1g accuracy minimum.

Volume measurements such as teaspoons are for measuring volume, strange as that may sound to some. You don't measure temperature with a refractometer.

 

[eamonnfoley]

Au contraire. Adding salts is an exact science but not if you use volume measurements such as Palmer recommends.

Weigh out your salts with 0.1g accuracy minimum.

Volume measurements such as teaspoons are for measuring volume, strange as that may sound to some. You don't measure temperature with a refractometer.

Volume measurements are close enough. You will not notice 10ppm here or there of a given mineral in your beer. I would only be going with superaccurate scales if I was trying to emulate a water profile precisely (or maybe If I had some).
A teaspoon of gypsum or cacl, or both in an RO mash will give good results - especially for a beginner.

Do you know that your RO is 100% free of minerals? I had mine tested in the US and I found my RO has 15ppm of chloride, 4ppm sodium, and <1 for everything else. If you dont know exactly what your starting with precision is being confused for accuracy.

 

[Phoney]

If you don't own scales how do you measure your hop additions; with a tablespoon? :blink:

 

[eamonnfoley]

If you don't own scales how do you measure your hop additions; with a tablespoon? :blink:

I have scales accurate to the gram. Not quite good enough for salts.

Didnt think I would need my flamesuit for offering advice inline with that given by Gordon Strong (Brewing Better Beer) or AJDelange (renowned water guru). but here it is h34r:

 

[Nick JD]

Anyone have the water chemistry for the Gold Coast? I know there's a thread but I wonder if it's post-desalination? I can find nothing.

 

[argon]

Anyone have the water chemistry for the Gold Coast? I know there's a thread but I wonder if it's post-desalination? I can find nothing.

Earliest and closest i have is for Brisbane 2010... which would be both out of range and way out of date .

I'm sure that helped