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Water questions 2019


The Captain!!

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That's pretty much the idea. However, if you are making a water profile to suit a particular beer style then the pH can also be lowered if needed by the use of acid, whether it be acid malt or just a lactic acid solution added to the water, which may be an easier way if you are trying to alter it after the mash has already begun. 

Like you say though, it's easier to keep the mash pH in the right range with water that had little carbonate content. 

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Lactic acid. Phosphoric acid. Citric acid. Acid malt. Ph 5.2 stabiliser. Heaps out there. Beersmith software provides a mash ph based on inputs but i have found it to be mildly accurate only. Ph meter and testing is obviously the best way. I have always been skeptical on the benefit to be honest. Other than slight better efficiency i haven't found any difference if its 5.6 ish v the supposed optimal 5.2.

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5.2 isn't optimal for every beer though. For light coloured styles it is but darker beers are better up around 5.5-5.6. It's probably why they're usually best brewed with water that's moderately high in carbonates, to prevent the dark roasted grains from dropping the pH too much.

One beer I did notice a difference in was my pilsner. The batch I brewed with tap water was somewhat dull compared to the ones brewed with distilled water + minimal mineral additions. The tap water here contains around 120ppm carbonate. It also has a little over double the chloride to sulphate. I didn't have any way to measure the mash pH back then but I'd suspect the tap water batch was higher than the others are due to the carbonate buffer. 

A rough idea with acid malt is that each 1% of the whole grist it takes up drops the pH by 0.1, but there are a number of things that affect it so I don't think there really is a simple formula to work out how much of what to add. It all depends on what's in each brew and what the water profile is. 

Last brew day was a pilsner and I measured the pH at 5.5. I think next time I make it I'll leave all carbonate additions out and see what I get. It's only about 14ppm in the water for that beer but probably has more effect because the other minerals are only in single digits. 

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On 5/12/2019 at 6:57 PM, PaddyBrew2 said:

So I’ve been reading up a bit on the water chemistry side of things. John Palmer has a great section on it. Very scientific but gave me a migraine trying to understand it all

Sounds like I might have to get meself a copy Paddy...   I'd like to try that headache!  😝

This the one - and is it 2017?

image.png.bcf3b10cd9e2fb173def7b54f35bc330.png

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On ‎5‎/‎14‎/‎2019 at 10:13 PM, PaddyBrew2 said:

yeah hard copy. i cant remember the cost, i had a few sherbets in me. think it was close to $50

Sounds good - thanks Paddy... will see what I can find!

Cheers. BB

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Just now, PaddyBrew2 said:

So my local water authority just  kindly emailed me my water report. Any boffins care to share an insight into my water profile. is it hard, is it soft etc

what would i be looking at using to correct Mash PH ( i know this would depend on extra variables ) but a point in a general direction would be awesome oh wise ones

 

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I'd call it moderately soft. It's softer than Brisbane water at least. 

You would probably need some acid to get the pH to optimum range but like you say it depends on other things, grain bill, other minerals added. If you're doing a hoppy beer you'd want to add some sulphate to get its content higher than the chloride, Gypsum would be good here as it will also raise the low calcium content, along with helping to drop the mash pH. 

The alkalinity (carbonate content) will provide a pH buffer, in other words it will assist in preventing the mash pH changing. It can be dropped with additions like Gypsum or calcium chloride, as well as acid. It can be done purely with those calcium salts but you'd need a fair amount of them hence the acid. 

When I make up my water profiles I use little to nothing in the way of carbonates. This usually results in the mash pH being where I want it without having to add much, if any acid to it. I wouldn't be adding things like chalk or bicarb soda as these will increase the carbonate content. 

Edited by Otto Von Blotto
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A fountain of knowledge as always Otto. Thank you. I’m gonna have a good read up of the water chemistry side of things. I know beersmith has water profiles settings too so I’m gonna have a play around with that too

so much to learn!!     But i reckon my first few AG batches I will leave the water as is until I get familiar with the basics of AG but good to know what my profile is now and how to adjust it when I become somewhat adept 

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Good plan. I went for a few years not paying any attention to the water. The beers were good but they've improved since I started tailoring the water to suit each recipe/style. Definitely get the basics down first.

You can also enter your own water profile into Beersmith, and then have it calculate additions to get it where you want it. I still use unaltered tap water in my red ale, as I found it suited it the best, but it doesn't suit all beers the best.

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They probably do the testing, but leave it out of the water report. It's the same here, there are reports available online for the last few years and they all vary with the parameters they include. 

Most of the brewing ones are included, and they mostly stay pretty stable. If it rains a fair amount on the dam catchments, the water temporarily goes harder due to all the limestone out there. That's what dad noticed when he used to test water quality in his old job. 

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Yeah that’s why I was saying it’s left out of the report. Because I filter my water I’m probably better to have that tested anyway rather than go off the report

Think I might just bite the bullet and get the test kit online with the ph meter and what not cause it’s taking far too long for these to come back from my wife’s work 

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That's why I just decided to use distilled water for everything except the red ale. At least that way I know exactly what the water profile is. 

I looked at chemical test kits online but to get something with a decent accuracy that covers all the minerals related to brewing it's pretty expensive. I have an alkalinity test kit for the pool water which wasn't that expensive and I've mucked around with it with the tap water. Actually found it was lower than the water reports, but I guess they're only averages, not specific to one area.

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12 hours ago, The Captain!! said:

Good stuff @PaddyBrew2 I tried to get our water Corp to send precisely that however unfortunately for water ever reason in my area they only do the main testing, the secondary testing for all the beer Chem stuff was left out. I was spewing!

I was wondering how that went ☹️

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7 hours ago, Instigator said:

Looking at the Nitrate readings there.

I'm studying a statistics subject at uni at the moment. I'm struggling to understand how the median reading can be -lower- than the minimum?

Nice, Instigator, well spotted, and welcome to the festive Brewing Network ; )

This nonnnnsense may have something to do with their lab methodology and limits of detection.... and the boneheads who are doing the reporting who understand neither stats nor the methodology nor limits of detection and just need to plug a number into a spready. Mmmm.

Yeah as OVB points out... Median is halfway up the table by ranking... nothing to do with Average... 

But if you are less than 1ppm of Nitrate I think you need not worry about it ; )  Though some sci papers do indicate ability to measure much lower nitrate levels accurately.

If you guys are really fired up about water - I suggest having a look at the ANZECC Guidelines might be worth a look... for an overall picture... 

http://www.waterquality.gov.au/anz-guidelines/resources/previous-guidelines/anzecc-armcanz-2000

But note that is more about fresh-marine-potable and now is on-line with a 2018 updated resource...  (is not a brewing guideline 👺)

In the big scheme of things Paddy... the total soluble salts (indicative measure is Electrical Conductivity or EC) is not that high on your sample mate... 270-630 uS/cm (which they report at mS/m)..

From memory Kelsey Bris is about 200-240 uS/cm?  Getting up to 630 may in drought is getting a bit more salt-laden.

Rainwater is like 5-50 uS/cm depending on whether you live by the coast and get salt-aerosols on yer roof...  Distilled water should be ZERO uS/cm... does not conduct electricity at all as no ionic content.

Some bore water is like 2,000 uS/cm but that usually does not taste so nice.  Yer get thirsty drinking it !?!

Think Seawater is between 35,000 and 50,000 uS/cm... 

Anyway... in the big scheme of things - us Rainwater plodders (who die of thirst when it don't rain) and Kelsey with his distillation facility start out with very low EC...

and have the luxury of adding things to change-it-up.... a bit of Calcium... some Sulphate… some Carbonate to assist a water profile to chase a particular end.

MLHB Champs (mmm Local = 2-3 hours away) I talk w who run micro-brewery use some old book "Designing Great Beers" which provides some good inf re water chemistry profiles.

But those guys said that when they started with quality HB, they just used the local water... and had good enough results so their mates said you should start a brewery... and that is what they did.

Thing is, Kelsey who has fine tuned his system to some degree, can tell the difference when changing up the water.  And no doubt we all should have a go at fine tuning like this!

Guess it would be pretty easy if you think yer water is carp... just buy some springwater and brew same brew with that -- and exactly same temp-ingredients-and-yeast - and see if there is a marked difference or not.

And then when it comes to the interaction between malt bill-hops-yeast-temps-and water chemistry... you end up with a complex matrix that can influence the final flavor in so many ways....

I probably have added no polyclar-or fish guts to the clarity of the discussion so after the above you might all just say thanks - clear as mud 😜

The more you know about something the more you realise you actually do not know that much after all... 

 

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