20 replies to this topic

[brewman]

As I go down that dark road of water additions I find myself asking a question, Bru'n water shows me the total amount of acid to use to get my mash PH to what I want but it says "see sparge sheet" for the sparge water.   Do I need to adjust the sparge water at all?

 

Dan

[positiveContact]

As I go down that dark road of water additions I find myself asking a question, Bru'n water shows me the total amount of acid to use to get my mash PH to what I want but it says "see sparge sheet" for the sparge water.   Do I need to adjust the sparge water at all?

 

Dan

 

what kind of sparge do you do?

 

what is your water like?  high in bicarbonate?

 

eta:  for me, I don't think I need to treat my sparge water for a few reasons:

1) my water is low in bicarb

2) I batch sparge

3) my batch sparges are small so the water:grain ratio in my sparge is really low.

 

Ken would answer this differently.  His water has a lot of bicarb.  Because of this I think he needs to neutralize some of that with lactic before he sparges.  Even if he did small sparges like me I think he might have to do it for a lot of beers (particularly light colored beers).

Edited by Evil_Morty, 26 March 2015 - 11:44 AM.

[brewman]

I batch sparge,  I mix my water 50/50 with distilled because my bicarb is 274,

[positiveContact]

I batch sparge,  I mix my water 50/50 with distilled because my bicarb is 274,

 

holy hell!

 

yeah - you'll probably want to treat your sparge water unless you plan on diluting your water further.

[SchwanzBrewer]

holy hell!

 

yeah - you'll probably want to treat your sparge water unless you plan on diluting your water further.

 

It is for a brown ale. All that dark malt will help keep the PH in check. There are other things to consider though like mouthfeel. I don't have a good feel for how RA effects mouthfeel. I try to reduce the RA on my beers with acid and I have high bicarb as well.

[brewman]

Here is my water report and below is my bur'n water for the beer we are talking about.

 

httpss://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/v/t1.0-9/p206x206/561360_510586002331093_587434226_n.jpg?oh=7be02f68b1bd2f6b570a7af3e1cb2d2d&oe=55AD53DE&__gda__=1437489804_0f634e603c9e51cc016c5ef89c1a7253

 

[3rd party JKor]

DO NOT drop acid before mashing.  Next thing you know your refractometer will be attacking you and trying to steal your soul.  Bad stuff, man.

[neddles]

You are sparging with more water than you are mashing with. If possible I would reverse that situation.  With high bicarb water I think you might have a situation where your second runnings pH is too high. Simply adding some acid to the sparge water would alleviate that. Go to page 2 and calculate how much acid to add to your sparge water. Otherwise, you have an estimated room-temp mash of 5.4 so I'd say you will be good to go.

Edited by nettles, 26 March 2015 - 12:36 PM.

[positiveContact]

You are sparging with [color=rgb(255,0,0);]less[/color] water than you are mashing with. If possible I would reverse that situation.  With high bicarb water I think you might have a situation where your second runnings pH is too high. Simply adding some acid to the sparge water would alleviate that. Go to page 2 and calculate how much acid to add to your sparge water. Otherwise, you have an estimated room-temp mash of 5.4 so I'd say you will be good to go.

 

until I figured out that you meant more and not less this post was confusing me

Edited by Evil_Morty, 26 March 2015 - 12:38 PM.

[neddles]

until I figured out that you meant more and not less this post was confusing me

yes yes , my mistake. Thanks. Corrected!

[Big Nake]

I can't comment on the BNW part because I can't seem to get it to do what I want (and I have sent my sheet to Martin and he says everything is correct but the results are not). Anyway, it turns out the the pH of my source water (no dilution) is about 7.5 and my bicarb is 138ppm. I add enough lactic acid (88%) to the sparge water (which is usually around 3.5 gallons) to get the pH of that water down into the mid 5s. That usually requires around 1½ ml of acid. I do this specifically because even if my mash pH is correct (and let's say I'm making a pale beer), when I add my sparge water to the grains, the pH of the sparge could be at 6.0 or higher which is when tannin extraction is going to kick in. I know this is an issue for me (many, many examples of bad, harsh, grainy, husky pale-colored beer). The variables would be 1) the color of the beer. Rich mentioned that the darker grains should lower the sparge pH but the question is whether that's enough to keep the pH under 6.0. That depends on the pH of the source water and the bicarb. Dan also mentioned using distilled water for part of the batch so that should lower your bicarb but not necessarily the pH. There are a lot of ways to navigate through this and I just happened to find this particular way with the help of AJ, Martin, Brauer and some others. It's working and pale beers are coming out MUCH better as a result.

[positiveContact]

It is for a brown ale. All that dark malt will help keep the PH in check. There are other things to consider though like mouthfeel. I don't have a good feel for how RA effects mouthfeel. I try to reduce the RA on my beers with acid and I have high bicarb as well.

 

homebrewer ESP?    edit:  ah it was in that other thread

 

it will help.  it may not help enough if he sparges with a large volume - I'm not sure though without looking into it.  as I mentioned earlier I am blessed with good brewing water.

Edited by Evil_Morty, 26 March 2015 - 12:43 PM.

[positiveContact]

one thing I've never really looked into but am wondering...

 

when you mash in the grain has a certain amount of pH lowering effect.

 

I would guess that after you drain the tun and put your sparge water in the grain has less ability to lower pH.  how much lower is it?

 

eta: there is also the wort from the first runnings trapped in the grain helping you out I suppose.

Edited by Evil_Morty, 26 March 2015 - 12:46 PM.

[SchwanzBrewer]

Remember this is a batch sparge. You aren't rinsing the grain constantly and diluting the mash. Those dark malts will act as a buffer and prevent the PH from rising too much. All that being said, I don't think it's going to hurt anything for him to add some lactic to the sparge water and reduce the residual alkalinity.

[positiveContact]

Remember this is a batch sparge. You aren't rinsing the grain constantly and diluting the mash. Those dark malts will act as a buffer and prevent the PH from rising too much. All that being said, I don't think it's going to hurt anything for him to add some lactic to the sparge water and reduce the residual alkalinity.

 

I'm not a chemistry guy but I never quite got this.  buffer means resisting pH change right?  I thought most people's water was already close to neutral (7) which is too high.

Edited by Evil_Morty, 26 March 2015 - 12:53 PM.

[Big Nake]

Remember this is a batch sparge. You aren't rinsing the grain constantly and diluting the mash. Those dark malts will act as a buffer and prevent the PH from rising too much. All that being said, I don't think it's going to hurt anything for him to add some lactic to the sparge water and reduce the residual alkalinity.

I agree. I don't think dark grains have GIANT pH-lowering powers but they help. Somewhere in here it would be good to mention that you could possibly lower pH TOO much and cause other issues. I am typically getting my mash pH in the 5.2 to 5.3 range, I get my sparge water into the 5.5 to 5.7 range before it's added to the grains and then my sparge pH ends up in the 5.4 to maybe 5.6 range depending on the beer. My kettle pH ends up around 5.5 which I think is a good spot. I am much more focused on this with pale beers because of my pale beer history. But I generally get all of my beers in this general area and darker beers just require less acid added to the mash to get to my 5.2 to 5.3 range.

[brewman]

second question,  on my pic it says to see the sparge sheet for sparge water, I dont understand what is asking of me here.

 

 

Dan

[Big Nake]

I'm not a chemistry guy but I never quite got this.  buffer means resisting pH change right?  I thought most people's water was already close to neutral (7) which is too high.

The pH is one thing but the bicarb is what you're concerned about. The buffering means exactly what you said... resistance to change. You can add acid but the pH won't come down much because you're fighting the bicarb. A pH of 7 with very little bicarb will play ball much better. A pH of 7 with a lot of bicarb is going to be harder to lower.EDIT: What's funny is that I have played with the sparge water and added some amount of acid (say 1 ml) and it goes from 7.5 to maybe 6.2 or something. Then I add ½ ml more acid and it goes from 6.2 to 5.1. As the bicarb is neutralized, the resistance/buffering is lowered which means that you need less acid to lower the pH. I think nettles mentioned this once before saying that he went from 8 to 7 with 1 addition and then he went from 7 to 4.5 with another addition (or something like that).

Edited by Village Taphouse, 26 March 2015 - 01:04 PM.

[neddles]

I'm not a chemistry guy but I never quite got this.  buffer means resisting pH change right?  I thought most people's water was already close to neutral (7) which is too high.

 

If his water is pH 8 for example and no bicarb it's going to change very easily when he mashes with it. If the pH is 8 and bicarb is 130+ it's going to resist changing that pH of 8. The dark malts help but he's doing the right thing by plugging everything into a calculator to see how much they help and if he still need acid in his mash.

 

For his sparge if he acidifies the water like to the mid 5's or so like Ken does he is neutralizing that bicarb and ensuring that he won't have a sparge pH of 6+ regardless of grist. No guesswork.

second question,  on my pic it says to see the sparge sheet for sparge water, I dont understand what is asking of me here.

 

 

Dan

Use the page 2 tab at the bottom of the spreadsheet

[Brauer]

I'm not a chemistry guy but I never quite got this.  buffer means resisting pH change right?  I thought most people's water was already close to neutral (7) which is too high.

Buffers resist change over a range of pH, though they have an optimal window. One of the reason that Calcium lowers pH is that it reduces the buffering that is trying to hold the pH up near neutral. Bicarbonate buffers well at higher pH than neutral, then less as the pH is lowered down near the mash. A mash is a mix of buffers, though, which help resist change a bit even down around 5.3. So, the mash will tend to resist pH change from mash pH. A lot of Carbonate overrides that buffering capacity.