I have just published my advanced brewing water software, Bru’n Water. This is the first program that I know of that includes the contribution of grain acidity and water alkalinity to allow the brewer to better predict and tailor their mash pH. We know that tailoring brewing water based on the beer color does not work well. This program moves beyond that limitation. Mash pH is a strong factor in creating cleaner flavor, proper body, and desired fermentation and attenuation performance.
The program includes all the typical mineral calculators and goes on to provide acid calculators, dilution tools, extensively researched water profiles, and a comprehensive water knowledge section. I think you will find that it is quite a useful tool for analyzing your water and truly figuring out how to make it fit your current beer’s mashing requirements.
The mash pH prediction equation in the program has been proven to come within 0.2 pH units. With continued observations and reports from the brewing community, I expect that the prediction capability may be refined to as little as 0.1 pH unit.
I have set up a web site to further explain and illustrate the program and serve as a downloading point for interested brewers. Please visit the following site:
That looks real nice and wonderfully informative. Looks like it’ll be the last straw in getting me up off my lazy butt and sending for a report on my water. Thanks.
I’ve been beta testing this for Martin. I’ve gotta say, not to diss anyone else, this is the absolute best water calculator I’ve used. My beers have improved greatly since I started using it.
Kudos Martin, we all appreciate the effort. I’ve been playing with it and noticed that - once the ‘Net Water Alkailinity’ (following RA) goes negative (by adding Gypsum, for instance) , no amount of Lactic Acid as a water adjustment will change the Mash PH, while even a small amount of acidulated malt will reduce the mash PH.
How can that be?
Did you base the color to acidity correlation on my work, or did you run additional titration experiments.
I have to play with this a little. While I have been working on something similar, I kept getting inconsistent results between the prediction and the actual mash pH and was never happy enough with the results to publish an updated version.
I put that in there purposely since the phosphate buffers will not let the mash pH drop below about 5 under normal circumstances. By normal, I mean no external acid additions to the mash.
This pH response was confirmed through experiments that Kai ran last month. No matter how much calcium or magnesium hardness you add to the mash water, the mash pH will not drop below roughly 5. This is a good thing since a mash pH of less than 5.2 (room-temp measurement) does not produce a very inviting beer in my opinion. The body is thinner and the beer is noticably tart.
I incorporated this response in the mash pH calculation by limiting the minimum RA value used in the pH estimate to zero. Negative RA values are assumed to be zero RA. (The acid malt is on the other side of the equation in the malt acidity. Its not affected by the zero RA limit. I’ll be adding a note that acid additions to the water that produce a negative RA would not be properly accounted in this program. Unlike adding Ca or MG, acid in the mash can drop the pH below 5.)
So, you did find an interesting quirk, but in practice it should not be an issue to most brewers. I welcome any suggestions that we should include the ability to model pH below 5, but I haven’t found the need at this time.
Kai, the malt acidity was based on your work and you are credited on the instruction sheet of the program. Thanks!
This looks truly stupendous. Given what I learnt from you earlier in the week about my water report I expect to spend quite a bit of time playing with this one.
I had a chance to play around with Bru’n Water after work tonight. Great work! I have a question though: is it possible to have a particular mineral salt addition only apply to the mash volume? The reason I ask is because according to Bru’n Water, I only need to add .5g NaHCO3 to my mash to achieve a pH of 5.3 (for the beer I plan on brewing this weekend). I don’t need (or want) to add any NaHCO3 to the kettle for my flavor additions, however. The way the calculator seems to work now is that when you change the water volume from mash volume to pre-boil kettle volume, the salt additions change proportionally along with it. I hope I’m articulating my question well enough!
Bru’n Water works in Open Office on my computer. It doesn’t look quite as nice since the formating gets a little screwy, but it works fine. Try it out. Anyone can get Open Office on their computer since its freeware. That is one of the reasons I was OK with using Excel as the programing basis. Enjoy.
