Does chocolate malt count as a roasted malt for the purposes of inputing an amount of roasted malt in the “Recipe Info” section of EZ Calc 2.0? I know it’s not as roasted as roasted barley. Does it have a similar effect on pH in similar proportions as roasted barley though?
Since carafa is 300-340L I would consider it a roasted malt for the purpose of buffering. Since these calculators are not exact I always add 2/3 to 3/4 of the recommended salts and then dial it in after the initial pH reading.
It’s the color, not necessarily the roasting, that matters.
Ok, that makes sense. So a 450L chocolate malt would probably qualify as a roasted malt for the purposes of the EZ Calc.
Any malts kilned to a color of about 200 or higher SRM should probably be considered a roast malt. The acidity contribution for any roasted malt falls in a relatively narrow range with little correlation to color. Read Kai’s information on malt acidity and mash pH for a better confirmation.
Chocolate malt contributes similar acidity as Roast Barley or Black Malt.
How do you get one without the other? Are we differentiating between kilning and roasting?
Also, is roast green barley more acidic for a given Lovibond, than roast malt?
While I appreciate all the research/experiments that went into creating EZ Calc 2.0, I have to say that my measured results don’t really square with the estimated pH for most recipes. I learned how to adjust my mash using CaCO3 to increase and LA88 to lower pH. The amount of CaCO3 it usually takes to adjust the pH for just about any of my recipes squares more with Palmer’s nomograph (in that when I measure my salt additions with the goal of hitting an appropriate RA, the pH is correspondingly correct). For example, I have fairly soft water (see screenshot below). In an oatmeal stout recipe I brewed last weekend, I used 6g CaCO3 + 3g NaHCO3 in the mash to achieve a measured pH of 5.3 (measured with colorpHast strips – concededly not as accurate as a pH meter). But according to EZ Calc 2.0, I could have achieved the same result with only 2g NaHCO3 (or a very small amount of some combination of CaCO3 and NaHCO3). I realize that EZ Calc 2.0 has a disclaimer about estimated pH, but it seems like this is a pretty substantial difference from my measured results. Incidentally, I arrived at my measured results by adding more and more salts to the same recipe over time to find the “sweet spot” with regard to pH. Is it time to invest in a pH meter?
Pat:
A good pH meter will not only give you more accurate readings it will give you some piece of mind.
If you can afford it, It’s worth the investment! IMO
ColorpHast strips read about 0.3 pH units low, so your additions lead to a pH of 5.6. Perhaps the EZWaterCalculator would have given you an actual pH of 5.3, as predicted.
Maybe, but I’ve read around on the interwebs and it doesn’t appear that I’m alone. There are others who say that colorpHast strips read just as accurately as their pH meter (after presumably doing side by side testing). I think most importantly, when I calculate my salt additions based on the RA relationship to SRM, I don’t notice any off flavors in my finished beers. And I’ve noticed a slight efficiency bump also, which leads me to theorize (not implausibly, I think) that there exists a causal relationship between my salt additions and mash pH (which would make sense if I accept that the colorpHast strips are reading accurately).
My Colorphast strips read low, it seems like there is at least a very good chance they will.
A local club does a pH meter calibration at a meeting once a year. Many members own a meter and calibrate it once a year.
Given that, it should be stated that the best possible way to measure mash pH is via competent use of a freshly calibrated meter.
I appreciate the concern about the pH prediction with this program. Unfortunately, it appears to be missing an important component in the acid and buffer equation. From my review of the equations in the pH calculation, it doesn’t seem to adequately evaluate the buffering capacity of the water. I would still assume that this program’s pH estimation could be better than an estimate based on beer color only. Maybe it just needs more calibration, but adding the overall water contribution into the mix would seem to be important too.
John, I hope that your clubmates know that an annual pH meter calibration is not sufficient. I recommend that anyone with a meter have the 4 and 7 buffer solutions on hand so that the meter can be calibrated prior to each session. In addition, keeping the probe saturated in the potassium chloride solution is a really good idea too.
Martin, would you say that harder water has a greater buffering capacity? And that softer water would have a less robust buffering capacity? Or is the relationship between water and buffering capacity related to something other than just relative ion concentrations?
I’m not sure if EZ Water Calc 2.0 factors in the buffering capacity of the water (or if it does, to what extent), but if soft water (defined for the purpose of this thread as my water profile in the screenshot above) has less buffering capacity, it would provide some explanation for my measured results, i.e., my soft water does not offer as much buffering resistance to the acidifying darker malts in darker beers, which is why I need to add more salts (CaCO3 and/or NaHCO3) to hit my mash pH.
Hard and soft is not key to water buffering but it is related due to cation/anion pairing. Alkalinity is the primary component to buffering capacity and carbonate chemistry is typically the primary contributor to the alkalinity in most drinking water.
Phosphates are another contributor to buffering capacity, but they are typically in very low concentration in drinking water. But in the mash, phosphates are a major component and they become a significant factor. I’m just getting started in phosphate chemistry since it is not a significant concern in my field of water supply engineering. AJ Delange has produced a good paper on the subject, but have lots of cafeinated beverage nearby when reading it. It is a very tough subject.
Water hardness influences how a mash performs, but high or low hardness doesn’t really matter that much. Alkalinity is actually the thing that brewers need to pay the most attention to. It is a key to brewing well.
Terms like Temporary Hardness and Alkalinity are the terms that brewers need to perk up to when reading their water report. Since these components are typically reported (as CaCO3), they are actually equal to each other: Temp Hardness = Alkalinity when both are reported in (as CaCO3) terms.
So, think less in terms of hardness and focus on more on alkalinity.
Well it is a different club than mine and I don’t see most of the members ever and the rest once or twice a year. But given the quality of the meters homebrewers own (many cheaper than the Hanna pHep 5 I own) the annual calibration is troubling. I figured I would suggest that when they do it next they first use the meters to measure one of the calibration solutions. I think that would be eye opening.
I calibrate daily (on days I take measurements).
I have an inexpensive Hanna pH meter, and I check my calibration every time I use it. I rarely have to re-calibrate though, it has been quite steady (within 0.1pH units, the thing reads to 0.01). I do rinse it well after each reading and store it with storage buffer. I have more trouble with the pH buffers, the 4.0 likes to grow a white mold.
The one other aspect of the EZ Water that I noticed, is that it doesn’t take boil loss into account when calculating flavor ion concentrations. This can increase the actual concentrations by 20-30%. Is this the case or am I missing something there?
On the subject of hard vs soft water, I would think the bicarb is going to have some amount of buffering ability even though its not exactly in its sweet spot as a buffer since the pH is about 1 unit below the pKa.
I added a tab to my spreadsheet that calculates the concentrations based on the post-boil batch volume.
I know that the EZ water calculator’s pH estimate is mostly based on my work on this subject. The problem of predicting mash pH seems more complicated than I was hoping for it to be. As I keep looking into this problem and keep running experiments I oftentimes encounter contradicting results.
But I keep meaning to check the results against my own brewing logs. The problem is that I don’t necessarily calculate beer color for my recipes. I know what grains make what color and that’s what I tend to use. In addition to that I often re-brew recipes which limits the coverage and testing I can get for SRM-pH correlation.
In my experience, colorpHast strips do read about 0.3 units low. We did an experiment on the NB board a while back that confirmed this for the strips used by a few brewers. Check out this writre-up: An Evaluation of the suitability of colorpHast strips for pH measurements in home brewing - German brewing and more and don’t it being work in progress. I meant to add more but never got to it.
Martin, I don’t think that the buffer capacity if the water. i.e. the alkalinity, has much effect on the buffer capacity of the mash. At mash pH hardly any bicarbonate is left and therefore the carbonic buffer system is weak. I once titrated mashes made with R/O and my fairly alkaline well water (230 ppm CaCO3) and both mashes showed similar buffer capacity.
I wouldn’t mind receiving data sets (mash water composition, grist information, mash thickness, pH) from brewers to see if there is a substantial systematic error or if there is more unpredictability than I expected.
Lennie, I don’t think that there is a need to calculate the flavor concentrations post boil unless we have post boil data on which flavor concentrations are desirable.
Kai
One more note.
The pH of the base malt has a very strong influence on the mash pH and I found only a very loose correlation between basemalt color and the resulting distilled water mash pH. Because of this the calculator may work for some and not for other brewers.
Kai
Kai, I really do appreciate the work you’ve done on water/mash chemistry. I’ve learned a lot on the subject over the past month from reading your posts and your wiki page. But I think you’re right that EZ Calc 2.0 works better for some than it does for others.
As for colorpHast strips reading low, I guess I have no way of determining that for myself at this point. I don’t know that I want to invest in a pH meter right now. And, as I said above, I haven’t noticed any off-flavors in my beer that I would attribute to a higher than desirable pH (honestly, I don’t really have off-flavors in my beer at all – at least that I can taste).
I think I will continue to adjust my mash pH based on the RA and SRM relationship for now, as that seems to work well for me. What ain’t broke, and that. ;)