I’ve been using Brunwater for a while now, I recently downloaded a free version of EZ Water. Using the same grain bill and same salt additions along with the same lactic addition, I am getting major differences in predicted PH.
Brunwater predicts 4.97, EZ Water predicts 5.43.
It’s essentially 100% Maris Otter (plus a bunch of Flaked Oats, but didn’t see this in either software).
I’m adding 2 grams of Gypsum to both the Strike and Sparge and 7 grams of CaCl to both as well.
This builds my water up to the ranges I’m looking for on this beer. Regarding the lactic, I planned on 2ml.
Yeah, obviously the below 5 figure scares me a bit…any kind souls care to try to enter this into their copy of Brunwater to make sure I’m not losing my mind?
I’m wondering if this matters, but Brunwater is suggesting I put 1.68 ml of acid in the mash and .31 ml in the sparge. I plan on putting all of it in my strike water. EZ water doesn’t really differentiate this and I just have 2ml going in total.
As with most software, Bru N Water is a “dumb” calculator and doesn’t suggest that you add any acid in your mash. It’s your input that influences those conditions. GIGO garbage in / garbage out.
Add the oats to your recipe as a base grain and check your water volumes.
1.75mg/G of Calcium Chloride is a bit in excess, did you mean .75 mg/G?
On tab 3, set the amount of acid to 0. Check the mash pH on tab 4. If it’s too high then add small amounts of acid until you reach a reasonable pH, if it’s too low either add some alkalinity, remove some of your water salts or leave it alone.
Posting a screen shot of tabs 2, 3 and 4 would help troubleshoot.
I’m shooting for around 150ppm Calcium and 75ppm SO4. Again, Bru’n Water makes my additions look like it’ll give me 200ppm Calcium and 75ppm SO4. I’ll try to add some screen shots.
Adding calcium by raising Chloride and Sulfate levels over recommended ranges doesn’t work so well. You’ll need to add the calcium by using lime thus increasing the alkalinity and having to neutralize the excess with acid.
If you insist you’ll need to lower your Calcium Chloride to .75 gram/G and add Calcium Hydroxide (pickling lime) to about .45 gram/G at which point you’ll need to neutralize the excess alkalinity by adding nearly .9 ml/gal of lactic acid (or use phosphoric).
That operation is fairly tricky but may just work.
The best beer would be made by simply adding .5 gram/gal of Calcium Sulfate and .75 grams/gal of Calcium Chloride. Fooling around with lime and large amounts of acid is probably asking for trouble.
You’ll have to let me know the exact profile you’re after if you don’t have all of those water salts. FWIW you should enter the profile specified in the recipe as a custom profile in Bru N Water, that way it’ll be easier to match.
Who the hell knows! I do know my wacky PH meter read 5.99 for mash ph…no way that’s correct. I did try and avoid grain in my sample. Used a muslin cloth but it was still pretty murky w all the flaked oats.
Your calcium would then be at 115ppm which you could boost with the Lime/Acid additions.
In my opinion, using lime to increase calcium, and then using acid to lower pH is not a good idea. You should never use a base addition and acid addition together in the MLT. Use the one necessary to achieve the target pH. Intentionally getting your Ca over 100 ppm seems excessive as well. No need to try to match RA or bicarbonate levels in a water profile.
Mash pH is the first priority, Ca targets fall below that in priority. Again, just my opinion…
