Soft Water Treatment Quandry

[Rick_UK]

Hi Chaps

My tap water is very soft. For my last AG brew I added a teaspoon of gypsum and half a teaspoon of epsom salts to the mash and the ph came out at 5.7 which is a little on the high side. Have I simply used too much of one salt or the other or do I need to add something else to bring the ph down but maintain the calcium levels?

Any advice appreciated.

Many thanks

Rick

[gregorach]

Sounds more like you didn't add enough... Both gypsum and epsom salts are sulphates, which should lower the mash pH. I also have very soft water, and for me to get a Burton-type water profile requires at least 10g of gypsum (for 25l), which is more like 2 teaspoons. I use Graham's Water Treatment Calculator, and my mash pH is usually right in the 5.2 - 5.4 range.

[Wolfy]

The good thing about very soft water is that you can easily build a water-profile appropriate for the type of beer you are brewing.
But as gregorach said, if your water is very soft (less than 10ppm for all important ions for our water here) you likely need to add more salts.

You didn't mention what type of beer you are making, but for a hop-forward IPA I'll use 10g Gypsum and 4g of Calcium Chloride (or just 13g Gypsum).
For UK style beers (Mild) about 12g Calcium Chloride, 6g Gypsum, 2g Chalk, 1g Baking Soda and Epsom Salt, or (Pale Ale) 12g Gypsum, 10g Calcium Chloride, 2g Epsom Salt, 1g Chalk.
Light lagers (BoPills) only get about 3g Gypsum and 1.5g Calcium Chloride.

The other thing to note is that for accuracy you should really be measuring your brewing salts by weight not by spoonfuls.

[Rick_UK]

Thanks Dunc and Wolfy. Chemistry was my worst subject so advice appreciated!

The beer is TTL which I know is brewed in a very soft water area. It comes from a spring in the gritstone bedrock so it hasn't been near any chalk or limestone (I was good at Geography!) however I don't know how Tim Taylors treat their water if at all?

I'll double the gypsum and epsom salts for the next brew (and weigh properly!) and see where the ph is at.

Do you think I need to use any other salts also?

Cheers

Rick

[Wolfy]

Do you think I need to use any other salts also?

That depends mostly on your source water, put the information into one of the 'brewing water calculator/spreadsheets' and see what it tells you (I think there is one on this site ... somewhere).

[Rick_UK]

Thanks for all the advice chaps. Will start using the calculator and be more precise with measurements. I am a bit slap dash at just chucking things in!

Do I only need to treat the mash liquor or also the sparge liquor?

Rick

[Aleman]

Do I only need to treat the mash liquor or also the sparge liquor?

Rick,

I'm in the same place as you, figuratively speaking, and treat both mash and sparge liquor (well sort off). I add my 'mash' salts directly to the grist and the 'sparge' salts directly to the kettle before running off the sweet wort.

I also do not conform to the concept of an 'ideal' water profile for a beer style, such a 'one size fits all' approach strikes me as 'wrong' for some reason.

I aim to get an additional 150ppm calcium in the mash (using gypsum and/or calcium chloride as appropriate to the beer style), and an additional 100ppm calcium in the kettle.

Although I really dislike the idea of adding table salt to a beer (increasing sodium is unnecessary, although some say that it increases mouthfeel and palate fullness - I suspect that is due to the chloride rather than the sodium), I do add sodium bicarbonate to my darker beers to increase the alkalinity (up to 100 ppm for stouts) . . .but would prefer to use calcium carbonate for that one, Wallybrew has given me a technique to try to get the calcium carbonate to dissolve . . . but I've not had the time to try it yet

[trucker5774]

At which point are people testing PH. The water itself, the start of the mash or mid mash?

[Scroogemonster]

At which point are people testing PH. The water itself, the start of the mash or mid mash?

Straight after doughing in mate

Kev

[gregorach]

Five minutes after doughing in for me. There's absolutely no point testing the pH of the water - it's almost completely unrelated to mash pH, which depends on a horribly complicated bunch of buffering reactions between the salts in the water and various components in the malt. A different grain bill can require completely different water treatment to achieve the same mash pH.

[trucker5774]

I have (when I bother) checked once I have mashed in plus a few minutes. How much difference is there at the end of the mash?

[gregorach]

I don't usually see much difference at all... I've seen lots of claims that the pH falls throughout the mash, but I've never seen it in my own mashes. Looking at my records for the last couple of brews, the pH at the end of the mash was 0.01 pH units lower than at the start both times, but that's well within the margin of error for my pH meter.

[trucker5774]

I don't usually see much difference at all... I've seen lots of claims that the pH falls throughout the mash, but I've never seen it in my own mashes. Looking at my records for the last couple of brews, the pH at the end of the mash was 0.01 pH units lower than at the start both times, but that's well within the margin of error for my pH meter.

Or in my case ....Is that still the same shade of brown?

[Jim]

I also have softish water. One thing to bear in mind is that gypsum is quite difficult to get into solution if you add it to the water rather than mix it with the grist.

I use a blender to get a thorough mix with a litre or so of water then agitate for a few hours (I use 2 three litre pop bottles, with half of the 'blended' water in each). I blend in the morning and give the bottles a shake every time I pass until it's time to fill the HLT and cold water bucket later in the evening.

[gregorach]

I find it's OK as long as the water is hot, by which I mean above about 60 degrees...