Water Treatment Volumes and Other Confusions

[Matt12398]

I'm trying to work out my water treatment and it's quite confusing. I'm trying to treat my water to do a Fuller's ESB clone.

I've been looking at Graham's water treatment calculator and putting in my figures it gives the list of suggested additions. This includes a small amount of chalk which others said not to add on another thread so do you disregard this addition or look to add something else instead? My water is very, very soft.

Also when inputting the volume to be treated do you put in your total liquor volume, mash liquor volume or final batch size?

I was expecting to add all of the additions to the mash but I'm not sure if I should be adding part of them elsewhere. I will be batch sparging if that makes a difference.

[Dave S]

I'm trying to work out my water treatment and it's quite confusing. I'm trying to treat my water to do a Fuller's ESB clone.

I've been looking at Graham's water treatment calculator and putting in my figures it gives the list of suggested additions. This includes a small amount of chalk which others said not to add on another thread so do you disregard this addition or look to add something else instead? My water is very, very soft.

Also when inputting the volume to be treated do you put in your total liquor volume, mash liquor volume or final batch size?

I was expecting to add all of the additions to the mash but I'm not sure if I should be adding part of them elsewhere. I will be batch sparging if that makes a difference.

I advise you to look at Martin Brungard's Bru 'n Water spreadsheet, in particular the Instructions tab and the Water Knowledge tab. You might, as I did find it daunting to begin with, but all should become at least less murky if you persevere.

[Matt12398]

That is an amazing piece of kit. I know Martin posts on here quite a lot so if he reads this post I'd like to say I take my hat off to you for such an in depth tool for water treatment.

I think I'm getting to grips with it. What I struggle with slightly is that I'm not very experienced with water treatment so it's hard because it expects you to input quantities to get the right ion concentrations. Naively I hoped something would tell me what I should add. As long as the ion concentrations are close to your desired water profile does it matter what combination of salts you add?

This is for the purpose of a Fuller's ESB clone so I'm wondering which of the profiles is the best fit. I was thinking brown bitter. These are vastly different to the Murphy's water report recommendations for these styles. I trust the Bru'n Water calculator but when you have two vastly different target profiles it's a bit confusing.

My only experience of water treatment is using Brupaks DLS and the recommended quantity was somewhere around 1 g per litre for my very soft water. Based on the Bru'n water sheet the quantities are incredible low with quantities much less than a gram of the different mash additions. All in all I'm very confused.

[Goulders]

Fullers "Burtonise" their water. That profile is available on Graham's treatment calculator but I cannot vouch for the Bru'n spreadsheet.

[Matt12398]

That's fair enough and after hearing people say that Graham's is a good calculator I was all for it but the Bru'n Water one also accounts for the pH change associate with the grain you are using which I'm not sure if Graham's does.

Does Graham's volume of liquor input associate to mash volume or total liqour?

[Dave S]

Bru 'n Water does cater for Burton water. It requires quite large amounts of gypsum and quite small amounts of acid and a little Epsom Salts. My local water which has moderately high alkalinity mostly requires gypsum additions, plus a bit of calcium chloride for browns and stouts.

[Matt12398]

What's confused me even more is that if you convert units between the US and the SI version the results seems to be different. Before you ask I did use US gallons not imperial.

What kind of quantities are you adding Dave? My additions based on this would be miniscule and my water has next to nothing in it. My Ca figure is 12 ppm and alkalinity as calcium carbonate 15 ppm.

[Dave S]

What's confused me even more is that if you convert units between the US and the SI version the results seems to be different. Before you ask I did use US gallons not imperial.

What kind of quantities are you adding Dave? My additions based on this would be miniscule and my water has next to nothing in it. My Ca figure is 12 ppm and alkalinity as calcium carbonate 15 ppm.

I've got an IPA just coming to the end of fermentation. It's got just short of 6 kg of grain and called for 3.7 g gypsum in the mash and 5.9 g in the sparge. Acid additions were 2.2.ml in the mash liquor and 4.7 ml in the sparge. My water alkalinity is 195. I've just done a gravity check and it tastes bloody lovely.

PS. Mash pH was 5.39

[Matt12398]

Was that using the pale ale profile? Perhaps these small additions are right then. My gypsum quantity is slightly more than yours but my water is very soft as I said before. I thought I'd have to add a lot more.

Are you fly sparging or batch sparging. I'm wondering how best to add when batch sparging. Whether to add directly to the tun and split by the number of batches or add to the liquor. I didn't want it all to end up left in the kettle and not transferring to the mash during the sparge.

[Dave S]

Was that using the pale ale profile? Perhaps these small additions are right then. My gypsum quantity is slightly more than yours but my water is very soft as I said before. I thought I'd have to add a lot more.

Are you fly sparging or batch sparging. I'm wondering how best to add when batch sparging. Whether to add directly to the tun and split by the number of batches or add to the liquor. I didn't want it all to end up left in the kettle and not transferring to the mash during the sparge.

I am batch sparging. I treat the mash and sparge liquors seperately. I add the acid to the liquors, (cold). I add the mash salts to the grain and the sparge salts to the sparge liquor. It's a bit tricky to get the gypsum into solution, so all I do is to give it a good stir before adding to the tun.

[Matt12398]

Cheers Dave. I think I've gotten to grips with Martin's spreadsheet now. It's really good once you get your head around it.

I think now I just need to work out which of the profiles best match specific styles.

[orlando]

I suggest you email Martin with a specific question. I know he is very busy as he is finalising his contribution to John Palmer's new book on water, but he will reply. I know DaveS has used the calculator a lot and I have used it for my last 5 brews so ask away, if we can answer we will.

[mabrungard]

The problem that arises with highly mineralized Burton-style water profiles is that the amount of calcium and magnesium in the water can significantly depress the residual alkalinity (RA) of the water for the mash. Its that factor that can call for the addition of a little more alkalinity when the brewer's tap water has little. That may be the case for Matt's water. However chalk is so ineffective (even in the mash) for adding alkalinity, that it is not a preferred mineral for brewing.

Chalk will dissolve (eventually) and contribute its alkalinity. The problem is that it is a very time-dependent dissolution...and its time scale is far longer than we have in the typical mash. So chalk does not end up contributing much alkalinity for the mash. If you review Kai Troester's work on pH in brewing in his 2009 paper posted on Braukaiser.com, you will find that his data shows that there is a small quantity of acids in the mash that are strong enough to quickly dissolve chalk. That is evidenced by the pH response of mashes where the mash pH will rise only 0.1 to 0.2 units, regardless of the amount of chalk added to the mash. I am not sure what the 'strong acids' in the mash are, but its apparent that the phytin-based mash acids are not strong enough to dissolve chalk quickly. So, chalk is not a good fit for brewing.

The best alkalinity producer for brewing use is pickling lime (slaked lime) which contributes calcium and hydroxyl ions to the water. It instantly neutralizes excess acid in the mash and prevents excessive pH drop. The problem with lime is that it is a strong base and REQUIRES very careful dosing to avoid overdosing the wort and producing a higher than desired wort and mash pH. This is a bad outcome since a high wort pH causes far more problems for the resulting beer than a low wort pH. "When in doubt, leave it out".

A second best alkalinity producer for brewing is baking soda. If your tap water has very low sodium, then this can be a viable alternative for adding alkalinity. You can provide almost 90 ppm alkalinity (as CaCO3) for each 40 ppm of sodium added to the water from a baking soda addition. And since you should never add alkalinity to sparging water, you can end up with a fairly modest sodium increase when using baking soda in the mash since you will end up 'diluting' that addition with the sparging water. 40 to 50 ppm sodium is fairly inconsequential to taste in brewing water. You might find that up to 100 ppm sodium is OK in some styles, but I don't recommend that.

With all this said, do heed the warning that it is better to err on the side of adding too little alkalinity-producing mineral, than too much. Wort pH that is a little low is preferable to it being a little high. Since the quantities of minerals added to the typical homebrewing batch are small, accurate measurement is fairly important. Using a scale with 0.1 gram resolution is highly recommended.

Do recognize that there are several work-arounds when the brewing water has too little alkalinity. The first technique is to not add the full dose of calcium or magnesium containing minerals to the mash water. That helps avoid depressing the RA. Reserve those mineral additions and add them directly to the kettle. Another technique is to dilute the mash and reduce the concentration of mash acids. By thinning the mash, you can end up adding more total alkalinity to the mash with the water (remember that concentration times volume equals total load). Since the quantity of mash acids is based on the total grain mass, it doesn't change. But adding more low alkalinity water to that mass of grain might get you closer to a desired mash pH. You can play with this in Bru'n Water and see the effect. The supporter's version of Bru'n Water also has a toggle so that you can quickly test the mash pH effect of reserving those hardness minerals from the mash. All of these features are valuable for those of you with low alkalinity water. The free version is helpful, but the supporter's version has many more tools and is better integrated. If you like the test-drive, consider becoming a supporter.

Enjoy!

[Matt12398]

Thanks Martin for such an informative post. I've learned a heck of a lot about water in the past couple of weeks and a lot of that was from playing around with your spreadsheet. From what I have learned I can now see why some beer styles I have brewed have had undesirable characteristics.

I didn't realise that the supporters version was any different so I'll be sure to check that out. I never knew water chemistry could be so interesting.

[orlando]

Martin, given how difficult it is to get Gypsum into solution what tips do you have for adding it to the sparge water? I have taken to adding it dry to the mash a few minutes before adding the liquor, and again mixing with some water then adding it to the sparge water about an hour before using it. However I do notice there is quite a lot of "sludge" that sits right at the bottom of the HLT when I have finished and can't tell if this is undissolved Gypsum or the result of carbonate precipitating out of the liquour after acidification.