Water Calculator: Episode 4, A New Hope?

[PeeBee]

Well, the title is better than "Creating a Brewing Water Calculator - (Part III)". (Yawn). You can get from the new title I've pretty much completed the querying and this is a conclusion? Well. I have been at it for a year (and two or three before that). If you're looking for "water chemistry" answers, not much of that here ... we're "home-brewers", we only ever imagined we were doing "chemistry", all the answers are "Weights and Measures", the stuff you learn in first or second year senior school ... or even earlier (Junior School for a lot of it).

This is, I've said all along, mainly for "low alkalinity" water users (and therefore "RO Water" users?). For many of the "high alkalinity", majority, users ... push off! I've had to listen to your distorted ideas (often very wrong) for brewing water too long already. I do not want to hear more. There will be those with better understandings that will (hopefully) positively contribute information; I may have a better understanding of my "brewing issues", but its still very much "work-in-progress".


Okay! Ranting over (for now at least), lets make a start. At the usual start point for brewing .... "Mashing"! From that you can probably figure this isn't going to be one salt addition does for everything up to the finished beer (the long time trod approach). Might seem to be overcomplicating things? But in fact it's key to making this procedure blindingly simple. Before going on have a read of the following. It wasn't the trigger for what I propose, but it was definitely encouragement. About some small-scale brewing operation? Err ... try Guinness! I'll be back later:

Adding Body to your Stout

[PeeBee]

"Mashing".

This is where most mucking about has to be; where people get dragged into splashing out on expensive pH meters; where people get obsessive about salt additions , measuring quantities to the nearest 1/100th of a gram, etc, etc. I'll not be giving you any of that. Promise!

First off. We need to generate a "baseline". Oh-oh ... I've started, and I've only just said "I promise" (not to get complicated). But this was the only way I could deal with this forthcoming "problem" and there seem to be no helpful clues from commerce. The "problem": There doesn't seem to be any guide to how much "Calcium" ions needs to be mixed with an explicit amount of malt to get satisfactory mash conditions. That'll rattle a few cages! "Easy" I'll be told "The mash needs 50-150ppm of Calcium ions". Think about it a moment. If you know of such a guide, please tell me and I can adapt my plans. If you think that insane statement ("50-150ppm") is correct … $&**% !

Parts-per-million" (ppm) is a concentration. On it's own it tells you nothing!. The missing quantity is amount of liquid in the mash, and that changes depending on whether you have a thick mash, a thin mash, or a "Brew-in-a-bag" mash and using "no-sparge".

So, the solution is to create (invent!) a quantity and use it as a "baseline".

Inventing a "baseline" is really easy! That "50-150ppm" idea didn't come from nowhere (I hope!): So I pick a mash water quantity of half the Batch length. That would suggest just short of twice that amount as "sparge" (it must allow for boil-off, etc). Pick a "concentration" of Calcium ion to aim for and use a water calculator to determine how much of a calcium salt to add to achieve the right concentration. I usually plump for 50 or 70 ppm. But anywhere 'tween 35 (or less?) to 120 ppm should do the trick (you are only choosing an amount for the mash; I'll get to bumping that up later). Somewhere the calculator will display an actual amount of calcium salt to achieve this concentration in this environment: Record it! The environment is about to be changed to match your brewing practices, but it will try to change the calcium to! You may be instructed to add acid of alkalinity salts to fall in the right pH range; I've been altering the target Calcium ion concentration (staying within the 35-120 ppm "optimum" range) to drop the acid or alkalinity salt to "nil" if you can!


That's it for now! That previous paragraph (hi-lighted) covers all the instruction (not much?), the rest is verbal diarrhoea (which I excel at! ) ... and the follow-on will start with what to do with that "baseline" (and can include piccies!).

[OldN1ck]

Is there anything accepted as a typical traditional mash thickness value (I get the feeling that it might be 3 l/kg, or a touch less), from back when the 50-150ppm Calcium convention comes from, that would enable calculation of the equivalent [grams Ca / kg malt]?

[PeeBee]

Is there anything accepted as a typical traditional mash thickness value ...

I hope someone answers! I've still got an option (only briefly tested) to use "normal" mash thicknesses to fix the "baseline" with. but fixing to fractions of batch size was a whole lot easier. I've no idea (nor could I find) the datum used to "fix" ppm values.

It would certainly help if someone comes up with a supportable manner to "fix" the units used rather than rely on my guessing. But my guesses aren't that bad, and miles better than the random guessing employed by home-brewers to date, most of whom aren't even aware such guessing can occur.


P.S. This "fixing" has a name, although one I had to go looking for after I'd already established the method. It's also-known-as "Normalization".

[PeeBee]

Here we have the above ramblings displayed in a spreadsheet with a fairly familiar layout (nicked from Martin Brungard's "Bru'N Water"). It's my own "proof-of-concept" spreadsheet laid out like Bru'N Water so as to hi-light any "slipups" I might (I do!) make. The copy of Bru'N Water (v.5.5 "Supporters" version) is also paralleling my spreadsheet and directly contributes some information (particularly the "Estimate Mash pH" 'cos that's hard to do myself!).

Unfortunately, that does mean I can't make my own spreadsheet publicly available without Martin's permission ... so piccies only!

This snip is the preparation work for the mash. It's all "calculation only" hence the bubblegum pink.

Fullers 1968 London Pride.jpg (815.93 KiB) Viewed 6831 times

The screwy numbers are because I use 33% calcium chloride solution (for cheese!) and the figures give me an easy to measure six millilitres in the final mash. Bru'n Water is telling me the "estimated mash pH" will be 5.5 (when creating most beers pH should come out in the right range without interfering). (I probably do need to ease up on the tolerances of the error checking).

And that's it! 6ml of CaCl2, no acid and no alkalinity salts. If you're making a "London" Stout you might have to hold back the roast grains and crystal malt (I'll come to that later), or, if a very pale beer like a "pseudo-lager", add a touch of acid.

This is the main feature of this method. It's just so easy! No mucking about with acids or bases (in most circumstances), and no feeling disadvantaged if you haven't a pH meter.

One other thing ... when adapting to the size of mash being planned (here in the example, "Full Batch Volume", which is a little less than "Full BOIL Volume), notice the "Calcium PPM" fell from 55ppm to 39ppm? That is perfectly correct! The amount of ingredients hasn't changed, only the amount of water. I do keep ranting on about it, but it can't be over-emphasised … "ppm" is not a measure to be taking much notice of, only if you really (really) understand what it is telling you! (And your average home-brewer does not! Nor does some magazine or book writers, which is a bit worrying, or they word it very carefully ... which is borderline deceitful in my book).


Wot, no beer flavour enhancing salts? Not yet! That's coming next. There's no point having "sulphates" to enhance the hops, etc. There's no hops in it yet! And I certainly won't be drinking un-hopped, un-boiled, unfermented wort!

[PeeBee]

Quick break! I'll get back to describing my technique after this. I hope it will make my efforts sound more thought-out and appealing, and not the ramblings of some complete Loonie (Here, I am a brain-damaged, complete, Loonie! But that's not the point … ).

This "method" is working so well, why's it been left to now to describe it? And what am I describing anyway?

I've been having to think this myself too! So, here's my current ideas …

I'm a low alkalinity water user. Always have been, and brewing beer for most of that time (I started young!). But having low alkalinity water is an uncommon thing, the majority have high alkalinity water, those with low alkalinity are a minority. And we all know how minorities are treated by the majorities! But its changing. Technologies to "purify" water is getting cheaper. In the last ten or twenty years people have affordable "RO Water" supplies and technologies available to them. Bottled low alkalinity water is more readily available (driven by "health" fads, etc).

Low-alkalinity water use is far less of a "minority "thing". But for beer brewing the up-coming "majority" still use the ways they always used, and the old "minority" follow meekly behind.

That doesn't come across too bitter, does it?


So, "brewing water treatment" hasn't much changed, just perhaps a little easier for those that have grasped the new technologies. Water is still treated once for "Mash", and everyone is happy? Err …

As the previous post illustrated, the mash has very few "requirements". Just some minor touches up (with "Calcium" salts, perhaps a touch of acid or base/buffer to shepherd the "pH" into the optimum zone). But then there's all the "flavour enhancing" salts … more Calcium, sulphates, chlorides, etc. The "Mash" doesn't need these additions, they are for the finished wort and some (like Calcium) perform functions in the boil and fermentation too. But Calcium, in particular, causes reaction in the mash that drops the pH (increasing the acidity). The solution (?): Just keep increasing the "base" or "buffer" salts (chalk, slaked lime, baking soda, etc.) to pick the pH up again into the optimum mashing zone. More un-necessary additions … it's not a great solution these days; is it?

The new water source technologies (and those already with low alkalinity supplies) allow for changing the water composition mid brewing session, but it isn't an obvious step. Sure, many water calculators allow two water sources, but that's not the same as two water treatments, and I haven't seen any that can act in that "two treatments" manner. So I'm modifying how my chosen calculator works, Bru'N Water by Martin Brungard, so it can provide a "Proof-of-Concept" for the time being. It already allows two water sources (one being a "dilution" water) and allows all treatment salts (more accurately, all "Hardness" salts) to be added after the mash. Not the solution, but these features I can work with.

In Bru'N Water, the option to "Add Hardness Minerals to the Kettle" is selected, which deals with all the Calcium and Magnesium salts. All the alkalinity salts are only added to the mash anyway, that only leaves "salt" (NaCl) left unaccounted for. But "salt" (NaCl) is fairly "neutral" so can be worked around. "Acids" are important if adding them, but the calculator can already determine when to add them. But Calcium (and Magnesium) additions are now out of the mash. If your "Calcium" is less than about 40-50ppm (I really dislike using "ppm", but we're all used to seeing it in relation to water analysis, so I'll go with it) you will need to bump it up in the mash a bit. My solution has been to have an entry configured in "dilution water" configured with the source water, and arrange to have my spreadsheet directly edit that "dilution source". Bru'N Water must be configured to use 100% of that "editable" dilution water profile. Note: Bru'N Water already allows "users" to read and write those dilution profiles … my spreadsheet is NOT making a malicious "hack" of those profiles!

Okay! Everything is in-place. I can now independently edit "mash" and "post-mash" ("sparge") water profiles. I haven't mentioned the feature to "hold back" acidic roast grain and crystal malt, but Bru'N Water does that just fine anyway. Let's get back to the descriptions illustrated with my spreadsheet …

[PeeBee]

A follow-on to the 27th November post.

Sorry for the delay, I'd added an extra "feature" that suggested a bug in my sheet. I spent literally hours (over 3 days) trying to find it. Eventually, found, affecting only the new feature, it would have been easier if I never added it! I mention it because the arithmetic dabbled with a very counter-intuitive bit of detail ... in "parts-per million" (PPM), of course. Damn, I'm trying to get rid of it, not prove to myself what a truly awful unit "ppm" can be! Still, I tidied up some of my dodgy naming conventions during the search.

Screenshot 2025-12-01 122350.jpg (650.03 KiB) Viewed 6727 times

The illustration is the alternative to Bru'N Water's "Water Adjustment" page. It differs firstly with lots of explanatory notes (including the "Batch Notes" which are being programmatically generated), secondly by the insertion of the "Initial Additions" column which frees up the first "Total Water Additions" column ("Mash") for reuse plotting the "Initial Additions", thirdly the second "Total Water Additions" column has the cumulated total of the remaining water treatment salts ("Add Hardness Minerals to Kettle" option is always assumed as set), and finally, the extensively expanded "Alkalinity" section which isn't used at-all in this recipe.

The "Desired Water Profile is as in Bru'N Water; here the first line is a Graham Wheeler "Pale Ale" profile (fairly highly mineralised as would be expected from a Brit), the second line is my tap water profile, the forth is a window on the "adapted" ("rewritable") mashing profile, and finally the "finished" water profile.

The "Alkalinity" section differs from Bru'n Water in that the Cations of the non-bicarbonate additions are first calculated as their native cation before converting to their bicarbonate equivalent. Hence all the arrows (following the routes). There are the extra "Late Alkalinity" rows for entry of salts after the "Main-Mash" (i.e. "Post-Mash", or "Sparge" in BW).

Note "salt" is out on it's own and split as Na+ and Cl- ions. This is as displayed in BW, but the additions can be displayed as one in "Post Mash" but this then breaks the comparison with Bru'N Water.

In Bru'N Water the same information looks like this.

Screenshot 2025-12-01 143206.jpg (407.32 KiB) Viewed 6727 times

Very minor differences (less than ten, here less than five, "ppm") due to inevitable changes is the manner of calculating and displaying.

[PeeBee]

The purpose of that last post is only to show the extents I went to to ratify what I'm doing. You don't need to understand what it proves, but if you want to prove me wrong, most of my arguments are depicted there (get reading).

I can add a single small addition to the "main-mash", then add all the other "flavour enhances", "boil enhancements", "fermentation enhances", etc. (mineral salt additions) after the main-mash where they can't mess up any carefully calculated "pH" arrangements (not that I do any … but if I did …). The mash does not need "hop flavour enhancers", "malt flavour enhancers", "protein break encouragements" etc, etc. Or the acids and alkalinity adjustments to counter the effects of adding all those "flavour enhancers", etc. in the mash. That's just a hang-over from when we could not alter the water's makeup like we can now.

More to the point; I personally do not have to worry again at mashing at below pH5.0 (whenever I decide to mash "no-sparge", etc.). I don't have to worry about weighing water mineral additions out to 1/100th of a gram … or even 1/10th of a gram … heck, maybe I can use spoons again. I don't have to be troubled at being one of the "low-alkalinity" minority.

This way of doing this messing with water is blindingly simple (proving it works wasn't!). Maybe I will still weigh out those "initial" water additions (usually a single calcium salt; no acid, no alkalinity salts) a little more carefully than the others?

[PeeBee]

I've still got that flippin' bug! Needs careful eyes to see it. I only squished one more obviously showing, not the origin. But as with the first "bug", it appears to affect the ppm table not the "explicit values. It relates to "normalization" so Bru'n Water wasn't helping (it doesn't expect such antics).

There's a cell labelled "Estimated Mash 'Calcium'" that's been debugged and is displaying 39ppm. But the "actual" Calcium in the mash, the "Mash Water Profile", hasn't been fixed and is still displaying 54ppm.It doesn't need a genius to figure that the "actual" Calcium" figure can't be bigger then the "as" Calcium figure which also contains Magnesium (half) converted to be "as Calcium". The Calcium added during the "baseline" calculation is diluted when stepped up to the "intended" Mash water quantity, I haven't paid enough attention to ensure this is happening. I'll fix it even though it mainly (I had better check "mainly"?) affects the "ppm" table and not the "explicit" additions. Damn "ppm"!

Before doubting what I'm doing 'cos I'm admitting this blunder, it's a good idea to remind yourself this is exactly what anybody does when they decide they don't need to treat their "sparge" water, only the mash water. But the error I'm experiencing is tiny compared to many that make the "only treat the mash water" error (that error impacts some more than other, depends how close to "optimum mash" mineralization your untreated sparge water is ... if you're using "RO Water", or, worse, "Distilled", then "not close at-all" applies!).


Ooh, I'm good: I turn an error I've made into a rant at the error many others make

[PeeBee]

Ahh. You're all saved from seeing my posts for a bit. The Site is saying my JPG (and GIF) piccies can't be displayed in-line, up-loads them happily though. Won't allow piccies I've previously used with no bother to be displayed in-line in a new post either. So I've been "muted".

I've fixed the spreadsheet bug though. More hassle from "ppm"; I might have guessed! I'm trying to purge "ppm" eventually, but meantime I've got to work with it to show how to be rid of it. And it's so easy to accidentally slip a "ppm" value in where it shouldn't be. This time I was allowing "ppm" values created by "mineral additions" (not the source water) to carry through unchanged to "post-mash" from "main-mash" as you would with ppm values connected to the source water. But ppm connected to "additions" ... they need diluting. It's not intuitive when "ppm" is sometimes described as independent of volume, and here it's being totally dependant. If that sounds ridiculously complicated … don't I know it! Yet as homebrewers we seem to be using "ppm" all the time.

Mixing "concentrations" (e.g. "ppm") with "explicit measures" is a disaster, and there are times when you don't even realise you're doing it!


My "error-check" by employing a Bru'N Water look-alike (with a "virtual" Martin peering over my shoulder) doesn't work where I've had to employ "tricks" to insert additional functionality (e.g. real-time programmatical editing of water and dilution profile tables).

[PeeBee]

"Place In-line" is back "on-line" again! So, any relief from my posts was short-lived. I never found out if it was a glitch in this forum's software, or Microsoft messing about with their new "Paint" drawing program. Microsoft are becoming more and more dictatorial with their Windows package. It'll be just like that other fascist Operating System (Apple) soon? Any how …

The "Baseline" section (it prepares the way to eliminate misleading "concentrations") didn't need to change much. The "Mashing Water Profile" is now internal to this parasitic spreadsheet and isn't shared with Bru'N Water … that "shared data" (through real-time "editable" water profiles) is moved to an intermediate stage with the "ppm" additions data suitably "morphed":

Screenshot 2025-12-05 182402.jpg (470.75 KiB) Viewed 6618 times

.

Screenshot 2025-12-05 183041.jpg (642.48 KiB) Viewed 6618 times

The "Intermediate" staging 'tween "baseline" and the calculator proper has also been purged of the "sparge" (post mash) stuff to stop it causing confusion later. It's also got the return of where the information splits from confusing "concentration" values into "real" information to brew beer with. The intention is to move this "split" right to the start were the brewer can be shielded from this misleading "concentration" garbage and just leave the true recipe to follow.

[nallum]

It reads like a conspiracy theory against ppm, tbh. Even a 'parts per kitchen sink' would work as a baseline. You won't find out why on Wikipedia, though.

[PeeBee]

The way people use "ppm" it could easily be "parts-per-kitchen-sink", I rather like that, best I could do was "Piles-of-Poo-and-Manure". Best I could glean from "Wikipedia" was "Parts-Per-Cent-Myriad", but that was me making the leap of adding the extra zero, Wikipedia only went up to "Per-Cent-Millie" (parts per 100,000). I guess they can't work with poo and manure.

I can't do conspiracy theories ... or any sort of "theory". 'Cos I don't rank clever enough. Amazing though, I've never thought why we say "myriads of things". The things you learn ... . I am going through the episodes of "X-Files" on me Amazon TV box. Perhaps that'll help me put together believable Conspiracy ... err, Ideas?


Anyway, thanks for dropping by. It's getting a bit lonely churning this stuff out on me tod. I might go daft doing it on me own ... eh?


Don't you think that colour gives my work an "authoritative" slant?

[PeeBee]

All that preceding "pink" background stuff was just preparing the way for this next page. The data that (in this case) Bru'N Water is given to work with:

Screenshot 2025-12-07 100350.jpg (444.65 KiB) Viewed 6559 times

This has had the bugs fixed that marred the previous illustration of this section, as can be seen by the much reduced Calcium level in the "PPM" table. The page has had an overall "slim down" to get rid of some superfluous stuff, but I've kept the split cells in the "PPM" table as it monitors what that "new" initial additive column is up to.

The "post-mash" mineral additions have been included. It's a UK "traditional" bitter, so no with-holding of roast malts (there is none) or the small amounts of crystal malts.

The "Total Water Additions" remain hi-jacked from Bru'N Water in that the "Add Hardness Minerals to Kettle" is permanently "on" and the first "Total Water Additions" column refers only to the main-mash, not the post-mash. This dividing of water mineral additions 'tween main-mash and post-mash is the key driver behind these descriptions. What I hope will be the conclusion is this entire ridiculously complicated "water chemistry for brewing" will collapse into a sideshow offering (probably more accurate than current practices too!). I'm having little to do with pH (real chemistry?) but keep your pH meters if you want them, but don't belittle those using pH papers (if they can be that bothered).

The "alkalinity" additions have been clipped off this snapshot, because all the "zeros" doesn't make a useful illustration. I'll keep my eye on this section for a few more examples but it does look like "alkalinity" additions will just become redundant (but not acid additions for those that want them). That is the purpose of this "proof-of-concept" description; to find out just what is useful and what isn't. "PPM" is already on my "hate list" for homebrewing, but that's on the International Bureau of Weights and Measures ignore list too (too ambiguous amongst other things): Just too open to distorted personal interpretation for my comfort (and that comment is an example of my "distorted personal interpretation"!).

The Main-Mash" water is 100% of a "dilution profile" that is being directly edited by this "add-on" spreadsheet. This provides the space for two water profiles to be used sequentially. Be aware that this antic hides that goings on from Bru'n Water so isn't included in its checking (it's just another user water profile). That's what I was ignoring which allowed me to add the last "bug". The update remains paralleled to Bru'N Water, just the very minor differences (<5ppm) due to alternative handling of metabisulphite and ("neutral") salt (NaCl).

[PeeBee]

But the runup to this day has interfered with the work I was doing on the "New Hope". Sorry about that, Here's one I did earlier ...

... Ah! The forum is having it's "problems" displaying piccies again. Never mind, I'll post it later. It was a glass of that "Bru'n Irish Stout"; black and a couple of centimetres of fine-beaded white head. No acid in the water treatment and, more importantly, no "alkalinity" additions (chalk, lime or bicarb) to compensate for the roast barley.

Bit of a cheat 'cos the Stout is designed to tolerate low-alkalinity brewing water. Well, I was starting off this "New Hope" idea gradually. The next brew shouldn't be too taxing either (posted earlier). But then I'll start on the "in-yer-face" London Stouts with no alkalinity additions in my low-alkalinity mash water. It will work! And then you can look forward to a New Year where I won't shut-up!


Happy Christmas!


(While it lasts! ).