New Water Treatment

[barney]

My water is very soft 15/20 on the Salifert test. I have been struggling to hit the right PH despite water treatment via the water treatment calculator, consistently hitting 5.6 or 5.7. Today I have taken the radical, for me, step of no regular water additions at all.

Instead, I have acidified the water with Phosphoric acid down to 5.8 and mashed as usual. The mash PH ended up at 5.32 which I am very happy with and with the water being short of calcium for yeast growth I am going to add white labs yeast nutrient to the wort.

Any gross errors in the above procedure?

[fisherman]

If it was my water and I was making a pale ale for calcium and other mineral additions I would add 1.1grms of DLS per litre for the brewlentgh, half in the grist and half in the boil.
Good luck

[barney]

What's DLS and what is in it?

[simple one]

Are you sure your measuring the pH of your mash correctly? If your water is low alkalinity, as is mine, you should not need to use any acids to reach a correct mash pH in all but the darker beers.... In fact it should be the opposite some of the darker bitters could do with an increase in alkalinity?

Something is amiss.... What's your alkalinity in CaCO3?

[barney]

Hello Simple one alkalinity Ca Co3 is 16.5

I use a PH meter and Calibrate it at each brew day.

[simple one]

That's odd that your pH isn't bang on with no water additions. If anything you should be looking at increasing the alkalinity of your water prior to brewing anything.

Your treating your water like I used to when I lived in a hard water area with an alkalinity of around 120 CaCO3.

But I suppose if it works keep doing it.

[fisherman]

Hi ,
DLS is dry liquor salts a combination of salts made to burtonise water for brewing. Calcium, epsom salts . salt and various other minerals. the easy thing is it is balanced if you brew pale ales or bitters. Look at the Brewpacks site ( Information water treatment ) look at DLS You wont need CRS.