Soft water raising Ph for Porter

[Down2Die]

I'm doing a porter and working with martins calculator and soft water', to get the Ph up to 5.7 for lots of body.

I want to know is Sodium Hydrogen Carbonate (Bicarbonate of Soda) the same as sodium carbonate??

Adding baking soda is pushing my sodium levels into the red, can I split it in half with Chalk? in the mash would that be ok. will the chalk dissolve...

my water report

calcium 4 ppm
mag 5 ppm
sodium 25 ppm
sulphate 30 ppm
chloride 25 ppm
alkalinity 31 ppm
hardness 15
ph 7.5

[Eric]

Dare I suggest you abandon that approach? Instead, buy a bottle or two of cheap but highly alkaline water, preferably one >240 ppm and mix one part of that to about 3 parts from your tap for your mash water. Don't worry so much about the alkalinity of your supply for your sparge water, but you just might want to use up some of the left over bottled water.
Try adding 2g of CaSO4 for every 15 litres of total water used and 4g of CaCl2 for every 10 litres. I normally add these to the mash.
OK about going for a pH of 5.7. My preference would be lower with maybe a tad higher mash temperature and/or using a yeast like WLP002 or Windsor despite having a quite alkaline water supply.

[Aleman]

Adding baking soda is pushing my sodium levels into the red, can I split it in half with Chalk? in the mash would that be ok. will the chalk dissolve...

In theory you can do it and it should dissolve. In practice it seems not to be the case in all circumstances. Personally when I need to raise my alkalinity I use a highly carbonated solution of calcium carbonate, which I filter to remove any solid chalk, , this also decarbonates the liquid, leaving me with a highly alkaline and jars liquid. A couple of litres of thos im the mash liquor and the alkalinity is ip where I want it.

[Down2Die]

thanks for those replies. good suggestions. is their a certain brand of high alkaline water or store where you Get it from? seems nobody uses baking soda then huh lol...I'll try the other additions aswell. I was going to mash high aswell as high Ph and possibly use mauri dry ale yeast as its all I have to hand
I have a carbonator cap for a 2 litre pet bottle I could dislove some chalk in. how may grams per 2 litres would be the norm?. great to have two different approaches thanks

[Aleman]

I use 100g in 10 litres, and carbonate to 40 psi, then leave it for a few days . . . shaking on a regular basis. Acording to alkalinity measurements I am getting around 1200ppm . . . I've not measured calcium levels directly.

[Down2Die]

thanks for that. so 10 grams per litre should suffice. I also have a soda syphon here with co2 bulbs could dislove a litre at a time in there. the last few beers I've made have been seriously sour/bitter not to my liking, once my own fault from over bittering.but I've just tried a pale ale there and its very bitter both as a result of gypsum and Epsom salts I suspect after reading previous posts from your good self aleman. I'll be giving them a wide birth as much as possible in future.