Brew'n water what went wrong?

[sllimeel]

Hi all brew'n water users.

Did my first real attempt with the spread sheet as i now have a voltech ph meter. Went with the pale ale profile using crs and de-ionised water dilution (sourced from work)

My mash PH was high! any ideas why?

my water profiles / Final profile after adjustments
Tap water Ph= 8.1
CaCO3 = 148/16
Ca = 80/129.4
Mg= 11/6.6
Na = 60/36
HCO3 = 180/20
CO3 = 0.3/
SO4 = 99/298
Cl = 90/85

Gypsum mash = 4.2gms
Gypsum Sparge = 8.8gms
CRS Mash = 4.8ml
CRS Sparge = 13.3ml
Mash liqour = 12ltrs
Sparge liqour = 25ltrs

Meter readings @ 20c (meter calibrated yesterday all ok, recalibrated after results and ph7 was @ 7.4 and 4 was normal)
Mash PH reading was 6.1!! meant to be 5.33
Sparge PH was 6.0 meant to be 5.8 (ball park)
last runnings PH was 5.55
Pre boil wort PH was 5.65

[Eric]

I don't use Brew'n Water or other software for that matter, but it's hard to think the software would be wrong. It is however not possible to estimate mash pH without knowing the types and amounts of grains used.
If I read your figures correctly, your water supply had alkalinity of 148mg/l CaCO3 and you used 4.8ml CRS to treat 12 litres of mash water. So those 12l contained 12 x 148 = 1776mg of CaCO3 and the CRS converted 4.8 x 184 = 883mg to sulphate and chloride leaving 893mg unchanged, that is 74mg/l CaCO3. Now if you were brewing a quite dark beer the pH could be in the order of 5.3, but if it was a pale beer, it would be higher, even so, I would not have expected as high a pH figure as you report.
If it was a pale beer I would have used about 8mL CRS in the mash liquor, so check your figures again. If it was for a dark beer, check when and how you measured pH.
6.1 is a bit higher than I would expect without any CRS in that water.

[WallyBrew]

Eric

Whilst there is a lack of information on the grist he does say that he used dilution with deionised and I would guess from the figures that for the mash it was about 100 parts treated mains to 66 parts deionised.

If it was just pale malt used then with those parameters the pH should not be greater than 5.8

It takes time for the pH of the mash to stabilise and it would appear that by his own admission the pH meter was out of calibration at pH 7 reading as it did 7.4.

[mabrungard]

That is a bit odd. With a treated water bicarbonate content of 20 ppm and 129 ppm Ca, a grist with mostly pale malt should easily fall below 5.8.

I suppose the question can be expanded to the validity of the degree of alkalinity reduction that Bru'n Water calculates and if it is accurate. Not being able to obtain and test CRS myself, I've relied on the published information on CRS as to its alkalinity reduction. Can anyone confirm if the results produced by Bru'n Water when using CRS are accurate? For example, if you know your water alkalinity is X and Bru'n Water told you to add Y amount of CRS to get to a pH Z...did the water pH actually end up at Z? That would confirm or disprove the model used for CRS in the Sparge Acidification sheet.

I look forward to your comments.

[Eric]

Martin, with reasonable confidence I assume alkalinity is reduced at a rate of 184mg CaCO3/ml CRS. What figure have you assumed?

Neil, yes! As I've admitted before, I'm getting old. Thanks again for putting things straight.

Eric.

[mark4newman]

Hi Martin

If you would like, I will put some in the post for you.

Pm a delivery address if you want to take me up on this.

Cheers

Mark

[sllimeel]

gents,
the grist was pale 4.3kg, caramalt 350gms, wheat malt 300gms.

[Eric]

gents,
the grist was pale 4.3kg, caramalt 350gms, wheat malt 300gms.

Then I'd be reluctant to assume the software was a problem. Even with your water untreated, pH ought not to be that high. You would need first to eliminate any possible meter error and ensure the mash had time to fully settle.
Dare I suggest you start with pen and paper before trusting mysterious binary manipulation?

[mark4newman]

Hi

Did you give the mash time for the ph to settle? It strikes me, as the other ph readings, are ball parking, then this might be the reason.

[sllimeel]

eric,
the software gave the crs amount and the added gypsum as stated to the mash water. Should this gypsum not bring the ph down also? The meter was calibrated and rechecked. I think that the spread sheet possibly gave the wrong crs smount for the mash, but was ok on the sparge ph? Maybe Martin will shed some light. Lee.

[WallyBrew]

Can anyone confirm if the results produced by Bru'n Water when using CRS are accurate? For example, if you know your water alkalinity is X and Bru'n Water told you to add Y amount of CRS to get to a pH Z...did the water pH actually end up at Z? That would confirm or disprove the model used for CRS in the Sparge Acidification sheet.

I look forward to your comments.

As you know I do not have the supporters version but assuming it works the same as the free one then why would anyone need to test it in that manner?

Enter 8.2 start pH 4.3 finish pH 183 as alkalinity and 1L as volume then volume of acid should be 1mL according to Brupaks. Should be slightly less using AMS according to Murphy (why they changed it, who knows).

Assuming the above to be correct then enter different finish pHs and see what they give in volume. Change acid to HCl and strength to 3.66M or N and check volumes of acid at same pHs all should be nearly identical.

I do not use CRS but my analysis from 4 years ago made its strength 3.6 normal and its composition to be a solution containing 1.6 moles of HCl and 1 mole of sulphuric.

[WallyBrew]

eric,
the software gave the crs amount and the added gypsum as stated to the mash water. Should this gypsum not bring the ph down also? The meter was calibrated and rechecked. I think that the spread sheet possibly gave the wrong crs smount for the mash, but was ok on the sparge ph? Maybe Martin will shed some light. Lee.

You mentioned dilution so what dilution did you use because if my assumption is correct then the amount of crs added will be of the right order.

[sllimeel]

Hi

Did you give the mash time for the ph to settle? It strikes me, as the other ph readings, are ball parking, then this might be the reason.

Mark the reading was taken 15 mins into the mash.

[bigdave]

I've not yet ventured into water treatment so may be waaaay off but when did you test your water profile and achieve those initial figures? I only ask as everyone who knows about water treatment is drawing a blank so perhaps the water profile is wrong/out dated?

[sllimeel]

I've not yet ventured into water treatment so may be waaaay off but when did you test your water profile and achieve those initial figures? I only ask as everyone who knows about water treatment is drawing a blank so perhaps the water profile is wrong/out dated?

The water report is very recent and the alkalinity is from the salifert test done on the day which is in keeping with the water report data.

You mentioned dilution so what dilution did you use because if my assumption is correct then the amount of crs added will be of the right order.

The mash dilution was = 4.8ltrs de-ionised water, added to 7.2ltrs of my tap water, totalling 12ltrs which the CRS was then added too @ 4.8ml, gypsum was added to the grist @4.2gms.

Lee.