Beer stone remover

[MashBag]

Eric you have made me think - perhaps shortening my brew to bottle has increased this precipitation in the bottle. hmm.

I wonder if you can seed it, to remove it.

[Eric]

Mashbag, I suggest you first confirm it to be beerstone on your bottles. At this instant no simple test comes to mind, but there may be a chemist in these ranks who could offer a suggestion. Could it just be from the minerals in your hard water as happens when cleaning a car and allowing it to dry naturally?

Not sure how long your beer spends in the FV, but mine, in normal circumstances, is cooled after 3 or 4 days then racked a week from brewday. I admit to getting the odd bottle with some coating when emptied, rinsed and left to dry, I've not thought it might be beerstone, but could be wrong.

[MashBag]

I like your thinking.
I have assumed it is beerstone based on a few tests and I have run out of ideas.
Caustic doesn't dissolve it.
Vinegar (acid) doesn't dissolve it (my goto descaler).
TBH this doesn't present as scale.

As a beekeeper I use formic acid. A heavy duty descale. Also nothing.

Sodium percarbonate (oxyclean) fails.

Sulphuric is my last stand..

[MashBag]

My brews ferment for 5 or 6 days @ 19c then racked into primed bottles.

Having brewed for many years 2+2(@2c)+2 I think some form of cold is now lacking and causing the problem.

Better clearing/cooling/settling is called for.. I have lost something along the way.

Maybe some gelatine might help.....

[Eric]

When I started brewing, 1963, there wasn't much to learn, with brewing then shrouded in mystery. The available advice initially came from winemakers, which varied and was frequently irrelevant to beer. Then, I would rack directly from FV to primed bottles as you describe, and if my father and I could keep our hands off those long enough for the yeast to compact on the bottom, they were OK. If somehow they avoided attention for several months, they could enter another league, but then I didn't know of, and as far as I can recall, never came across beerstone.

Calcium salts are less soluble than those of magnesium and vastly less than such as sodium and potassium, so any mineral deposit in brewing will most likely include calcium, and most will be difficult to dissolve, calcium oxalate in particular. The fact that vinegar doesn't help suggests that the deposit isn't from your water's alkaline content, which in any case should have been largely removed to brew pale beers. It does seem possible the problem is beerstone, which has accumulated from near insignificant amounts over repeated use.

I avoid brewing in summer, my last brew was often timed to be cup final day, starting again in October, but now have a chiller that enables me to replicate my usual procedure into warmer weather. My main system is 3V, so I mash in a mash tun, boil in a boiler and ferment in a choice of fermentation vessels, all stainless. Fermentation temperature is controlled to free rise to 22 or 23C and if necessary attenuated until fermentation is near completion, usually 3 days. Brewing in the garage in winter usually allows natural cooling to cellar from that point, controlled with insulation or supplementary heating or cooling. Seven days from brewing the beer is racked to plastic pressure vessels, pin, firkin or plastic pressure barrel and I can't say I've ever seen beerstone form on any of those vessels. Bottling is done after a period in a cask or barrel.

I would think cooling would help clear your beer more quickly, but wonder if it can have any influence on beerstone formation.

Good luck.

Eric.

[MashBag]

Excellent thanks Eric

The fact that vinegar doesn't help suggests that the deposit isn't from your water's alkaline content, which in any case should have been largely removed to brew pale beers

Removed how?

[guypettigrew]

The usual stuff: AMS/CRS; HCl; H2SO4. Or perhaps your water is already very low alkalinity. Do you know what alkalinity it is?

Guy

[Eric]

Yes Guy.

How? The quickest and cheapest method is by acid addition.

A significant proportion of hard water is normally alkalinity, mostly in a form of bicarbonate. A quote from Graham Wheeler's "Home Brewing."

No ale benefits from having bicarbonates present. In hard water areas the first task in any water treatment procedure is the removal of excessive calcium bicarbonate.

Graham himself would boil his water and decant off the deposit of calcium carbonate so formed, but this process is expensive and time taking, potentially adding an additional day to brewing. CRS/AMS (a dilute mix of sulphuric and hydrochloric acids) is most commonly used by commercial and home brewers alike to reduce alkalinity of brewing liquor.

Alkalinity in brewing liquor raises pH which can in turn lead to the release of undesirable components into the wort as well as impeding copper fining performance, whose optimum performance occurs at pH 5.2.

If vinegar had removed the coating, I would have concluded the coating would likely have been a deposit of calcium carbonate from you hard water as it dried, as 5% acetic acid would.

[MashBag]

OK. I gave up treating my water. Many (less educated) years ago. It appeared to be "not broken" for the style in brew so I didn't fix it until it was.

[MashBag]

The usual stuff: AMS/CRS; HCl; H2SO4. Or perhaps your water is already very low alkalinity. Do you know what alkalinity it is?

Guy

pH is 7.2 tested today.
Hardness as calcium carbonate 352 ppm (Well hard )

Going to check the water report for the rest..

[guypettigrew]

pH is 7.2 tested today.
Hardness as calcium carbonate 352 ppm (Well hard )

Going to check the water report for the rest..

Goodness, that is high! Mine's usually about 200 ppm Calcium Carbonate. I use AMS to treat the raw water and generally aim for about 20 ppm. Takes about 60 ml of AMS in the HLT to achieve this.

Guy

[MashBag]

Don't assume I understand anything about water chemistry. I ticked it off as "not an issue" and so have ignored it ever since. Rightly or wrongly

OK I am off for a read....

[MashBag]

Just had a quick look at AMS.

I think I might have some sulphuric acid somewhere.....

Will formic do that's a descaler

[MashBag]

pH is 7.2 tested today.
Hardness as calcium carbonate 352 ppm (Well hard )

Going to check the water report for the rest..

Goodness, that is high! Mine's usually about 200 ppm Calcium Carbonate. I use AMS to treat the raw water and generally aim for about 20 ppm. Takes about 60 ml of AMS in the HLT to achieve this.

Guy

Will pick up some AMS.
What do you use to test the alkalinity? Pen or strips?

[guypettigrew]

Will pick up some AMS.
What do you use to test the alkalinity? Pen or strips?

Neither! I originally used a Salifert kit, but then swapped to a Hanna freshwater alkalinity checker. A bit pricey, but so much easier than the Salifert kit.

I check alkalinity before and after adding the AMS to the cold water in the HLT.

Eric gave me the information needed for calculating how much AMS to add. AMS is a reliable mix of acids to a known concentration. 1ml of AMS in 1L water will reduce the alkalinity by 183 ppm. So, for example, if you had 50L water in your HLT at 352 ppm Calcium Carbonate, and wanted to reduce it to 20 ppm, a reduction of 332 ppm, you would need to add 332/183 ml AMS for every litre of water. This is 1.814ml/L or, for 50 litres, 50 x 1.184, which is 59.2ml.

If you choose to use separate acids you'll need to seek specialist advice from Eric or others on here!

Whichever method you choose will increase the Sulphate and/or Chloride concentration in the raw water in your HLT. Graham's 'water treatment calculator' on here will show you what the change is.

Hope this makes some sense.

Guy