Beer Forum

I got a new water report and after I entered my numbers, I realized the sparge acid water additions didnt change so I played with the numbers and realized that the amount of acid recommended wasnt changing when I changed the source water PH dramatically.

Does anybody understand how the sparge acid adjustments are calculated on the spreadsheet? Palmer defined a name in the formula so I am trying to find where it is, but I am not an Excel expert.

My source water has a Ph of 9.5 and I am looking to get my sparge water down to 6 using phosphoric acid (10%).

Its not really pH that is the major influence in the amount of acid needed, its the alkalinity. I'm not surprised that the acid amount did not change when you changed only the pH. Try varying the alkalinity and you should see a difference.

mabrungard wrote:Its not really pH that is the major influence in the amount of acid needed, its the alkalinity. I'm not surprised that the acid amount did not change when you changed only the pH. Try varying the alkalinity and you should see a difference.

It does look like the alkalinity affects the additions much more than the Ph of the water.

Martin - your sparge acidification spreadsheet is much better. The whole spreadsheet is more thorough, but a little more daunting at first. How can I do salt adjustments on just the mash? When I add salts, it adds them to the Mash and Sparge water. I tried to just enter 0 for sparge water, but then on the Adjustments Summary page it still just shows 0 and I cant add my actual sparge water amount.

The amount of acid required depends on

1. The pH of the source water
2. The desired pH after acidification
3. The alkalinity
4. The type of acid being used.

If the alkalinity doubles, the amount of acid of any particular type for any pair of source and target pH's will double. If the alkalinity halves, the amount of acid required will be halved. With pH the dependencies are not so simple (i.e. they are not linear). The whole painful shooting match is set out at www.wetnewf.org and I thought was picked up in Bru'n Water.

Why does the Bru'N spreadsheet state the chloride's should be under 100ppm?

On Palmer's site it states the brewing range is 0-250ppm.
Chloride (Cl-1)
Atomic Weight = 35.4
Equivalent Weight = 35.4
Brewing Range = 0-250 ppm.
The chloride ion also accentuates the flavor and fullness of beer. Concentrations above 300 ppm (from heavily chlorinated water or residual bleach sanitizer) can lead to mediciney flavors due to chlorophenol compounds.

I am by no means saying one is right or wrong, I would just like a better understanding of it.

I'm not sure where John found an allowable chloride concentration of up to 250 ppm. The highest chloride concentrations that I've found in any credible brewing waters is about 140 ppm. Dortmund water which is noted for its minerally taste, has 130 ppm chloride. It just doesn't make sense to recommend chloride levels as high as 250 ppm.

The recommendations to limit the chloride to 100 ppm is safe, but it appears that Bru'n Water should mention that concentrations of up to 140 ppm may be warranted. Forget about levels above that for most beer styles. Gose' is the only beer style that I know of that benefits from very high sodium and chloride concentrations, but that extra salt is added post-fermentation.

mabrungard wrote:I'm not sure where John found an allowable chloride concentration of up to 250 ppm. The highest chloride concentrations that I've found in any credible brewing waters is about 140 ppm. Dortmund water which is noted for its minerally taste, has 130 ppm chloride. It just doesn't make sense to recommend chloride levels as high as 250 ppm.

The recommendations to limit the chloride to 100 ppm is safe, but it appears that Bru'n Water should mention that concentrations of up to 140 ppm may be warranted. Forget about levels above that for most beer styles. Gose' is the only beer style that I know of that benefits from very high sodium and chloride concentrations, but that extra salt is added post-fermentation.

Funny you mentioned Gose as it is the next beer style I plan on brewing. I am planning on mashing my pils and wheat(total of 29.75#) for 45 min and then adding 2.5# of acidulated malt to the mash. The spreadsheet showed that my Ph would be reduced to 5.1, but that I needed a lot more alkalinity. Would all that acidity stop the acidulated malt starches from converting?
After I started looking around, I didnt see any water even close to 250ppm... Ill stick to 140 as the max from now on.
One thing I really like about the Bru'N spreadsheet is the Ion Balance calculator(it makes sure you are entering the proper values). My water report for some reason hasnt reported its results the same way each time so I had to convert my Calcium and Magnesium.

You want the twang in a Gose, but I'm not sure that you'll want to drive the pH that far down. If your water is fairly low in alkalinity, you may not need to add that much acid malt in the first place. The good thing is that the mash conversion will still proceed effectively at that pH, so its not a worry. If you want the beer really sharp and acidic, then go for it. I see that this is a fairly large batch, so you may want to moderate on the acid malt addition and be ready to dose with Lactic to taste after the beer is done.