Cornish Knocker wrote:My last few brew days I've added the necessary water additions, gypsum, calcium chloride etc etc., to the strike water (I brew in a Grainfather) and then dough in. I'm now questioning myself whether this isn't the best time to do it and perhaps add them after I've doughed in might be better. Any thoughts?
Thanks
Cornish Knocker wrote:Thanks guys for the replies, much appreciated. I use reverse osmosis water, so I'm starting from scratch regarding water additions. .
INDIAPALEALE wrote:Cornish Knocker wrote:Thanks guys for the replies, much appreciated. I use reverse osmosis water, so I'm starting from scratch regarding water additions. .
You've been reading those Mercan beer forums . What can they teach us about beer ?
HTH1975 wrote:The insistence on using reverse osmosis water, then building the mineral profile back up seems weird to me. Why not find out what is in your tap water, then go from there. I do that at work and we have great beers.
vacant wrote:HTH1975 wrote:The insistence on using reverse osmosis water, then building the mineral profile back up seems weird to me. Why not find out what is in your tap water, then go from there. I do that at work and we have great beers.
I agree, I bought RO water once and making up a profile is a bit of a faff but that, and a couple of bottled water brews, gave me my best beers at the time. I've got hard water (260-275 as CaCO3) and prefer pale beers.
To make things easier, I bought an RO filter for £30 and just used around 10% tap water with RO to get the profile I want. The RO water takes a day to filter and waste water also gets collected, draining to 80 & 60 ltr plastic storage boxes outside the house. Waste water is then pumped through the IC on brew day, then the now-warm waste water is used for cleaning up at the end.
HTH1975 wrote:The information provided by Murphys regarding water treatment advises to add salts to the mash. That’s how we do it at work. The only thing added to the HLT is acids for reducing alkalinity.
robwalker wrote:HTH1975 wrote:The information provided by Murphys regarding water treatment advises to add salts to the mash. That’s how we do it at work. The only thing added to the HLT is acids for reducing alkalinity.
Same. I think it's just a question of whether you're getting the results though - ie correct ph readings throughout, easy to clear beer, pleasing water profile. If you are, it's working!
Albert Einstein wrote:Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.
Albert Einstein wrote:Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.
Aleman wrote:A campden tablet in the vessel and then put the water on top will deal with any chlorine issues
For one vessel brewing, add your campden tablet and start filling, after you have around 5L in it, add 2/3 of your acid, once you have 15L in there, add your salts. calcium sulphate is soluble!!! it is a myth (almost) that it is hard to dissolve!!! the solubility limit for calcium sulphate/gypsum is around 2.3g/l, so if you are trying to dissolve 20g in 1 litre of water you are going to fail, but dissolve the same amount in 15 to 20 litres and it happens with no issues. If you already have a high level of calcium in your liquor then you may still experience issues, but you probably won't be trying to add a huge amount of calcium anyway (or shouldn't). Still it's a good practice to add your gypsum first, and then to add any calcium chloride afterwards. Once you have all the water in the vessel measure your alkalinity again, and add the final amount of acid to bring the alkalinity where you want it to be.
The advice to add it to the mash is somewhat out of date, as there is the belief that it required the 'acids' released from the malt to help it dissolve ... it dissolves quite happily, I know a commercial brewery that adds the Acids/salts to the HLT while bringing it back up to temp first thing in the morning as they are recircing it ... then mash and sparge. It's the first 15 to 20 minutes that the mash pH is established properly, if you don't have sufficient salts dissolved at that time the pH will be all over the place
Just my thoughts
CraftyTim wrote:Reading around, seems there is some consensus to adding all the salts to the strike water before doughing in and leaving the sparge as Ph'd RO (below 6.0), I didn't do that this time around and just treated it all, using a small amount of Phosphoric in the mash to get to get Ph down a point to 5.4.
Albert Einstein wrote:Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.
Aleman wrote:CraftyTim wrote:I remember a conversation I had with Martin Brungard regarding Gordon Strongs book, and the water chapter in there, where Gordon uses exactly the same approach as you have decided on, and Martins response was "Yes I wish he would stop saying that!" ... He now fully advocates going down that route.
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