Water Chemistry:

[Hop Bomb]

I bought a ph meter. I just calibrated it there & checked the ph of my mash (belgian witbier). Its reading 6.8. Beersmith recommends 5.2.

Im not going to bother messing with anything today but will get more into this side of things going forward.

My question is where so I go from here? Im Galway city but cant find any solid info for my exact area for water. Lots of you seem very skilled in this area so hoping ye will chime in with some dumbed down helpful info (maths & science were my least favorite classes in school)

Thanks
Tom.

[DEMPSEY]

6.8 seems high for the mash without having done any adjustments. Are you certain that you do have the PH unit calibrated correctly. That said you can use CRS,(carbonate reducing solution). This will lower the carbonates in your water before you add it to the grains. It will increase your chloride and sulphate a bit which is fine if they need increasing but you can only know that if you have a complete breakdown of what's in your water. A belgian witbeer I assume is not very hoppy beer and is more malty,if so then it's chloride that's more needed than sulphate so if you are adding calcium it's calcium chloride you will need rather than calcium sulphate (gypsum). When doing this beer again,it would be interesting to adjust your water and see how much of a change in taste you get.

[Hop Bomb]

Thanks for the reply Dempsey. Yes I calibrated it correctly. 250ml of 25[ch730]c Distilled water for each of the sachets. Took readings & then adjusted each to the correct ph with the screw driver. I made sure to rinse with distilled water between readings too.

My mash ph reading was taken at 66.5[ch730]c. Would this have something to do with it being on the unusually high side?

Yeah very little hops for this brew. 30 grams at 60 mins for 25 litres. So a rule of thumb is calcium chloride is for ph adjustment in malty beers & calcium sulphate for the hoppy beers?

[Dr Jacoby]

Cheap pH meters (which many of us use) are useless at high temperatures. I always cool my samples down to 20C before getting a reading. Other than that it's hard to say what might be going wrong, but 6.8 is way off the scale for a standard mash.

Chloride helps to promote a soft mouthfeel and fullness. Sulphate promotes crispness and bite. It's often a good idea to blend the two in a ratio that favours one or the other, depending on the style you're brewing. I find 3:1 works well for very hoppy beers (in favour of sulphate) and the opposite for malty lagers or altbiers (which require more chloride).

The main thing to worry about is having enough for general yeast health and to help enzyme reactions in the mash. Most Irish water supplies are deficient in calcium.

[Will_D]

Cheap pH meters (which many of us use) are useless at high temperatures. I always cool my samples down to 20C before getting a reading.

I would re-calibrate your meter after giving it such a hot shock.

You only need about 50 ml or so of wort at 20C to test for pH. Take a sample, cool it down ( takes about 1 minute in a small flask swirled under cold tap ) and then check pH.

[Will_D]

For some more water chemistry have a look here:

http://www.nationalhomebrewclub.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1361017585

and here:

http://www.nationalhomebrewclub.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1360594799

[Hop Bomb]

Cheers guys. Il do some bed time reading now.

Re: re-calibrating - Ive used the sachets that came with it. Il have to buy more before I can do it. Damn!

[Dr Jacoby]

You can get buffer solution very cheaply on eBay. Search for "pH buffer solution powder" and use the cheapest products first filter and you'll find the good value stuff. Most cheap pH meters require 6.86 buffer solution.

[Dr Jacoby]

You only need about 50 ml or so of wort at 20C to test for pH. Take a sample, cool it down ( takes about 1 minute in a small flask swirled under cold tap ) and then check pH.

Yep, that's what I do

[Will_D]

You can get buffer solution very cheaply on eBay. Search for "pH buffer solution powder" and use the cheapest products first filter and you'll find the good value stuff. Most cheap pH meters require 6.86 buffer solution.

You can also get a 3 bottle set of liquids that will last ages compared to using powders.

Mine are 50 ml bottles of 4, 7 and 10 and probably cost less than a tenner.

You just dip the rinsed, patted dry with a tissue probe into the bottle and read. Probe out rinse with distilled water done

[Dr Jacoby]

Cool, must check that out.