Water Profile

[Hop Bomb]

Are you using a brewing app to calculate your water to grist ratio?

Your manifold design isnt the best but others on here have similar I think. Maybe they can comment on their efficiency. John Palmer has a formula for manifold spacing derived from tests he has done.  http://www.howtobrew.com/appendices/appendixD-1.html

When I had my corona Id grind the sh!t out of the grain to try get better extraction. That worked for me & I never had a stuck sparge. There are mods you can make to it to get a better crush. 

Whats your efficiency coming in at each time? If you know that you can just bump up the malt bill to hit your numbers until you find out exactly what the issue is. Id bet its your crush. Try running your grist through a second time next brew & see how you get on.

[DEMPSEY]

Hi all,

I am moving to all grain with BIAB.

I am waiting on my bag to come so I started to look at water profiles.

I found my water profile online here http://www.louth.microworks.ie/. This site seems to have a lot of county councils just change louth to your county.

From this my water profile is as follows:
PH:                          7.4
Sodium NA        11
Calcium Ca       100
Magnesium MG        9
Hardness CaCo3  290
Sulfate SO4-S        18
Chloride Cl      25   
Alkalinity CaCO3   255

From my looking around I have very alkaline water, so I have decided to brew a stout.

Recipe from HBC as follows:
3.5 kg. Maris Otter
500g. Roast Barley
1.0 kg. Flaked Barley
58g. East Kent Goldings (Whole, 5.0 %AA) 60 min.
Yeast : S-05

I entered my water details into  John Palmer's RA calculator and enter an EBC as 60.

This shows I am looking for a RA between 187 and 246, so I aim for 200, my RA is 178 so it is saying I have to up my RA.

If I enter the same water details and recipe into the EZ water calculator it states my mash PH is too high at 5.92 so I have to reduce my RA

Does anyone know what I could be doing wrong with one of the calculators, also I am assuming I took the right details from the water profile website?

Thanks

This level of CaCO3 at 255 is high especially for any light beers you want to brew. A level of 50 ppm for pale ales would be best. This level would mean you will have a higher ph because of the buffer effect. A ph of 5.2 a desired at mash time because it is the best level to allow the enzymes to do the converting of the starch into fermentable(maltose) and non fermentable (dextrose) sugars. If ph is too high or too low you will end up with other compound flavors ending up in your beer. I would suggest using CRS to help reduce your carbonates and also get a test kit to first test your water to confirm exactly what your levels are.

[Covey]

Are you using a brewing app to calculate your water to grist ratio?

Your manifold design isnt the best but others on here have similar I think. Maybe they can comment on their efficiency. John Palmer has a formula for manifold spacing derived from tests he has done.  http://www.howtobrew.com/appendices/appendixD-1.html

When I had my corona Id grind the sh!t out of the grain to try get better extraction. That worked for me & I never had a stuck sparge. There are mods you can make to it to get a better crush. 

Whats your efficiency coming in at each time? If you know that you can just bump up the malt bill to hit your numbers until you find out exactly what the issue is. Id bet its your crush. Try running your grist through a second time next brew & see how you get on.

I have been batch sparging as i dont have a fly set up yet (i have done the tin foil method). I thought milling the grain was to insure the husk was broken but not floured.

[Hop Bomb]

Thats easy do with a roller mill but not on a corona. If you arent getting much flour with your corona mill Id defo say its your crush thats the issue. Make shite of it (make your grind finer to use a better term) next brew & Id bet your efficiency will hit 70% or more.

[Covey]

Thought flour was bad Partial crush good . Ok ive missed the point completely i was trying to avoid over flourery product. Ok this is one that ive taken up complete wrong.

[Hop Bomb]

You can do that perfect crush on a roller mill with ease. Thats what its designed for.  Ive owned a corona mill & you defo have to give it a good grind. There are mods you can do to make it perform better. CH posted links before.

[Covey]

Yeah have them done, so will go for a finer crush the next time and see how i get on. Any idea how to reduce the pH of the Mash. Will i as and Acid to reduce it, 1m phosphoric acid. Just acquired a retired ph meter.

[DEMPSEY]

The flour is where the starch is. You need the husks to help stopping the mash becoming stuck

[cronan]

Dempsey is this http://www.ebay.ie/itm/API-KH-GH-Test-Kit-for-fresh-water-aquarium-/251110313864?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a77574f88 the test kit I am looking for

Thanks

[DEMPSEY]

Looks like one OK. The one I use is from Salifert and you can get them on Ebay.

[mr hoppy]

If you're batch sparging doing more than one sparge makes a huge difference, as does giving the mash a real good stir after adding each sparge addition.

I thought my efficiency issues were water related but when I copped onto this my efficiency went from 65% to 75%.

[mr hoppy]

Danny Conn's batch sparging page is a pretty good resource on this technique.

[cronan]

Got a test kit for my water and the water profile was close as I measured it at 235ppm alkalinity.

I was brewing a pale ale and a kolsch so I boiled the water which took alkalinity to 90ppm.

I also added some acid malt to help with the PH.

When testing the mash I seemed to get different measurements depending on when I tested, is there a best time to test for PH?

Thanks