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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
		Digest Janitor: pbabcock at hbd.org


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Contents:
  RE: water addition help ("Mike Bennett")
  ABC Brews Crews competition judges needed ("Spencer W. Thomas")
  RE: Water Addition Help ("A.J deLange")
  Fall brewing courses ("Lemcke Keith")


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Date: Thu, 28 May 2009 20:44:54 -0700
From: "Mike Bennett" <mjb at efn.org>
Subject: RE: water addition help

The film was most likely gypsum. It has low solubilty and needs to be
sprinkled directly onto/into the mash for maximum effect.

As to the effect, taste it. That's where the rubber meets the road.

- --
Mike Bennett
Professional Brewer (retired)
St. Barts (Home)Brewing
mjbennett69<at>gmail.com




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Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 00:03:14 -0400
From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <spencer at spencerwthomas.com>
Subject: ABC Brews Crews competition judges needed

The ABC BrewsCrews competition is coming up on June 6.
 
Again this year the BOS winner will have the chance to work with the
staff at Arbor Brewing Company to brew their award winning beer at the
pub in downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan and then served on tap at the pub.
 
We have put together an outstanding BOS panel of judges this year to
find that one beer that meets the criteria of Best of Show.  Will it be
your beer that wins?  Only those that enter will have a chance to find out.
 
Judges and stewards are still needed.  Please register online at
http://brewscrews.aabg.org



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Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 12:20:15 -0400
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: RE: Water Addition Help

Eric,

Your water report is missing a critical item: the alkalinity. We can  
guess that it might be around 54 ppm as CaCO3 because that's what it  
would take to electrically balance the other items. This is a fine  
thing to do if we knew we had all the other ions and that the  
measurements were exact but anyway we can get a rough idea as to what  
happened on the basis of this rough estimate. [Later: looking at your  
posted spreadsheet I see the alkalinity is listed as 46. So 54 wasn't  
a terrible guess. Putting in 46 gives a better balanced profile than  
many I've seen. Everything that follows is based on 46.]

So you added 11*1.2 grams of chalk to 11 gallons of water? That would  
be 11*1.2/41.6 = 317 mg/L most of which (about 306 mg/L) wouldn't  
dissolve. Most of the "film" you saw was probably this stuff. 6.6  
grams of gypsum in 41.6 L is 158 mg/L and that's not really that much  
compared to what you would find in some waters. That would dissolve.  
The bicarbonate would amount to 8 mg/L and that's not too much of a  
problem and would be offset to some extent by the chloride.  
Altogether, assuming only 11 mg/K of the chalk dissolved and the rest  
got left behind in the liquor tank your residual alkalinity would only  
be 11 ppm as CaCO3 which isn't bad. However, it is likely that some  
suspended chalk powder did transfer to the mash tun where it would  
consume mash acids thus effectively raising residual alkalinity. This  
may have resulted in lower conversion than desired. How did the OG  
look? Most important: How does the beer taste?


You asked what should be added to your water realize the profile you  
specified in the spreadsheet. That profile cannot be realized because  
it is overbalanced to the cation side. Understanding that you want to  
emphasize hops I balanced the profile by reducing sodium and  
increasing sulfate. You had

Ca: 100    Mg: 20   Alk:   120     Na:  65     Cl:  40       SO4:   50

I rebalanced to

Ca: 100    Mg: 20   Alk:   120     Na:  12     Cl:  40       SO4:   175

Question: The target has a higher alkalinity (120) and higher residual  
alkalinity (37) than the source (respectively 46 and 27). Why would  
you want to do this? Recognizing that answers such as "Because it  
emulates the water of Kettlesing on Nid" are perfectly valid ones we  
put that question aside and assuming that you want the treated water  
to be at the same pH as the starting water find that you would, for 11  
gallons, add:

1.280 grams calcium chloride dihydrate,
0.002 grams sodium chloride (skip this one)
7.660 grams gypsum,
5.702 grams of epsom salts
3.0532 grams of of chalk.

These additions result in hitting all target concentrations to 1.6% or  
better (theoretically - you probably can't weigh to the milligram and  
even if you could the salts are 100% pure and then the source water  
data isn't perfectly balanced). The rms error is 0.9%

To get the chalk to dissolve you will have to bubble carbon dioxide  
through the solution until the target pH is reached. Note that you  
wouldn't have to do this if you did not ask for the alkalinity  
increase or if we allowed the sodium to go up (we'd get the alkalinity  
increase from sodium bicarbonate). Assuming you do not have a pH meter  
just bubble (use a stone and stir - it may take quite a while) the CO2  
until the solution is clear and then for a while longer. The result  
will be at a lower pH but the alkalinity, and thus residual  
alkalinity, will be the same. The mix will lose CO2 over time, the pH  
will rise and chalk may precipitate. It also may precipitate when you  
heat this water in the HLT.

If you really don't like the idea of using CO2 a solution is possible  
with lactic acid but it would take quite a bit (4.4 mL of 88% acid  
which is probably going to be quite noticeable with respect to taste)  
and the peak error is 15.3% with the rms error 8.4%. The CO2 solution  
(which imitates nature) is a much better one.

Cheers, A.J.


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Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 15:51:17 -0400
From: "Lemcke Keith" <klemcke at siebelinstitute.com>
Subject: Fall brewing courses

This is the time of year that we start getting a lot of registrations
for our Fall courses, and with so many people considering the jump into
professional brewing, our course session starting in September will
probably sell out in the coming weeks. If you have been considering
signing up for any of our Siebel Institute or World Brewing Academy
courses and you have any questions about preparing for courses or
choosing the right course to meet your needs, please contact me as soon
as possible. Many of our courses require preparatory study, and the
sooner you start preparing for the courses the more you will be able to
derive from them.  Please feel free to contact me about any aspect of
brewing training or about building a career in brewing. We are here to
help. 
 
Keith Lemcke
Vice-President
Siebel Institute of Technology
World Brewing Academy
 
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDo-K1tVA-g>  
 



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