BrewFather - alkalinity calculation

[cc986]

My water changes fairly frequently, but out of interest I thought I would get a water report done to see how far out Severn Trent are in their published data. I also normally try to keep my brewing liquor within a range for whatever beer style I'm brewing.

I received the report a few days ago and in the result that came back there were some recommendations on how to adjust my water for different types of beers. For lagers, it suggested adding some lactic acid and then told me what the resulting alkalinity level would be.

And that's when I learnt something new about BrewFather, because when I tried adjusting a recipe to the recommendations, the alkalinity level in BrewFather remained unchanged, so I emailed their AI agent (called Fin) who told me that it is a design choice that they don't adjust the alkalinity and the water calculator is primarily focused on adjusting the pH level because that's more important. Adjustments to alkalinity should be done through the use of RO or distilled water.

I'm certainly no expert but I would have thought it would be just as easy to make the calculation and adjust the alkalinity as well, but I got bored talking to the AI agent called Fin.

Just thought I would pass that on in case it's of use to anyone.

[guypettigrew]

Interesting! 'Adjusting the pH level' of what? The liquor in the hot liquor tank before it meets the grain? Or the pH of the mash?

The pH of the water is largely irrelevant. The pH of the mash is important. Mashing in the same pH water with only Maris Otter will yield a very different pH than a mash with loads of crystal, chocolate and black malt.

And adjustments to the alkalinity are best done--for us home brewers--with AMS, which is a blend of Sulphuric and hydrochloric acids But you already know that!

Guy

[cc986]

The pH of the mash is what I think it was trying to say.

The problem I have with BrewFather's approach (apart from it being a bit lazy) is the software is actually designed to ignore one of the effects of lactic acid. That means that if some lactic acid is added for whatever reason, BrewFather wouldn't know how that would have affected the alkalinity, so if we then decide that the alkalinity is too high and follow their advice to add RO/distilled water how would we know how much to add?

[Cobnut]

There is the possibility to adjust your base water by “dilution” in the Brewfather water calculator. You can then further adjust by adding AMS/CRS and other brewing salts. This is how I work with Brewfather:

Create recipe (malt bill)
Look at predicted mash pH
If too high, adjust water by diluting with RO and/or adding AMS/CRS
Note also that increasing calcium in the mash will have an effect on the mash pH (lowering it)
I will also adjust the Cl-/SO4- balance: AMS/CRS and brewing salts (CaCl2, CaSO4, MgSO4, NaCl, etc.) will contribute Cl- and SO4- ions

If I could be *rsed, I’d record a video of me doing this for a recipe or two and post them, but…

Have a play with it and see what it does and what’s possible.

[cc986]

I do something very similar but I don't dilute with RO/distilled water. I adjust the alkalinity with AMS/CRS and if necessary I'll add a little bit of lactic just to fine-tune the pH, but that's not normally needed.
I think what I was pointing out is that lactic acid alters the alkalinity, but BrewFather doesn't amend your recipe to show by how much. It knows it happens and how to calculate it - it just doesn't do it.

[Cobnut]

Ah OK.

I don’t use lactic acid.

[PeeBee]

... I emailed their AI agent (called Fin) who told me that it is a design choice that they don't adjust the alkalinity and the water calculator is primarily focused on adjusting the pH level because that's more important. ...

Many Americans (and other nationalities, including Brits) just love their pH meters and cling on tightly to "pH" as the be-all and end-all in brewing. There is no direct relationship between water salts and pH, although you'll find lots of folk who believe there is! Whereas "Alkalinity" is a very specific thing and is easily calculable ... up to the moment you chuck loads of malt an' stuff in it.

"OldN1ck" very recently posted a review on different pH predictors. Don't think he's posted it on this site? Anyway, dig out a copy ("Mash pH Estimation in the 21st Century"), then find a Fairy-God-Mother to guide you through it.

Or, take an approach like I use ... Figure out your "Alkalinity", let some calculater give you a rough prediction of pH (I understand from one of my Fairy-God-Mothers, they're are all in the same ball-park) and make sure your "alkalinity" will put you in the right area to get the right pH (roughly). There's no point trying to target a mystical "right" pH. More times than not, you'll probably find you need do nothing.

That "Water Defuddler" I link below (if Google haven't broken it again?) roughly calculates your alkalinity: It adds up three common anions (Ca++, Mg++, Na+), two common cations (SO4--, Cl-), plus (maybe) two or three other ions, subtracts the cations from the anions (as "equivalents") and what's left are "alkalinity" cations (mostly bicarbonate, some carbonate if your water's naff ... over pH8.3 ... and relatively rare phosphates, silicates and borates). Alkalinity can (with care) be increased with baking soda, decreased with acids or careful management of calcium/magnesium salts. If you use a water calculator, DO NOT attempt to target a "bicarbonate" value (or more obviously fanciful substance like "CaCO3")

Or ... believe the current "popularist" "pH mania" and try to make your mash adhere to a moving target (you think pH stands still for the duration of mashing?).

OR ... ! Forget it. Don't believe anyone (that helps a lot!) and just get on and brew the beer you like.

[nallum]

What are the optimal pHs for the relevant barley amylase enzymes? If mash pH is too low, as it sometimes can be with my brewing water for dark grists, apart from a risk of reducing the conversion rate, the pH continues to get lower, marginally, over the course of the mash then lower still during the boil and fermentation. What's wrong with beer that has a pH too low? In some contexts, at least, isn't it clearly good practice to manage mash pH?

[PeeBee]

Clearly good practice to manage mash pH? Oh aye ... if it was at all practical to manage pH! And I have said I do make a nod at getting the pH in the right "ball-park", but avoiding getting too worried by the detail.

"Alkalinity" makes a good, relatively easy, metric to manipulate, just keep an eye on a decent pH predicter to guide one ... roughly! I don't need pH meters to tell me getting pH within 0.1 is hard ... of course it is! What's wrong with not so accurate pH papers? Why do folk lose sleep over getting pH to their "target" of (blah, blah), to within 0.01 of a pH when it naturally drifts by as much as 0.3 in the course of a mash?

Losing sleep? Oh, I've lost plenty. Lots of it down to the endemic misuse of "concentration" units like "parts-per-million". And I thought the use of Medieval units of "Water Hardness" was bad ... and its "as CaCO3" sidekick. Good grief ... it's only beer FFS!



Anyway, enough of this, I'm getting uncomfortable with this role switching. I too enjoy dark beers from dark grists, and have tap water with an Alkalinity of less than ten mg/L "as Bicarbonate" ... even less if using bladdy stupid "as Calcium Carbonate" units. It's taken me two years to begin to shape a solution to my beery woes ... so, I've a perpetual sore head.


All the best ...

[PeeBee]

...
And that's when I learnt something new about BrewFather, because when I tried adjusting a recipe to the recommendations, the alkalinity level in BrewFather remained unchanged, so I emailed their AI agent (called Fin) who told me that it is a design choice that they don't adjust the alkalinity and the water calculator is primarily focused on adjusting the pH level because that's more important. Adjustments to alkalinity should be done through the use of RO or distilled water.
...

He's right! But its taken me a while to properly realise it!

This is a bit of a disappointment because I was impressed by the "Brewfather" calculator ... it was neat and tidy, and adaptable to your way of working (it is seemingly "modular" in construction and can "switch off" what you don't need). But, then it came to alkalinity! It doesn't seem that unusual; my favoured calculator (Bru'N Water) won't automatically adjust alkalinity to comply with later acid additions, but it clearly shows what it could do and leaves it up to you to decide if alkalinity should be altered. "Brewfather" appears to lock you in to its decision, the exact opposite to the impression it originally gave me (that it didn't act in a bigoted manner ... oh yes it does!).

And from there, it just got worse!

It automatically splits mineral additions between "mash" and "sparge" (so does Bru'N Water you might say ... it's remarkable what you can do with those "Add Hardness Minerals to Kettle" and "Add Sparge Mineral Additions to Mash" options). "Brewfather" glues you into the "old ways", based on "Hardness" and "Residual Alkalinity". And I mean it: you're stuck with it and "Brewfather" doesn't want to let go!

In contrast, it has made me better appreciate "RA". I couldn't understand why "RA" didn't seem to be important in what I was doing ... the answer was I was dealing with it anyway but without adopting the arcane ways.

[PeeBee]

Oops! So the "Water Calculator" wasn't working for me. But it was never designed for me, so why was I expecting it to work?

Taking a few steps back (out of the "water calculator") and it's all working again.

[PeeBee]

It was enabling the "Sparge" section in the calculator that messed things up. DO NOT ENABLE "Sparge" in the calculator, and everything works as I think it should. Enable it and it will start splitting the mineral additions between mash and sparge based on what the designer believes ... no good at all if trying to make the split according to different rules.

Given how customisable "Brewfather" is, perhaps I'm missing the calculations that determine what's for mash, and what for sparge?

[cc986]

[/quote]
It automatically splits mineral additions between "mash" and "sparge" (so does Bru'N Water you might say ... it's remarkable what you can do with those "Add Hardness Minerals to Kettle" and "Add Sparge Mineral Additions to Mash" options). "Brewfather" glues you into the "old ways", based on "Hardness" and "Residual Alkalinity". And I mean it: you're stuck with it and "Brewfather" doesn't want to let go!
[/quote]

Sorry for the slow response.

It does have an option under the water calculation method for 'no sparge', which I have never used but just tested. I thought that it might just eliminate the sparge altogether, but what it did was calculate the mash water, but then also add the deadspace in my sparge water heater (1.9 litres). So for a 23 litre batch it showed the water additions as 35.99 litres of mash water plus 1.9 litres of HLT water giving a total of 37.89 litres. Which doesn't make any sense because it knows that the 1.9 litres is in deadspace and is not going to come out unless I tip the HLT upside down and it knows there isn't going to be a sparge, so I don't see the point in even mentioning the HLT deadspace.
When I got it to calculate the mineral additions it calculated additions for both mash and sparge - even though there is no sparge water. I'm not going to try to understand that because I'm not going to be doing no sparge.

I think Brewfather looks nice, but I also think the owner places a very high emphasis on looks which is not always a good thing. For example, I once noticed that the mash fermentables in a recipe didn't add up to 100%, but when I emailed him pointing that out his reply was to say that he rounds up the numbers to make the interface look more aesthetic. For me, I'm more interested in accuracy and I don't think 99 looks any better than 98.6.

[PeeBee]

Sorry for the slow response. …

Thanks very much.

I did sort it out, as documented quite thoroughly here.

That "unrepresentative" bodge with the "CALC" option (Mash pH and Water Profiler Calculator) was an unexpected hiccup though. Still, I seem to be working about it. And it might get fixed by the author?

I'm still fairly impressed with the attention to detail of the Main Brewfather Program. But I did identify that "CALC" option as a pretty poor "patch" running parallel to the main program. I understand what you are saying about ingredients not adding up to 100%, but haven't been too troubled by it yet (manually fixing it).

I'm still working with it. And I am forcing it to do some fairly radical manoeuvres! The advantage it has over Bru'n Water - which I'm still working with too -is that " Brewfather" is an all-in-one brew designer package (Bru'N Water is just the water calculator) and I don't have to do any dodgy extras with "Brewfather" (my "parasitic spreadsheet" for Bru'N Water is as dodgy as it sounds, and will need Martin's permission if I'm to make it readily available!).

You can keep updated on my progress in that link above.