BeerBorg

That's just fine Vince, in all reality, the game is secondary to what's going on. We mostly enjoy everyone's company, the food, and the beer.

I also propose that we move any conversations about Asheville out of this thread and over to the Asheville 2017 thread. I don't want to bog down your original point of this thread.

You and Jeff in same boat, Vince. Rest of us have no dogs in the fight again this year.

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Vince, today I used your water calculator and yours and EZ water were almost exact. I came very close to the actual ph and also found out why my last 2 beers had an odd taste in them. My ph meter bit the dust. I had gotten a new one recently and tried it and the difference between the 2 were way off. My last one was a year old so I guess that's what you get for $39 or so.
But, I will now be able to trust that your calculator will get me close to where I need to go.
Thanks again for sharing your great work!

Beer-lord wrote:Vince, today I used your water calculator and yours and EZ water were almost exact. I came very close to the actual ph and also found out why my last 2 beers had an odd taste in them. My ph meter bit the dust. I had gotten a new one recently and tried it and the difference between the 2 were way off. My last one was a year old so I guess that's what you get for $39 or so.
But, I will now be able to trust that your calculator will get me close to where I need to go.
Thanks again for sharing your great work!

Hi Paul I am happy to hear that you are continuing to pursue your water property analysis and seeing positive results now. Understanding the twists and turns of pH measurements and what takes place in the water when pH adjustments have been made, is the key to brewing a better beer. It can take up to 20 minutes for strike water or mash wort to reach equilibrium. When either liquid is at equilibrium that is the best time for taking accurate pH readings. Prior to 20 minutes the pH of the liquid continues to change and according to purists like A.J. deLange, equilibrium may never be reached, but A.J.'s work has an accuracy of 8 places to the right of the decimal point.

20 minutes is also the amount of time you have to benefit from optimizing mash pH as well as mash temperature adjustments. In other words by the time you take a mash pH sample at 20 minutes, the window of opportunity for further benefiting from additional mash pH adjustments has already passed. When my strike water pH measured 6.20 and ezBrewingWater-RO had calculated a mash pH of 5.39 my initial reaction was to add acid to my strike water in an effort to lower the pH. With 10 gallons of beer at stake I decided to ride it out instead, use the 6.20 strike water and then wait to measure a cooled mash pH sample. Hitting the target mash pH was exciting and exceeding the original gravity calculation was a bonus too.

Thank you for putting my water chemistry calculator through its paces and for taking the time to share your findings here with me. Here is a picture of the Brown Ale wort in a glass from that brewday. Best wishes to you and to yours on this holiday season.

That sample looks great! And, I have waited about 20 minutes in to check the ph as I've read about as much as I think I need on the subject of water. Not that I can't learn more but I'm reading the same info over and over from different sources so that's telling me I'm doing it right.
My hope is that I can pretty much trust that if I put the right info in and follow the recipe amounts, I won't always need to check the ph and can feel comfy that the numbers work out right. While it's not hard to check the ph, it's just one of the things I hope to skip on some of the beers I redo because I can feel confident I will be close.
I wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and healthy, prosperous and Happy 2017!

Beer-lord wrote:My hope is that I can pretty much trust that if I put the right info in and follow the recipe amounts, I won't always need to check the ph and can feel comfy that the numbers work out right. While it's not hard to check the ph, it's just one of the things I hope to skip on some of the beers I redo because I can feel confident I will be close.

You will come to find that will save you a lot of time. Once saved any profile that works best can be used in the same recipe again without fear of inconsistent results. On the 'Water Profiles' page you can give the profile a name, enter the salts, acid or base properties and it will be stored in ezBrewingWater-RO© for future use.

Yesterday we brewed a Sculpin Pineapple clone recipe that used 16 pounds of pale ale malt, 4 pounds of torrified wheat and 2 pounds of crystal 90L. The target pH that ezBrewingWater-RO© predicted for the grains used, and my water additions, was 5.39. After treating my RO water the night before, the strike water without grains measured 3.39 at 67F, a full 2.00 points lower than the predicted mash pH.
After waiting 25 minutes for the mash to stabilize, the pH of a wort sample cooled to 64F measured 5.30, still within the 5.3 to 5.5 pH sweetspot. I have had consistent results using a DI pH value of 5.70 for pale ale malt so the .09 difference must be related to the 6.04 DI pH used for the torrified wheat malt.

I can change the DI pH value of the wheat in ezBrewingWater-RO© until the predicted pH comes out to be the same as the actual 5.30 pH. Although the best way to find the DI pH value, of this particular wheat malt, would be to do the DI pH myself and then use that value instead.

I just posted version2 of ezBrewingWater-RO© and it is available for download now.

New for version 2:

Faster calculation, response, opening and saving
New drop down lists
SMaSH brewing water profile

Enjoy!

Vince, thanks again for doing this and sharing it too! I'll give it a try on my next brew in a few weeks.
It's already been useful for me!


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Beer-lord wrote:Vince, thanks again for doing this and sharing it too! I'll give it a try on my next brew in a few weeks.
It's already been useful for me!

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You're welcome Paul. I just installed LibreOffice, it is a freeware alternative to MS Office, an ezBrewingWater-RO© version for it will be available soon.

There is a also a version for Google Sheets, but I need some help to figure out how to make it available to users, without them modifying the 'golden copy' in Sheets.

Thanks for this excellent tool, Vince! I had one question: the numerical values on Tab 2 / Water Profiles appear to represent additions in grams. Is this based on a 5 gallon batch? I'm trying to add my own profile and want to understand the basics on this tab. I know this thread is old, but here's my Hail Mary....

mightyjak wrote:Thanks for this excellent tool, Vince! I had one question: the numerical values on Tab 2 / Water Profiles appear to represent additions in grams. Is this based on a 5 gallon batch? I'm trying to add my own profile and want to understand the basics on this tab. I know this thread is old, but here's my Hail Mary....

Hey, I haven't seen Vince around for a while but from what I recall right at the top there is a "brewing water / gallons" you set. I think everything else is then calculated against that, because you are treating the water use for mashing and sparging (all the brewing water) not the post boil / to fermenter final amount.

Thanks much. I was looking at the numerical values on Tab 2, which Tab 1 pulls from. Sorry to hear that Vince has not been around. I tried to throw some finds his way for this excellent tool, but the PayPal link no longer works. Cheers!

mightyjak wrote:Thanks much. I was looking at the numerical values on Tab 2, which Tab 1 pulls from. Sorry to hear that Vince has not been around. I tried to throw some finds his way for this excellent tool, but the PayPal link no longer works. Cheers!

I touch base with him every now and then. Let me see if I can get him to take a peak here soon.

mightyjak wrote:Thanks for this excellent tool, Vince! I had one question: the numerical values on Tab 2 / Water Profiles appear to represent additions in grams. Is this based on a 5 gallon batch? I'm trying to add my own profile and want to understand the basics on this tab. I know this thread is old, but here's my Hail Mary....

@mightyjak I cannot believe it but the most recent update to ezBrewingWater-RO was in 2017! To answer your question on how water profiles properties work with different batch sizes, in the upper left cell enter your total brewing water volume for the batch you are brewing. Total brewing water to be treated is a combination of mash strike water and sparge water in gallons.

Example:
If you need 7-gallons of water for mashing and plan to sparge using 2-gallons of straight distilled or reverse osmosis water, enter 7-gallons in the Brewing Water cell.

If you need 7-gallons of water for mashing and plan to treat 2-gallons of sparge water, enter 9-gallons in the Brewing Water cell.

Hope you find this helpful.


Be sure to check out my latest version of ezRecipe Design 3.03.10 due to be released in winter of 2022!