Water treatment experiment

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EckersKlein
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Re: Water treatment experiment

Post by EckersKlein »

Oh yeah, time to do some brewing science.

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darrenw
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Re: Water treatment experiment

Post by darrenw »

Experiment in progress. Results so far:
APA with no water treatment: Mash pH=6.1
APA with 1.5mL of CRS per 1L of water: mash pH=5.2

The boil for the treated-water brew is nearly finished. The Grainfather has been excellent, though we've found that pellet hops tend to clog up the pump filter, resulting in a slow flow rate through the chiller to the fermenter.

(Eric typed this on Darren's computer.)
Darren
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PMowdes
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Re: Water treatment experiment

Post by PMowdes »

darrenw wrote:Experiment in progress. Results so far:
APA with no water treatment: Mash pH=6.1
APA with 1.5mL of CRS per 1L of water: mash pH=5.2

The boil for the treated-water brew is nearly finished. The Grainfather has been excellent, though we've found that pellet hops tend to clog up the pump filter, resulting in a slow flow rate through the chiller to the fermenter.

(Eric typed this on Darren's computer.)
So according to the theory you shouldn't have any fermentable sugars in the no water treatment batch. Did you do a starch test??

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darrenw
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Re: Water treatment experiment

Post by darrenw »

PMowdes wrote:
darrenw wrote:Experiment in progress. Results so far:
APA with no water treatment: Mash pH=6.1
APA with 1.5mL of CRS per 1L of water: mash pH=5.2

The boil for the treated-water brew is nearly finished. The Grainfather has been excellent, though we've found that pellet hops tend to clog up the pump filter, resulting in a slow flow rate through the chiller to the fermenter.

(Eric typed this on Darren's computer.)
So according to the theory you shouldn't have any fermentable sugars in the no water treatment batch. Did you do a starch test??

Image
Not tested, both had same SG though so will beable to tell when checking FG's
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I_used_to_brew
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Re: Water treatment experiment

Post by I_used_to_brew »

How did you measure pH? Meters are not at all reliable unless probes are replaced at least annually, kept in buffer solution and calibrated regularly.

Decent pH strips read in natural daylight beat most basic pH meters hands down.
darrenw
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Re: Water treatment experiment

Post by darrenw »

RogerP wrote:How did you measure pH? Meters are not at all reliable unless probes are replaced at least annually, kept in buffer solution and calibrated regularly.

Decent pH strips read in natural daylight beat most basic pH meters hands down.
Eric did a chemical analysis of water, we also used his test strips (they were not that good though), and ph meter, all were bang on got no doubts that the readings were not correct.
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I_used_to_brew
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Re: Water treatment experiment

Post by I_used_to_brew »

Narrow range pH strips read in natural daylight should be cock on, especially the plastic type that Brouwland sell.
beerbulger
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Re: Water treatment experiment

Post by beerbulger »

PMowdes wrote:
darrenw wrote:Experiment in progress. Results so far:
APA with no water treatment: Mash pH=6.1
APA with 1.5mL of CRS per 1L of water: mash pH=5.2

The boil for the treated-water brew is nearly finished. The Grainfather has been excellent, though we've found that pellet hops tend to clog up the pump filter, resulting in a slow flow rate through the chiller to the fermenter.

(Eric typed this on Darren's computer.)
So according to the theory you shouldn't have any fermentable sugars in the no water treatment batch. Did you do a starch test??

Image
Going off the relative success people have without water treatment I would still expect there to be fermentable sugars. A quick surf on enzyme activity (and I don't claim any expertise on this subject) suggests that the activity verses pH graph looks more like a bell curve. So the graph presented shows the optimum range rather than "nothing will happen at pH=6.1". It will be interesting to see where these ferment to as the chart suggests higher pH will slightly favour alpha amylase.
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EckersKlein
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Re: Water treatment experiment

Post by EckersKlein »

Yeah, my test strips were good enough to distinguish between pH 5.2 and say, 5.6, but anything closer than that looks a bit ambiguous. They're only the paper types from maltmiller. We did check the meter against tap water, and compared that to the water report, with the meter reading within 0.2 pH of the water report figure, if I recall correctly. Of course we can expect some month-to-month variation in tap water pH, so all we can really say for sure is that the meter probably isn't bogus.

Both fermenters are chugging away, so it appears there are plenty of fermentable sugars in both. I'd agree with Beerbulgar in saying that the chart probably gives optimums, and not necessarily the possible ranges. I guess we'll find out what the FGs are soon enough.
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I_used_to_brew
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Re: Water treatment experiment

Post by I_used_to_brew »

A month has passed, must have finished fermentation. Probably it's been or being drunk. Any updates?
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