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  • Sparge Water PH

    Been wrapping my head around balancing my water profile and stuck on sparge water. We use an on demand hot water tank and the city water has a higher PH than wanted. I have read prob more than I can retain and cant seem to find a solution to balance this water short of filling a tank and treating it before sparge which defeats the purpose (and need) for the on demand system. Anyone else dealt with this situation? Thanks...

  • #2
    You need to know the buffering capacity of your water. My Water ph is 7.79 with an Alkalinity of 249mg/L. Get your water tested often for a full report on everything that's in it and then use one of the water calculators online. I use https://www.brewersfriend.com/mash-c...er-calculator/
    It gives you beer profile options to alter your water to. Keep in mind that living in BC is like Ontario with water temperature changes through the seasons. I have a different buffering capacity in winter than I do in summer. Warm water will absorb more minerals from the ground in the summer so you need to have different profiles for each season.

    I simply treat my mash grains with the additions and my ph is always between 5.2-5.3.

    Hope that helps.

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    • #3
      Sorry for some reason I didn't see Sparge Water. I know some breweries around me doing the same as you with on demand. TWB and Shortfinger both use on demand. They're located in Kitchener Ontario. Is your sparge runoff hitting higher than 5.7 if you don't treat it?

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      • #4
        Im pretty comfortable treating my mash water and getting it right, but thanks for the info its something I'll keep an eye on as the seasons change.

        Our city water is at about 8ph right now according to the latest test results.

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        • #5
          I haven't fired up my new brewhouse yet, and i'm about to have the same problem. My brewhouse was designed by SS Brewtech and has a small Lactic Acid container with a small diameter hose that feeds to a handwheel valve (the type that you'd typically see on the exterior of your house). According to them I just adjust that to slowly drain the container that i've pre-filled with the amount of lactic acid I want to use for the amount of estimated sparge water. As far as I can tell it just gravity feeds into the blending valve system and I'll just have to match the speed of it emptying with the amount of time it takes to sparge. Not a perfect system but if I can get it to empty at somewhat of a controllable speed then i'll be happy.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by gmorris View Post
            Is your sparge runoff hitting higher than 5.7 if you don't treat it?
            I think this is a key point. It is a current trend to acidulate the sparge water (and I have done so on larger systems) however I don't see much need for this. You can acidulate the mash and acidulate more in the kettle if needed, but unless your last runnings are showing a high pH, I don't see the point. I posted similar in another thread, but I would be happy to read any info someone can point me to on why mash and kettle addition are not enough, or why a sparge addition is beneficial. Even high pH water for sparge will likely be balanced by the low pH of a properly targeted mash. I have done both methods with no appreciable differences in the kettle or final product. Kunze (4th ed) mentions only mash and kettle, but there must be some info somewhere else for this to have gained so much popularity in the brewing community. I will take a system that offers the inline additions any day, but will probably have it turned off as long as my supply water is not abnormally high in pH or RA.

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            • #7
              Originally posted by Northernbrews View Post
              We use an on demand hot water tank and the city water has a higher PH than wanted.
              Water pH has little to do with suitability for sparging. The main concern is with high alkalinity in sparging water since that can overwhelm and consume the buffering that exists in the mash and wort. While Kunze may have only discussed acidification of the mash and kettle, that doesn't establish if the sparging water in his examples had alkalinity problems or not. To help reduce the premature extraction of tannins and silicates from the bed, I strongly recommend using sparging water that has less than 50 ppm alkalinity (as CaCO3). Treating high alkalinity water with acid is a good idea for making it better suited for sparging. Low alkalinity sparging water has lower effect on elevating mash and kettle pH.
              WaterEng
              Engineering Consultant

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              • #8
                Originally posted by WaterEng View Post
                Water pH has little to do with suitability for sparging. The main concern is with high alkalinity in sparging water since that can overwhelm and consume the buffering that exists in the mash and wort. While Kunze may have only discussed acidification of the mash and kettle, that doesn't establish if the sparging water in his examples had alkalinity problems or not. To help reduce the premature extraction of tannins and silicates from the bed, I strongly recommend using sparging water that has less than 50 ppm alkalinity (as CaCO3). Treating high alkalinity water with acid is a good idea for making it better suited for sparging. Low alkalinity sparging water has lower effect on elevating mash and kettle pH.
                I am by no means any sort of water expert (or engineer!) so please correct me where needed. I am on board with the alkalinity situation and agree. My understanding would be that the earlier parts of Kunze book explains the necessary steps for proper water used in brewing, and that by the mention of mashing/kettle acid additions, you have already treated water appropriately to be used (appropriate Residual Alkalinity via decarbonation). This could be done in the HLT, or even at the in-feed source prior to heating and using.

                I am also under the impression that adding just any acid does not necessarily reduce the residual alkalinity (buffering ability). Doesn't it require certain acids such as sulpheric, hydrochloric, or possibly calcium hydroxide (base) to precipitate carbonate? I believe most people are using Lactic in the sparge water. My chemistry skills could always use a rebuffing. Does Lactic make a path for carbonates to drop out? And in real time of sparging?

                We can correct pH again in the kettle at which point the heating (boiling) of the wort should help reduce the RA correct? So the only advantage I would see to acidulating sparge water would be to avoid tannin extracting during sparge only. The information I've read in the past specifies pH as the important factor for tannin extraction during lautering, however obviously the RA will have an effect on the ability to adjust pH. To the point from before, if your pH is 5.7 or lower, would you still be concerned about tannin extraction above 50 ppm alkalinity?

                Please feel free to take me to school a bit if you have the time and patience. I find this topic interesting since I have a water profile in one location that has high alkalinity at a low pH (which seems pretty uncommon).

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                • #9
                  We have city water with a pH buffered to 8.0 and RA of roughly ~40ppm throughout the year. I typically acidify our sparge down to 5.4-5.5 for all of our brews with lactic acid as well. Never really had a problem with tannic astringency before (only beers I really worry about are light, low gravity beers that will be sparged through excessively), although our owner/previous head brewer said he noticed an improvement in flavor of our core beers after we started this practice. Not a water chemist by any means, but to me it just seems logical to have the sparge water in the same range as your mash. I'd rather hit my target pH in the kettle using our salt profile for the mash and acidified sparge water than having to add acid directly to the kettle to adjust. It's working well for us so far.

                  As for the on demand water and getting it acidified, I'm assuming you don't have a HLT? We have a ~30 year old 2 vessel system without a HLT and have to get a bit creative with our water storage. We basically use our kettle to heat our total volume overnight, so we have boiling water in the morning to mash and sparge with. After we mash in, we'll add a bit of city water if needed for the recipe volume, acidify, and bring back to a boil. We then use the fermenter we're knocking out to as our HLT. Empty the kettle so we can runoff into it, and then feed the sparge from the fermenter. You could do this with your on demand water to prefill your fermenter with sparge volume and then acidify it there. Might need to play with temps a bit as you'll lose some heat filling the fermenter.

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Frankoma View Post
                    RA of roughly ~40ppm throughout the year.
                    While RA can be a useful parameter to understand in mashing, it becomes less useful in sparging. RA action relies on the interaction with phytins in the mash to produce the acidifying reaction. Those phytins become scarce as the sparge continues. Therefore, its better to look at total alkalinity in the water source and not RA. It is best to reduce alkalinity to less than 50 ppm (as CaCO3) at a minimum.
                    WaterEng
                    Engineering Consultant

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