The TL;DR:
- Have your water tested
- Get a mash calculator to estimate salt additions to get to a mash pH of 5.2 to 5.5
- Have a sulfate/chloride ratio above 2:1 to accentuate hop bitterness, below 1:1 to accentuate maltiness
- Actually measure mash pH
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The pH of the mash can affect efficiency (e.g., how much sugar is actually extracted from the grain) and the final flavor of the beer. The experts say that the mash pH, measured at room temperature, should be between 5.2 and 5.5.
I always adjust the mineral content of my brewing water. I aim to have a mash with a room temperature pH of around 5.2 (closer to 5.7 if I’m going for the clove and banana flavors produced by German wheat beer yeasts). I use Martin Brungard’s Bru’n Water spreadsheet to determine how much of what brewing salt to add to the mash water. I used the free version for years, but just recently upgraded to the paid version. Worth the money!
In order to get any use from the Bru’n water spreadsheet, or any other mash pH calculator, the brewer must first know the make up of the water going into the mash tun. This can be done by purchasing a water analysis kit (I’ve used both the LaMotte Brewlab and the eXact iDip) , or by sending the water off to a lab for analysis (I and a lot of other homebrewers have used Ward Labs, located a stone’s throw from where I grew up in Kearney, Nebraska).
The key levels are Calcium (Ca), Magnesium (Mg), Sodium (Na), Sulfate (SO4) Chloride (Cl) and Bicarbonate level (HCO3). The water analysis will also provide Total Hardness as CaCO3, along with some other mineral levels if you get the analysis done at Ward Labs.
The water that I use in Edwardsville, Illinois, is very high in sodium (I think they soften it). Everyone recommends keeping sodium levels below 100 ppm; the last test I got on the city water had sodium at 146 ppm. For most beers, I end up diluting with distilled water to get the sodium level down. I’ve considered getting a reverse osmosis (RO) system, but you can buy a lot of distilled water from Walmart (88 cents a gallon) for the price of an RO system. Of course, it is another toy so I’ll probably end up with one some day!
I do have a Berkey water filter system that I use for brewing water (we also use it for drinking water). It takes a lot of time, but it removes the chlorine while leaving the other minerals. When I have the water test, it is the filtered water that I use.
The brewing salts and acids that I use to make adjustments to the mash pH are done with gypsum (calcium sulfate, or CaSO4) calcium chloride (CaCl2), phosphoric acid and lactic acid. All of these reduce the pH. If the pH needs to be raised, chalk (CaCO3) can be used. I’ve never had a problem with pH being calculated as too low, so I haven’t used that.
What final water profile to target? The Bru’n Water spreadsheet has many recommendations, and has some historical water profiles from famous brewing areas. I tend to focus on getting enough calcium into the mash (recommended minimum of 50 ppm) and to get the sulfate to chloride ratio “correct”.
The “correct” ratio depends upon the style of beer being brewed. A “balanced” beer in the sense of accentuating neither bitterness nor maltiness has a ratio of sulfate to chloride that’s equal (e.g., both are at 80 ppm), a beer that has more chloride than sulfate (e.g, 40 ppm sulfate and 80 ppm chloride) would have a ratio of 0.5, and would accentuate the maltiness of the beer. A beer that is weighted toward sulfate (e.g, 160 ppm sulfate and 80 ppm chloride) would have a ratio of 2, and would accentuate the bitterness. Some IPAs go way beyond a ratio of 2; the “New England” style go with a ratio higher in chloride than sulfate to give it a softer “rounded” bitterness.
Along with getting the sulfate/chloride ratio that I want, the additions also have to put mash pH in the proper range. I usually do this with acid. I once heard Jamil Zainascheff say that he preferred using lactic acid for German style beers; in his experience this would imitate the acidulated malt that German brewers would have to use to maintain adherence to the Reinheitsgebot and produce a more authentic German style beer.
The other acid choice of mine is phosphoric acid, which occurs naturally in malt. Recently, I have taken to using lactic acid for all styles. I used to be able to get a 50% concentration of phosphoric acid. The only thing I can find now is a 10% concentration, which means a lot of it must be added to the mash. The lactic acid is an 88% concentration.
The brewing salts and acids are added to the brewing water before heating. Once the grain has been added and mash has been at temperature for about 5 minutes, I take a pH reading. If it is too high, I will add a little acid. Most times, it is pretty much spot on.
While the 50 ppm for calcium is a fine recommendation, the truth is the malt will provide all the minerals the yeast needs to do its work. I recently made a Czech style pilsner using the Budvar strain of yeast. My understanding is that the original pilsners used a very soft water in making their beer. For this pilsner , I used 100% distilled water, added a little gypsum (sulfate) and calcium chloride (chloride) to have a balanced ratio and add a bit of calcium, and added some lactic acid to get the mash pH to 5.2 (which I hit). The calculated water profile from Bru’n Water was the following:
(all values ppm)
Ca Mg Na SO4 Cl- Bicarbonate 8 0 0 7 9 -157
Despite the low calcium, the beer fermented as it was supposed to and I ended up with a wonderful final product.
So if you are brewing all grain and want to take the next step in improving quality (after cleaning, sanitation, pitching the right amount of yeast, and fermentation temperature control), go to the effort of adjusting your mash water. While the proper mash pH does help efficiency, I think the sulfate to chloride ratio has more of an impact on the beer’s flavor than most people realize. (See this Brulosophy experiment )