Beersmith 3 water

Strange, my son also uses Beersmith 3 and the recipes he has sent me always separate the mash water salt additions from the sparge water additions. Every time I build a recipe (or just select an AGK NB recipe), it seems to designate all the salt additions to the mash water and none to sparge (other than maybe a small amount of lactic acid).

I am thinking I must have some setting off but cant seem to locate it. The batch of kolsch I did I ended up treating the mash water as directed (which was the same measured amounts of salts that were calculated in the water tool for the entire 8+ gallons of water (RO base). So I am confused but will dive into the help section to see if that will enlighten me. Thought I would ask in case someone has worked through this already.

I haven’t upgraded to BS3 yet so can’t really offer any guidance. From a process perspective I have in the past treated sparge water in the same way as my mash water but more recently I’ve only been adding the acid necessary to reach my intended mash or BK pH depending on the beer.

Same here. Works fine as I batch sparge BIAB. I suspect it depends on your process.

I will prob just go back to treating the whole quantity of water. I just could not figure out why it was not coming out inn the brew steps like it usually did and why it seemed to adjust the salts additions for both mash and sparge water on the recipe my son did. Not a big deal I guess.

Technology can beat you up… I’d be willing to bet… a 10 gallon batch of brew… If you know your total volume of strike water for the mash and rinse… Adjust to say 5.8 pH then do your mash… Also use the make up for a rinse at 170* you’ll up your efficiency… Do stir and vorlauf betwixt each event…
I would rather adjust the “salts” for flavor in the BK… Never in the mash. Sneezles61

Has anyone compated water anaysis/additions from BS3 to Brunwater?

My wife bought me a MAC book for my birthday since my laptop is getting pretty old. I won’t be able to run excel on the mac so I’m thinking of shiftig to BS3 for water as well. I’m hesitant because I’ve been so pleased with brunwater…

I have not compared them, as I still get overwhelmed by Bru’n Water.

But I run both beersmith and Bru’nwater on my MacBook. (I have a copy of the basic Microsoft office on the Mac. )

Yea I probably won’t get office for the Mac since I really don’t use it much. I’ll keep my old PC as a desktop since it’s still a great machine. Just too big to carry around and the battery won’t hold a charge.

May get a copy of ofice 365 for a couple months to compare brunwater with BS3.

So I just installed BS3 and opened it…no field in the water profile for pH?? Am I missing something? How can that be?

Edit: OK I jumped the gun…watched a few of the tutorials in BS website. pH is adjusted on the mash tab of BS3. I was looking for it on the water profile tab.

Is it complicated? Or, just covering the same ground you already knew? Sneezles61

you know brother…at our age everything new is complicated…haha

It’s just different and I’m probably overcomplicating the exercise by trying to compare it to Brunwater to see if I get the same result…

Makes me think I should get another pH meter since I’ve relied so heavily on brunwater I didn’t replace mine when it broke…

In the dead of the winter, I don’t have to use as much correction… I’ll presume, no surface water leaching through all that concrete, sandy-gravel soil… I use mine every brew day now… Only for mash pH… Sneezles61

what kind do you have?

Martini instruments pH 55… I got it from our host a few years ago… Sneezles61
EDIT: I went to look… they still have it… I thought I only paid like 50 bucks… I do have the bigger pH calibration fluid bottles… Every brew day as I’m heating water and milling grain, I take the time with the strike water cool to do my corrections… Sneezles61

same one I had. Worked great for 3-4 years then the probe went bad so I replaced that…then the readout screen failed… good meter though!

1 Like

Sigh…I probably should give another ph meter a chance. My original experience was so negative I’ve never tried to get another one. Mine wasn’t cheap, and now I’m seeing some crazy low priced meters with decent reviews…

I rely heavily on the brewing software/programs also.

Yea @voodoo_donut I saw some on Amazon this morning in the $15-25 range that had pretty good reviews…I bought another ph55 like I had before for $60. I’m familiar with it, it was consistent and it lasted a few years so I figure it’s worth it.

If you knew your water wasn’t changing… then you wouldn’t need a meter… Sneezles61

Fairly large discrepancy between BS3 and Brunwater regarding acid addition. I’m brewing Oktoberfest this morning and BS3 says 7.8 ml lactic acid, BW says 5.4…I’ve trusted brunwater for years… @mabrungard any advice?

On another note i got my brand new pH meter and can’t get the damn thing calibrated…not a great morning so far…

I’m glad to hear you’ve got a meter… Now you’ll be able to compare notes about which program fits your water… When you get all things up and running… post your first brew/comparison … I’ll be curious…
Just had to pull out my measuring device to see how much I add… HOLY MOLY!! In the summer after it rains… I’ve put in up to 6 tbsp! If I read it right 30 mL… But that was phosphoric acid… In the winter, last brew day, I corrected with 2 tbsp… I could’ve added just a bit more as my mash pH ended 5.5pH… That was an extremely light brew… This is why I reason that water needs to be checked each brew day… Note/documentation all your water activities… Sneezles61