I misunderstood as well, sorry. It sounds like you did everything right. That’s a good pH meter, and I would trust it over pH strips. But if there are inconsistencies, check it a few more times against the calibration solutions to see how repeatable it is.
If you post your water info and adjustments, we could double check it to see if we get the same results in bru’n water. Just as a reality check.
Can I just attach the brun water spreadsheet on here?
Not sure, but you could post screenshots. That would be close enough.
Man,I thought my was alkalinity high. I don’t have my water report handy, but I think mines like 450. Even on dark beers I won’t use more than 70 percent of my water to the distilled water. The higher the alkalinity the more it takes to lower the ph.
That’s not bad. Very similar to my water. Your pH is entered at 6.5 but you thought it was higher? If it was higher it would have taken more acid to get into range.
Anyway. Seems like a lot of acid to me but I don’t use phosporic. Then again, I’d never cut my water with RO or anything else for a beer like this. Did you buy the RO or do you have a system? That water could be a variable. The store RO machines are wildly inconsistent from what I’ve heard.
Everything appears to be entered correctly in brunwater. So like I said earlier in the thread, based on my experience with brunmater if the data entered is correct you’ll be pretty darn close to 5.5 pH.
If you have concerns about brunater email Martin. I’m sure he’d respond. He used to be on here often and chime in water related threads.
edit:
So yea I just saw the total alkilinity and calcium. Way higher than mine. Anyway, I guess I’m back to questioning your water report if your pH is ending up so much lower than brunwater predicts.
I thought my water ph was about 8.0 based on test strips. And given the alkalinity 8.0 sounded about right. 6.5 came from the meter. Changing that value on brun water didn’t seem to make any difference to the output. The RO water comes from my system which I tested with the lamotte brewlab test kit, the values of which I added to brun water. I think the way forward is to send a sample to ward labs and also test that same sample with the test kit to make sure they concure.
I will say one thing about the Milwaukee MW102, it takes a long long time to settle on a value for my tap water. A lot of times it turns itself off before it gets the reading.
I would have expected higher pH with that alkilinity and bicarbonate too. Post your water report from Ward Labs. Maybe @mabrungard will see this thread and have some insight.
My meter can be slow at times too. Especially when it hasn’t been used for a while. Usually cleaning and calibrating helps. Big temperature swings slow it down too.
Just wanted to bring this back up because this black IPA turned out excellent. Very well balanced and super smooth. I made this kit (it’s NB’s Ace of Spades) last year and it would seem that messing with the water profile did improve the outcome. So based on my original post maybe I just need to forget about using the PH meter and just trust Brun water.
