Would depend on how you treat the water. Mine is 137 and I have to acidify for most lighter colored malt bills. For beers that require a pretty soft water profile I cut with or build up from distilled.
Thanks Danny. I usually use Lactic Acid or Acidulated Malt for lighter beers. I have been using EZ-Water and it is pretty close, but I know I have to learn Bru’In water. The good news is I already have my detailed water report.
[quote=“andymag”]@denny I have had harness issues in the past (mainly with lighter colored beers that I did not cut with distilled) and I have a question; is HC03 at 133 PPM considered high and contributing to my sometime harshness?
Thank you[/quote]
For very light beers, yes it would. Mine is around 90 and unless I use 50+% distilled water to cut, my light beers are harsh.
Personally, I can’t cite a source, but I recall <50ppm HCO3 being the limit to negate sparge liquor treatment.
While sparging may not actually leach tannins per se (sparge going beyond 6.0), the additional acidity is desireable. I aim for 5.4 preboil, 5.2 KO, 4.5 or lower finished. Very hard to pull that off unless you are basically using distilled or water per above for the sparge. Good beer can be made without fuss over sparge, but better beer is made acidifying sparge.
Light beer/dark beer no matter. My water is HCO3 is 90ppm. Brewed a porter double batch sparge. Data is in another box but from memory the the first sparge went just beyond 6 and the 2nd was off the charts… My standard MO is acidify sparge to same as mash pH.
[quote=“zwiller”]Personally, I can’t cite a source, but I recall <50ppm HCO3 being the limit to negate sparge liquor treatment.
While sparging may not actually leach tannins per se (sparge going beyond 6.0), the additional acidity is desireable. I aim for 5.4 preboil, 5.2 KO, 4.5 or lower finished. Very hard to pull that off unless you are basically using distilled or water per above for the sparge. Good beer can be made without fuss over sparge, but better beer is made acidifying sparge.
Light beer/dark beer no matter. My water is HCO3 is 90ppm. Brewed a porter double batch sparge. Data is in another box but from memory the the first sparge went just beyond 6 and the 2nd was off the charts… My standard MO is acidify sparge to same as mash pH.[/quote]
why not just do a single sparge?
Touche’. I do now… That said, I would still expect the pH to rise but need to replace probe in my meter and have not tested it.
My HCO3 is pretty near yours. Sometimes I acidify my sparge water, sometimes I don’t. Hasn’t really seemed to make much difference to me, but there may be other differences in our water.
I always acidify my sparge water. Usually I acidify it to the same pH as my mash. I have sometimes just acidified to 5.8 or so just to be under 6.
