Beersmith 3 water

Brewing an IPA this fine St Paddy’s Day. Just doughed in and wanted to report my findings in comparing BS3 water/mash pH analysis to Brunwater.

I went through BS3 a few times to make sure I had volumes and grain bill exactly right and finally got it to where the salt additions are pretty close to what BW recommends but never could get the acid addition to line up.

For the recipe posted below BW tells me to use 4.2 ml lactic acid in the mash. BS2 claims it will take 9.9 ml lactic acid in the mash to reach 5.4. Sparge additions are off by a similar ratio.

I went by BW recommendations as I always have and 10 mins after dough in my mash pH is 5.4. According to BW the 9.9ml in my mash would have put me at ph 5.07.

So unless I’ve screwed up something in the settings of BS3 the acid calculations are way off. I’ll be researching this and emailing Brad. Will keep you guys posted.

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Do you cool your wort to room temp before checking pH or do you trust the ATC in the meter?

I use an old A&W rootbeer mug… It always sits in the freezer… then when I need it… it chills the wort down pretty fast…
You hit the sweet spot for pH… Once in a while I go under… good old baking soda helps to get back up… if you need… Sneezles61

I saw a post in the BS forum about my current pet peeve, the discrepancy between BS3 and Brunwater with regard to acid additions. Brad justified his calculations using some paper regarding acid density…didn’t read it…Could be entirely accurate but I only care about real world results as read in my kettle.

I ended at a kettle pH of 5.4 with my brunwater recommendations. I’m sure it would have been quite low if I followed BS3.

I bought Office 365 for my Mac so I can run brunwater on it.

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Look under “profiles for recipe” you will see. I have “Single Infusion, Medium Body, No Mash Out” selected. If I change this I will get what your son has as well

OK maybe I’m a little obsessed with this subject…

I’m brewing a Bushwick Pilsner tomorrow AM so started fresh in BS3 for the Mac and created the recipe, 2 step mash profile, water profile and all.

The results for mash acid addition came out much closer overall to what Brunwater estimates than my last exercise in comparing the two.

BW says 5.5ml lactic acid in mash and 3.23 ml to adjust sparge to 5.2 to lower kettle pH.
BS3 says 7 ml in mash and 1.7 ml in sparge.
So both are in the 8.7ml range total.

So the total acid required by each program is pretty close.

I suspect the first of the additions conditions the mash… Sets the pH for conversion… The other, rinsing HL, keeps the pH in check as your lautering, so as not to pull any unwanted flavors to the brew… Funny, The guy up here that created the “craft brew” phenomenon, doesn’t acidify his mash… as I was told… I think that is soooo counterintuitive… I’m going to say, he won’t let out all his secrets… Sneezles61

Did another comparison this morning while brewing red ale. BS3 acid addition is way high again. It gives a mash addition of 6.6ml lactic acid

With Brunwater 1.2ml in the mash and 3.4 in the sparge gets me to 5.4 mash and 5.4 sparge pH.

I have no trust in the beersmith 3 pH calculations. I know Brad has said in the past that his calculations include a density of acid calculation but my measurements are real world and his acid addition would have put my mash pH WAY low.

I sent a message to Brad through the BS webpage and will update with any response I get from him.

edit:

Brad’s response was to check the water profile entry and target info and to go through the process and assure my volumes were correct.

The problem may be user error…I’ll keep you posted…

OK so I went through the entire water process in BS3 on this beer. Checked that my water profile was entered correctly, it was. Checked that my volumes were correct, they were NOT. I had messed up on creation of my mash profile and it was using ALL my water, batch and sparge, as mash water. This could obviously increase acid demand. So corrected that. Everything looks right. Selected water profile and added gypsum and CaCl. Mash water tab still shows more than 3 times the acid recommended by brunwater. I’m stumped. Will forward the info to Brad and see what he advises.

I believe thats a mistake too? The program stuff is way too complicated… I’ll continue using trial and error… I think that means I have more to drink, too… Sneezles61

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yes it was…corrected. thanks.

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Got an email from Martin today. I won’t copy and paste it here since I haven’t asked his permission but it’s an interesting email. He admits that the acid recommendations are high but still defends his model. There’s a post on the BS forum from the guy who developed this model. He addresses it in a similar way even going so far as to advise users to change the lactic acid percentage to 140-150% rather than the actual 88% to compensate while also defending his research and model.

These guys must be academics. Can’t imagine anyone else going so far to defend a model and research that doesn’t work in the real world. It’s kind of funny except the only reason I bought BS3 was for the water tool. I was perfectly happy with BS2 and Brunwater.

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