In this final pic you can see that the large flocs actually grouped together.
This pic was shot after 40 minutes boil. Because of my kettle size and expected post boil amount.
I have to top up the kettle with distilled when doing lagers. So what you see is almost 0.75 gallons of distilled added at 40minutes in order to boil another 60 minutes for a total 100 min boil.
What you see was break that coagulated together and I scooped the break “chunks” out before restarting the boil. The “chunks” were over 1" thick and looked like and had physical characteristics of sponges. Pretty neat. The grain bill was 100% Best malz pils.
[attachment=0]Kettlefull2.JPG[/attachment]
[quote=“ITsPossible”]No, everything stated is correct Rebuilt.
#1 If you measure the mash PH at room temp it will be 0.30PH higher than if tested at mash temps of 145-162.
#2 You want to test at room temp for both longevity of probe life and consistent sampling procedure/results.
#3 Most common home brewer pens will only function/show a correct test value under 140f.
So it is next to impossible to test at true mash temps unless you want to do some math yourself as ATC is not setup to make a correction over 140f.
So if your willing to do the temperature correction math yourself and take a sample of a typical mash that should be at lets say 5.3PH. In theory here is what would happen.
A. At lets say 150f mash rest you take a sample showing 5.3 at the mash temp.
B. You would then see this same sample if cooled to room temp would be showing closer to 5.55-5.60PH.
So the range for room temp samples to shoot for is indeed 5.5-5.8PH
Which would be true mash values of 5.2-5.5PH[/quote]
ITsPossible, I agree with everything you wrote above, except that everywhere else I’ve read that the proper room temperature mash pH should be 5.2-5.5, thus meaning the mash temperature pH should be 4.9-5.2.
By the way, gorgeous hot break in the beer porn. Do you get similar with pale malt? I’ve found pilsner malt to generate much more break material, but I’ll often shoot for slightly lower pH values for pilner-based beers, so I’m not sure if that’s the cause.
I don’t know if this is any help or not, but in John Palmer’s “How to Brew”, he has a chart on page 148 that shows a desired pH range for mash at 5.1 to 5.6, but the graph shows this range extending from 80F to 170F. So if the room temp desired pH is 0.3 units higher, the room temp mash range would therefore be 5.4 to 5.9. This is not my opinion, but just my observation of what I’ve read.
Second – does the greater coagulation of proteins during the boil reduce or even eliminate the trub and does that bode better for the beer product’s flavor and/or other characteristics? (I am trying to figure out if I need to deal with trub or not since I haven’t found a way to siphon off from it.
Third – how can I create this coagulation, i.e. what factors were in effect to get such a spectacular break for you ITs?
Fourth – does adding pickling lime (Calcium hydroxide) then raise the pH of the mash and therefore require more (in my approach) acidulated malt?
Thanks again brewmasters – I’m learning a lot from this exchange.
[quote=“Antwerp”]I don’t know if this is any help or not, but in John Palmer’s “How to Brew”, he has a chart on page 148 that shows a desired pH range for mash at 5.1 to 5.6, but the graph shows this range extending from 80F to 170F. So if the room temp desired pH is 0.3 units higher, the room temp mash range would therefore be 5.4 to 5.9. This is not my opinion, but just my observation of what I’ve read.
Second – does the greater coagulation of proteins during the boil reduce or even eliminate the trub and does that bode better for the beer product’s flavor and/or other characteristics? (I am trying to figure out if I need to deal with trub or not since I haven’t found a way to siphon off from it.
No, Not necessarily. I still find plenty of trub along with my hop residue depending on usage. I make 6.5 gallon batches as I always lose around a gallon to trub/hops/draw tube. Which works perfect as I draw off 5.5 gallons of clear wort by using a diptube/ball valve on the inside of my kettle. It is possibly eliminated to some extent as my current scooping/skimming removes some break material instead of it all dropping when cooling/ whirl-pooling but as mentioned earlier I would rather have a bigger volume kettle and I would let all the breaks fall to the bottom anyway instead of having to “skim”. Bottom line If some trub goes to the fermentor its not a huge deal and can be addressed by simply racking to another vessel after a month or two, if your bringing over copious amounts then maybe racking off the main cake after 3 weeks total primary is wise then. I do feel reducing the trub load at whatever stage leads to better over-all flavor/storage stability/clarity of a beer. The flavor/storage stability/ and trub load hinges on many steps though, PH/mineral levels, proper breaks, whirlfloc/other kettle fining, cooling, whir-pooling, using a draw tube etc… crash-cooling post ferment, racking if needed (dry-hopped primary/ other etc…) = Clear beer with great flavor/storage stability.
Third – how can I create this coagulation, i.e. what factors were in effect to get such a spectacular break for you ITs?
Correct mash PH, mineral content → mainly calcium.
Fourth – does adding pickling lime (Calcium hydroxide) then raise the pH of the mash and therefore require more (in my approach) acidulated malt?[/color]
[color=#000080]
Slightly yes. It depends on usage, sometimes if you use a half gram to full gram it will not effect overall mash PH by more than 0.10PH points if that if you already have acid malt/acid in the matrix. I looked at this helles shown in the photo and if I more than doubled my usage of lime( from 0.60gram to 1.50 gram) it increased my estimated PH by 0.10PH exactly.[/color]
Thanks again brewmasters – I’m learning a lot from this exchange.[/quote]
Thank you, Yes I do find this phenomenal break usually from pils malts or other very lightly kilned malts including my base malt of choice which is typically Rahr two row which all seem to hover around 10-12% protein. Whereas I do notice most UK/Scottish malts have less break in general and most of those malts hover around 9% in most cases. So the lower PH never hurts the style, but I think it is attributed more to general protein content of the malt/s used.
OK, let’s beat this dead horse one more time before I brew.
Assuming an alkalinity of source water to be about 58ppm and all other data as the water reports indicate, I plugged the values into Bru’nwater’s spreadsheet. I found that if I adjusted with 1.8g gypsum, 0.9g CaCl2, and 1.1g pickling lime for the mash water, I got 98ppm Ca, a sulphate/Cl ratio of 1.6 and a mash pH of 5.7 (as measured at room temp). I will add the same concentration of gypsum and CaCl to the sparge water.
I thought that I’d err on the side of slightly higher pH since this will be a slightly dark beer.
My malts are pilsner as a base malt, aromatic as a crystal malt and I called NB for the malts I wasn’t certain of how they’d be categorized in the mash acidification calculator and they told me; carafe III is a “roast” malt and caraaroma is a “crystal” malt. I found that I didn’t have to add any acidulated malt. This must mean that the acid production of the combination of malts I’m using is adequate to overcome the alkalinity of my treated source water to create the mash pH of 5.4.
Do these additions seem reasonable? I’m hoping to brew either tomorrow (but looking more unlikely due to possibility of strong winds) or next weekend.
I think I’ll get the hang of Bru’nwater once I become more familiar with the terms and how it affects the beers I make. At this time, I’m impressed with how helpful this will likely become for me in the future – maybe even so much that I’ll donate to the site. 
Thanks for any feedback.
That sounds like a good game plan. It sounds as though you have the gist of brunwater and the reasons to adjust in the first place. You are correct that the dark malts are adding quite a bit of acidity.
I am guessing you are using pils base as you have excess. But if for no other reason why not use a regular 2 row? The reason I put this to words is because you will need to boil longer with pils malt than a regular 2 row or pale malt. As the SMM content is much higher in pils malts. So if not boiled longer to reduce SMM you will be left with inordinate amounts of DMS in finished beers possibly.
Thanks for the potentially timely response, ITs, but certainly beneficial even if I don’t brew tomorrow.
I have to say that my use of Pils is nothing more than hearing many times how pils is an ideal malt for Belgian ales and reading it repeatedly in BLAM, which is what style I’m determined to get good at. I’ve seen two row used in Belgian recipes, but I feel like I can’t introduce many more variables at one time or I could miss a valuable lesson when I change just one variable. I wrestle with this all the time in my own mind (how many variables, what to change next, etc. ad infinitum), but the bottom line is always to get better at understanding the styles of Belgians and rely on what I read and how I assimilate it all. I appreciate all the help I’ve gotten on this water issue – it feels like I’m onto something really important.
(Yet another question) When you see the water profiles of famous brewing cities on Bru’nwater, does that mean the profile of water that they USE or just what their water source is before treating, if they treat it. I’ve heard that trying to get identical water profiles to brew a certain style of beer is futile. When I looked at how my treated water profile looked compared to other brewing cities, I think I was in pilsner territory. Not sure what that really means either.
So, I’ve basically resigned myself to 90 min mashes and boils. Some day I’m sure I’ll be messing around with regular two row. I’ve done a little bit with pale malt and used only a 75 min mash. It will be interesting to see if there’s any improvement in efficiency and taste after I’ve done the water treatment. How could it not?
Very good sir, As long as you know where your headed.
[quote=“Antwerp”](Yet another question) When you see the water profiles of famous brewing cities on Bru’nwater, does that mean the profile of water that they USE or just what their water source is before treating, if they treat it. I’ve heard that trying to get identical water profiles to brew a certain style of beer is futile. When I looked at how my treated water profile looked compared to other brewing cities, I think I was in pilsner territory. Not sure what that really means either.
So, I’ve basically resigned myself to 90 min mashes and boils. Some day I’m sure I’ll be messing around with regular two row. I’ve done a little bit with pale malt and used only a 75 min mash. It will be interesting to see if there’s any improvement in efficiency and taste after I’ve done the water treatment. How could it not?[/quote]
Water profiles you see are almost always analysis of city water, which may or may not be what they brew with - it is impossible to tell without inside info from the breweries.
Long mashes are only necessary if the mash temperature is lower. As a rule of thumb, if your mash is 150 or less, extend the time. I’ve seen discussions about how long a boil needs to be, including an analysis that showed convincingly that for maximizing efficiency of all the processes that take place in the boil, 100 minutes is the minimum you should use. Of course the counter argument is that we are homebrewers, and we don’t need to worry about squeezing the most bitterness possible out of the first hop addition or similar. But reducing the potential for DMS from pils malt is a good reason for an extended boil.
