Hi @maze42 . If you could find information about the mineral contents of your water it would be easy to calculate the acid additions needed for a healthy mash PH.
From what I know Munich's water is very hard, so 1% of acidulated malt doesn't seem enough to me, but without having seen a water report I'm just guessing.
Do you think you can find a water report for your city?

I found this document, it confirms (I think, because I can't really read german) what I thought.

(I have to say I'm very jealous, not only you can find that report online, it is up to date and it has a lot of information! I have to ask for it explicitly in my city and the information they give me is extremely poor).

Tap water in munich is very high in bicarbonate (making it alkaline) and moderately hard in calcium and magnesium (makes it a bit hard).

Bicarbonate: avg: 318,4 min: 228,6 max: 375,9
Calcium: avg: 81,5 min: 64,0 max: 93,7
Magnesium: avg: 21,1 min: 17,0 max: 24,3

Then it is low in sulfate and chloride (averages are 17 and 9 respectively). This is not as important, as the levels of calciums and bicarbonate, but it is something you can play with to tweak the flavor of your beer (the short version is that for maltier beers you want a higher chloride to sulfate ration, and for drier or hoppier beers you want more sulfate, with balance being in between).

You can lower the amount of bicarbonate considerably by precipitating it if you boil your water (see section "4.2.2 Decarbonation by Boiling" here , but I think thats a lot of work. The bicarbonate levels in my city are no that high but I still have to lower it most of the time, I just add phosphoric acid.

If you tell me what acids and salts you have access to I can give you an idea of what to use for that recipe, but I suggest that you learn to use one of the water chemistry tools available (I use Bru'n Water, but there are simpler alternatives) because the water from your city will require treatment most of the time (100% of the time for light colored beers for sure).

Thanks a lot for the tips and links @ShorePoints and @tizoc
Since I still have some time till Saturday I will read up on water conditioning and also check the local store for the mineral content of their bottled waters
@tizoc I have citric acid available, no salts, but there are brew stores where I can order most of that stuff typically used, just not in time for this batch. And yes, we are lucky in Germany, tap water is treated as food by law so the reports must be available and it is regularly tested for mineral content and potential contamination.

All right, so I did some research and found an easy calculator for the start.
I could either use 10% acidulated Malt to get to the water hardness I need for an NEIPA. My question here is if you would taste that high amount of acidulated in the finished beer? And it would still leave me at the low sulfate and chloride levels.
Or I could use 40ml of 9% hydrochloric acid and 65ml of 5% sulfuric acid and no Acidulated Malt at all to also bring my sulfate to chloride to a higher and even level (1:1 preferred for NEIPA based on my searches, 111 to 113 in my case). If this is the way to go I might be able to get those acids in the pharmacy.

@maze42 citric acid works. I don't know the strength of your citric acid, I assumed 88% (I have no idea at what strengths citric acid does come) and for your recipe, 0.4 grams per liter (for a total of 12.4 grams) seems to do the trick. This will leave you with a mash PH of about 5.4 (not adding anything gives you a PH of 7, it is too high, conversion will be bad and you will extract tannins from the grains at that PH).

I attached a Bru'n Water file for your recipe, take a look (be sure to enable macros when it asks you), I will try to give you some pointers later, but the important stuff is:

Sheet #1 contains the water input, I filled it with the water information I found in the document I linked, you shouldn't have to touch that
Sheet #2 is for sparge water, but since you seem to do full volume like I do you don't need to touch that
Sheet #3 is the grain for the recipe, this has to be filled to predict the mash PH, and before any mineral or acid additions are filled in
Sheet #4 is where the additions are made, I just added citric acid (its at the bottom), no minerals. I picked the "pale ale" which is good for hoppy beers, you are not going be able to match it without salt additions, but that doesn't matter, what you should worry about for now is the PH, the rest is secondary. The water volumes here are the total water you are going to use, and the VAW after chilling the wort, I used the values from the BIABacus file you uploaded
Sheet #5 is just a summary of the water adjustments you will be doing

In #3 you will see that I added 1% of acid malt like in your original recipe, if you are not going to add it you should correct that and see how the amount of citric acid changes. I'm not sure how good Bru'n Water is at predicting the PH changes from the acidulated malt additions (I have never used acidulated malt), but for the rest it has been pretty spot on for me.

Hope this helps.

maze42 wrote: ↑

5 years ago

I could either use 10% acidulated Malt to get to the water hardness I need for an NEIPA. My question here is if you would taste that high amount of acidulated in the finished beer?

I don't know, never used acidulated malt but 10% seems very high to me.

Btw, if you use liquid acids be very careful, use protective glasses if you can. The amounts you have to use are usually quite small, I store my acid diluted (btw dilution isn't simple, a ratio of water/acid will not give you the strength you want), but if you don't do that syringes help a lot.

Tweaking the sulfate/chloride ratio would be good, but that is not even close to the importance of having a good mash PH.

Sorry maze42 I just now noticed that citric acid comes in solid form and I was making the calculations as if it were liquid. In addition to that I had forgotten to remove a baking soda addition (which adds bicarbonate) I had in the base file.

For the same result I mentioned above you would need 14.6 grams (corrected file attached).

Note that citric acid (like lactic acid too) may add flavor to your beer, but for the beer you are making I guess it is not a bad thing.

Thank you so much for filling out the Bru‘n Water for me and the detailed explanation @tizoc

Just a quick update after brew day. Thanks to @tizoc‘s Brun Water sheet and the citric acid addition, the ph reading after mashing hit a perfect 5.3. Thanks to the BIABCUS checklist everything went mostly smooth.
I had very low actual EAW 72% and EIF 63.1. Does anyone have an idea what I was doing wrong? Maybe it is due to the altitude of Munich. My thermometer showed 208,4 °F/98 °C when the water was boiling. So also higher evaporation at lower temps?
Other than that it will be a bit stronger , it smelled already great when I did the dry hopping yesterday.

@maze42 looks like mis-measurements to me, the estimated VAW (based on your post-boil volume measurement) and your actual VAW don't match.
Also, based on your pre-boil density, and how much evaporation you got (more than estimated), your GAW density should be higher (I also see that it is higher at pitching time, why is that? did you add sugar?)
How did you measure the densities? hydrometer? refractometer? at what temperature? if not at 20C (or whatever temperature your hydrometer is calibrated for), did you account for the temperature difference and made the correction?


Btw, EAW 72% isn't that low for a beer with such OG. To correctly estimate the efficiencies it is also a good idea to fill in the data for the fermentables being used in section Y, because not every malt gives the same yield.

Hi guys how can a recipe be converted for the biab maxi method I've had a look at the calculator and as my mash kettle is only 30 Litres it reports the recipe I would like to try is not possible my kettle is 35cm x 35cm and my fermenter is 30 Litres. I'm sure once I've seen how one recipe is converted I'll work out future recipes myself.
The recipe I would like to try is from themaltmiller.co.uk

Ingredients
Crisp Extra Pale Maris Otter (4500 grams)
Crisp Caramalt (880 grams)
Chinook Pellets (95 grams)
Cascade Pellets (153 grams)
Cold Pressed Grapefruit Extract 15ml (1 packs)
NBS West Coast Style Ale Yeast (1 packs)
________________________________________
Method
Beer Style (main): American Ales
Beer Style (sub): American-Style India Pale Ale
Batch Size: 23
Original Gravity: 1052
Final Gravity: 1009
ABV %: 5.6
IBU: 34.6
THE MASH
Temperature °C: 65
Length (mins): 60
Out temp °C: 75
Out time (mins): 10
THE BOIL
Boil time (mins): 60
Additions and timing:
20 mins – 18g Cascade
20 mins – 18g Chinook
10 min – 21g Cascade
10 min – 21g Chinook
0 min – 28g Chinook
0 min – 57g Cascade
Secondary additions and timing:
Fermentation temperature/steps: 18c for roughly 10 days
Cold crash, package
Dry hop day 7 – 57g Cascade
Dry hop day 7 – 28g Chinook
Yeast: West Coast yeast

@hoptician Definitely post your file as @Scott recommended so we can have a look. This thread may also help shed some light on converting recipes from other sources https://biabrewer.info/viewtopic.php?f= ... phy#p61194, its not too long of a read but I find it helps when I want to try a recipe posted on the web.

@hoptician I've had some time this morning to hunt down the recipe you mentioned. There is a lot of information left out that you would need in order to make a true clone using their ingredients. However, using the attached BIABacus file you should be able to get pretty close. Hopefully some of the other members here can have a look and double check my work. I've adjusted it based on the kettle size you listed and the process of finding VAW in the article I linked in my earlier post. What I would recommend is for you to take notes at every step of the way so that you can refine this recipe to your tastes in future brews. Most importantly recording the volumes listed in section K and applying them in section L so that the program can help you make the necessary adjustments next time. Also since I don't know your system I've left the default boil off rate as is in section X but this also plays a factor so you should record this as well and change it based on your results. Not having used max-biab I unfortunately don't have any further advice on how to adjust things based on that process.

Sorry for the delay replying that recipe conversion does explain a few things thank you. I've been waiting for c-spanner to tighten the nut on my mash kettle heating element I'm about to do a leak test and suss out my new stc-100pro controller.
My aspirations are to brew enough beer in my 35cm x 35cm 33.7L mash kettle so I can fill my corny keg to the top. I appreciate my mash kettle is too small for regular biab but I can use my little induction hob and my old brew pot to do dunk sparges as mentioned in the biab maxi tutorial it seems like a good jumping off point for me with being my first full batch all grain brew but if there are alternative ways to do it I would appreciate the advice.

@hoptician no worries on the conversion. I'm assuming your corny keg is 19L. For this recipe and others with similar O.G. should leave you with enough room in your keg to stay below the gas side dip tube. Filling up to the brim might increase the likelihood of it gumming up your disconnect unless I'm missing something. I typically plan for just over 17L to avoid any issues. It looks like maxi-biab would certainly help you with getting more volume into packaging with higher alcohol brews where the mash would otherwise exceed your kettle limit. No matter what method you use I would recommend having a look at this thread, https://www.biabrewer.info/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2685, it will help you understand what is meant by all terms used both around the forum and within BIABacus. It'll also make it clear as to what you're looking to record to start nailing your recipes down with your setup.

Cheers I'm working my way through that post, yes my corny is 19L I hadn't considered the dip tube so the 17.6L in to packaging you set in the recipe is spot on I'll keep that in mind. I've managed to get my kettle running like a champ this evening temps are spot on and a good rolling boil with no leaks thankfully so it's time for a few beers and I'll do my first brew in the morning I'm still waiting on hops to make the grapefruit ipa but I have plenty of fresh chinook pellets so think I'll try a chinook ipa using the same figures except the hops I was thinking 25g @ 60 mins 30g @ 10 mins and 30g @ flame out, dry hop on day 5 with another 30g does that sound okay?

@hoptician Glad to hear your up and running with the kettle. I would just let BIABacus do the work of figuring out how much to add for you. When you need to make hop substitutions and you've already worked out your recipe in BIABacus you can use the column next to the original Hop Bill and it will pop out the appropriate amounts based on the IBU's you enter in section D, in the case of the Grapefruit IPA its set to 34.6. Since you're also changing the timing that will also need to be accounted for in the substitution column, example below. Just make sure you enter the Alpha Acid (AA) percentages from your packaging as well. If you're substituting with hops you don't already have I tend to use the low end of the estimated range listed on websites so that I know I always order enough and then adjust based on what's listed on the packaging when they arrive.





edit: image not showing up. Couldn't figure it out so I'll just repost the reworked file.

Cheers I took your advice and I'm starting to understand how the spreadsheet works it provides a lot of useful information. I had a go at the biab maxi method and got 18L in the fermenter which i topped up to 18.5L OG-1.052 so mission accomplished a full keg of beer but next time I'm going to do things a little differently then compare the results.
Controlling a mash kettle temperature is a doddle using an Elitech controller and once up to temperature it will regulate the temperature using minimal power so I'm thinking if I build a grain bag riser to put in my mash kettle then just let the controller do it's thing if mashing in the grains drops the temperature it will get it back to 68c in no time and keep it there for the duration. The transferring of the grain bag between pots is a bit of a workout and possibly an overkill so I'm going to compare it by lifting the grains in to a colander on the mash kettle and sparging with 8L of water @ 68c instead I'm not saying either way is right or wrong but I'll compare them and see what happens.

Once you spend some time with BIABacus it'll come easier. I'm wondering about having to top up your fermenter though. Did you allow the bag to drain over the kettle while bringing everything to a boil? I'll often combine that with squeezing the bag to get as much of the absorbed wort back as possible. I suppose other explanations could be in your boil off rate and losses due to any trub you avoided transferring over. Likely a combination of these factors. As long as recorded all your actual numbers you can plug those back into BIABacus for your next go at this one and it'll help you avoid having to make those adjustments. If you're planning to add heat during the mash something to hold the bag off the bottom can give you some insurance against burning the bag. An appropriately sized stainless steel grill grate with a few bolts, washers, and nuts would allow you to adjust the height to minimize the dead space underneath as well.

There was a lot of muck at the bottom of the kettle clogging up my hop filter I think that's why I fell a little short in the fermenter volume. The idea of the grill with bolts is exactly what I had in mind and I have the parts on order, the grill is 13" and my kettle is 13 and 5/8" so near as damn it there if I use 100m bolts it gives me a few cm clearance above the element I think it's worth a try to take the guess work out of it and maybe I can add a short mash out too around 75c for 10 minutes?

You should be able to add heat no problem with a false bottom in place for the mash out/sparge step. I've never sparged or mashed out so maybe others can offer advice here.

I've just done my third BIAB batch (Irish red ale) this time I used my false bottom and let the Elitech controller maintain the temp, I did a 70 minute mash @68c, 20 minute mash out @ 76c then sat the grain bag in a huge colander on top of the mash kettle I then poured 2L of hot wort from the tap in to a jug and slowly poured it over the grain bag a total of 4 times before squeezing out the last of the wort with a saucepan lid. It was an easy no drama brew day and I hit the numbers on the money fingers crossed the beer turns out okay.

Ok, how do I adjust for altitude in Biabacus. Specifically relative to hops utilization during boil.