Residual Alkalinity in Amarillo Water

[Colin Cummings]

Anyone familiar with the concept of residual alkalinity (RA) in brewing water chemistry?  I have a spreadsheet from Bru'n Water with all kinds of info and handy calculators for adjusting water chemistry, and the concept of RA is specific to brewing and refers to a kind of adjusted alkalinity that takes into account cations that affect PH (calcium, magnesium) and Bicarbonate.  There is a formula to figure RA, and basically some RA ranges are better for pale beers (-50 to +50) and anything above +50 is better for dark beers.  So for example, the RA of Dublin's water (where dry Irish stout was born) is 170.  The RA for Pilsen (where Pilsner was born) is 5.

As it happens, Amarillo's calculated RA according to Bru'n Water is -1.  Go figure, right?  I've assumed that our water is way too hard to brew pale beers, but if you just add a little crystal malt you can hit the right PH pretty easily.  The problem with our water is actually Na and Cl, which combined with high sulfates produce harsh flavors.

I find all of this fascinating as a brewer.

Cheers,

Colin Cummings
Amarillo, TX

[John Soto]

This is why I use half city water and half RO water for my pales or happy beers.

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[Colin Cummings]

Happy beers?  Aren't they all happy?

Cheers,

Colin Cummings
Amarillo, TX

[John Soto]

Heh. Hoppy beers.  Autocorrect always gets me on that one.

[DnBu...@aol.com]

Usually grains will bring  Ph into the proper range for a mash (5.2 to 5.4). What I pay attention to is my sparge water which I correct with Phosphoric Acid and bring down to 5.8 or lower. According to "Brewing Better Beer" we risk stripping tannins from the grain if our sparge Ph is higher than 6.0 or the temperature is above 170. I normally dilute my well water with Water Still distilled water about 50/50 for beer with roasted malts and 70% distilled/ 30% well water for beers without roasted malt. I will also add calcium chloride to the mash to add additional calcium due to the loss of calcium from diluting.

[Colin Cummings]

Dennis, two notes to your reply:

1) I have read that sparge water temps above 180 are the danger zone for tannin extraction, not above 170, which is the temp I target for sparging.

2) From what I've read, crystal malts have a more significant effect on lowering PH when interacting with Ca and Mg; that is, per pound of crystal VS roasted malts, the crystal malts will work with Ca and Mg to lower the PH more significantly.  The process is not linear in other words.

Anybody else use the Bru'n Water spreadsheet tool for water adjustments?

Cheers,

Colin Cummings
Amarillo, TX

[DnBu...@aol.com]

You sound like you have read more into it than I have. What I understand is that there is "stranger/danger" with temps above 170 (which could be your 180). I understand that grain husks interacting with different minerals in the water [normally] bring the mash into the proper range. Whether crystal/carmel malts do this more significantly, I have no idea. I have a friend who is a chemist who can probably answer this much better than me. I will forward this to him. He recently joined the homebrew club so he needs to get these emails any way. What says you, Nick?