Hi all,
I have been using Bru'n water for my BIAB brews and have run into an issue that I cannot make sense of. I use a 3/4 dilution of distilled and tap water for all of my recipes. My tap water is filtered and softened, resulting almost no mineral content except for the sodium and chloride from the softener. Na/Cl is 184/170, then of course those are reduced to 1/4 of through the dilution. Tap ph is 7.2.
I have found for dark beers Bru'n water is pretty much right on for mineral additions, hardly ever requiring any acid addition. For light colored beers, and only recently, I am finding that I am needing to at least double the amount of acid that Bru'n water predicts to hit mash ph. Not from 2 to 4 ml, but form 20 to 50 ml!
I use 10% phosphoric, diluted down at home from 85% phosphoric that I obtained. I calculate the dilutions simply by equating the products of the volume and percent acid and solving. So the ratio of the volume of 10% to 85% is 8.5. I have a 1/2 liter bottle I use for dilutions so I measure out 50 ml of 85% acid, then fill to 425 ml. Should be right.
I trust the accuracy of Bru'n water, and I also immediately assume I must have done something wrong
.
The only thing that makes sense to me is that I recently realized I was diluting my acid using tap water and I should have been using distilled (?). So I think since doing my last dilution of acid with distilled water my acid is much weaker than when I diluted with tap water? The obvious thing is toss it and make up a new dilution but I thought I would check with the experts first to see if I can learn something.
Can anyone offer any insight or does this make any sense to anyone?
Thanks in advance