Advanced Brewing Water Software

[mabrungard]

I have just published my advanced brewing water software, Bru'n Water. This is the first program that I know of that includes the contribution of grain acidity and water alkalinity to allow the brewer to better predict and tailor their mash pH. We know that tailoring brewing water based on the beer color does not work well. This program moves beyond that limitation. Mash pH is a strong factor in creating cleaner flavor, proper body, and desired fermentation and attenuation performance.

The program includes all the typical mineral calculators and goes on to provide acid calculators, dilution tools, extensively researched water profiles, and a comprehensive water knowledge section. I think you will find that it is quite a useful tool for analyzing your water and truly figuring out how to make it fit your current beer's mashing requirements.

The mash pH prediction equation in the program has been proven to come within 0.2 pH units. With continued observations and reports from the brewing community, I expect that the prediction capability may be refined to as little as 0.1 pH unit.

I have set up a web site to further explain and illustrate the program and serve as a downloading point for interested brewers. Please visit the following site:

https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/

Enjoy!

[Bokonon]

I just went to your site and it took me a few minutes to actually find where to actually download this. You might want to add a couple more links to the file in the text

Edit: I found myself leaning towards my monitor to read the Water Adjustment and Mash Acidification pages. You might want to increase the size of the font there.

I'll plug some real data in later when I have some extra time and play around with it. Looks pretty good though

[Hoppy Brewah]

I just took a quick look at your Bru'n Water software and it looks great! Nice Work! I have high alkaline water and have to add lactic acid or acidulated malt when brewing pale beers. I look forward to working with this spreadsheet.

Bokonon - You can go to View - Zoom to increase the size of the page.

Cheers!

[mabrungard]

I just went to your site and it took me a few minutes to actually find where to actually download this. You might want to add a couple more links to the file in the text

Edit: I found myself leaning towards my monitor to read the Water Adjustment and Mash Acidification pages. You might want to increase the size of the font there.

I'll plug some real data in later when I have some extra time and play around with it. Looks pretty good though

I take it you launched into the program without reading the instructions. One of the first things contained in the instructions is a recommendation to adjust the Zoom setting of your program to match your screen extents. I knew that monitors and resolutions vary, so I punted and made the Zoom small to begin with so that the Users would be able to see everything first and then Zoom in to fit their viewing comfort.

[BrewBum]

It rocks!!

[Bokonon]

I take it you launched into the program without reading the instructions. One of the first things contained in the instructions is a recommendation to adjust the Zoom setting of your program to match your screen extents. I knew that monitors and resolutions vary, so I punted and made the Zoom small to begin with so that the Users would be able to see everything first and then Zoom in to fit their viewing comfort.

All I had time for was a quick look. When I actually have time to play around with it I will read through the instructions

[atomicpunk]

Thanks for sharing, I plan to give it a look when I have time. Of course I am also looking forward to AJ's review

[ajdelange]

Well OK. I had a quick test drive. And as with any new car I found some things and I'm sure there are several more and Martin will be finding those over the next few months one by one. Some of the things I found are not things that are wrong but things I might do differently. An example of this would be what he calls "Chart Hardness" left me thinking "what the heck is that". Turns out most authors (including Kolbach himself) call it "Effective Hardness" so I would recommend that change for the sake of clarity. Speaking of the chart, one of the greatest utilities of that chart, IMO, is that one can plot his own water on it and the waters of other cities. This lets the user see where he sits relative to say Munich or Pilsn.

Then there were real nits such as algorithm is mispelled in the instructions.

Other things would be "nice to have" like the ability to specify the end point pH for the alkalinity defining titration and the ability to calculate the equivalence end point. 999 times out of a thousand 4.3 will be the number to use but I sometimes find that a water profile someone posts doesn't balance at 4.3 but does at the equivalence end point.

Other things have a small effect on the result and would require a large increase in the complexity of the spread sheet. In particular I'm referring to the fact that the spreadsheet as it exists uses ideally dilute chemistry and in some cases the waters are laden with enough minerals to make that a questionable assumption.

Another small thing - relatively easy to fix: The "alkalinity" of distilled water is 2.5 ppm to pH 4.3. pH 4.3 means the water's hydrogen ion concentration is 2.5E-3/50 because -log( 2.5E-3/50 ) = 4.3. If I enter 2.5 for alkalinity the spreadheet calculates a bicarbonate value when in fact DI water has no bicarbonate.

In this same area: if I put in DI water as the source and add 100 mg/L CaCO3 and enough hydrochloric acid to dissolve it and bring the pH to 7 the bicarbonate content of that water would be 49.1 mg/L. If I supply that same data to the Bru'n spreadsheet it calculates a negative bicarbonate content. Also if I specify 38% HCl and 12.39N HCl I get different answers (slightly) though these values both apply to 23 Be' acid. This is the only area where I would have concerns about the model.

It would be nice if there were some logic such that the default strength window showed something reasonable for the acid chosen. I selected HCl and notices the strength was 88%.

Given the amount of misunderstanding rampant concerning how CaCO3 actually gets into water naturally it would be nice if carbonic acid were listed as an acid choice.

For years I assumed that all the calcium chloride sold for use in brewing was the dihydrate and the Bru'n spreadsheet does its calculations based on dihydrate. But I just discovered that LD Carlson's calcium chloride is the monohydrate. I suspect that in fact most of the prilled stuff sold at LHBS shops is the monohydrate but there is certainly dihydrate out there. Thus the sheet needs to accomodate either.

So those are the things I found on a quick look. All in all I think it represents a big improvement as it is considerably more robust without being overly complicated.

I hope you all realize how much work has gone into this and recognize that you don't hit it right off the bat the first time out. The best way to check these things out is to use them and get feedback to Martin if you find anything.