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HOMEBREW Digest #5686
HOMEBREW Digest #5686 Thu 27 May 2010
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Digest Janitor: pbabcock at hbd.org
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Contents:
HBD is struggling to meet its meager operating expenses (John Schnupp)
More Aqua/ Iron ("A.J deLange")
Additional on Agua- Pt I (Andrew deLange)
Additional on Aqua Pt-II (Andrew deLange)
Re: Sodium/Chloride (mossview5)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* Beer is our obsession and we're late for therapy! *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
NOTE: With the economy as it is, the HBD is struggling to
meet its meager operating expenses of approximately $3500
per year. If less than half of those currently directly
subscribed to the HBD sent in a mere $5.00, the HBD would
be able to easily meet its annual expenses, with room to
spare for next year. Please consider it.
Financial Projection As of 21 May 2010
Projected 2010 Budget $3505.65
Expended against projection $ 874.75
Projected Excess/(Shortfall) ($2080.54)
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Date: Thu, 27 May 2010 01:59:13 -0700 (PDT)
From: John Schnupp <john.schnupp at yahoo.com>
Subject: HBD is struggling to meet its meager operating expenses
>If less than half of those currently directly
>subscribed to the HBD sent in a mere $5.00, the HBD would
>be able to easily meet its annual expenses,
<snip>
>Financial Projection As of 21 May 2010
> Projected 2010 Budget $3505.65
>Expended against projection $ 874.75
>Projected Excess/(Shortfall) ($2080.54)
WOW. I know it's been a long time since I posted,
and even longer since I've brewed :-(
I didn't realize that this was such a shoe-string operation. It's been a
while since I've read any of the HBD posts. I know I can't make up the
entire shortfall but as a long time reader (and now mostly lurker) you
can be assured that you'll be seeing my small contribution in your snail-
mail soon.
Where else can one get an annual subscription for a daily paper
(ok, so call it e-paper) for $5.
John Schnupp, N3CNL
Georgia, VT
'95 XLH 1200 +79,900
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 27 May 2010 12:21:54 -0400
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdelan at gmail.com>
Subject: More Aqua/ Iron
Another suggestion for Joe. Have some DI water trucked in, try brewing
a Pils or 2 with it and see if you agree with Calvin and A.J. or the
"not to worry" group. Upon deciding that low mineral is the way to go
you could then start looking into ways of getting quantities of it
into your brewery.
And one other aspect of good Pils, which is also a controversial one,
is whether decoction mashing is necessary. I say yes and also request
that anyone who thinks he can convince me other wiseto please not
disillusion me in this regard. To be somewhat more serious about the
matter, you do need to get that classic mealanoidin quality. Many feel
that simply adding some melanoidin malt is sufficient.
For Dave:
Ah, iron. Yes that can ruin your day but there are ways of getting rid
of the stuff without using a softener (and losing the calcium). For HB
quantities the simplest method is to simply aerate a quantity of the
water (setting up a garden booster pump with a shower head and
recirculating into a vessel while spraying through the head works fine
for this. The spraying lets the extra CO2 (which is what is
responsible for the low pH) escape and lets oxygen convert the
clearwater iron to Fe(III) which is the ugly, brown, gelatinous junk
you find in toilet tanks etc. Now simply filter this water (Greg
Noonan recommended filtering through kids' playsand. If can be easily
cleaned after treatment. More permanent options use the same basic
principle. Iron removal filters (usually containing a mineral called
"greensand") work the oxidation just as well and are automatically
backwashed so you don't have to worry about that. However you do it
the result is iron free water at more reasonable pH.
A.J.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 27 May 2010 15:08:44 -0400
From: Andrew deLange <ajdelan at gmail.com>
Subject: Additional on Agua- Pt I
The original post got rejected as it was too long. As it looks as if
some discussion is going I'm resubmitting:
Further to Joe's questions: I didn't realize we were talking a
commercial application here. This changes things dramatically in terms
of the economics but the basic principals (i.e. the chemistry) don't.
The following is opinion (which you will have seen backed up here to
some extent but that doesn't mean everyone agrees with it): the secret
to excellent Bohemian Pilsner (I have no experience with German) is
very soft water and proper control of mash pH through the use of
sauermalz or sauergut because very soft water will not give you the
mash pH you need with a Pilsner malt grist. This assumes, of course,
good malt and lots of Saaz hops. The one thing I consistently notice
about commercial Pils is that the bittering is done with a high alpha
hop and then some Saaz is tossed in at the end for "aroma and flavor".
IMO this spoils a Pils but I certainly understand the economics behind
having to do things this way. If I ran a brewery I'm sure I could put
it out of business within a year.
Now, on to the water. Opinion mode is off here (but it will be coming
back on later). It's residual alkalinity is pretty high - too high to
fix with mineral salt addition so either you must decarbonate or add
acid which effectively decarbonates because it converts the
bicarbonate ions to carbon dioxide but the cost is that each
bicarbonate ion is replaced by the anion of the acid. For Pils, using
noble hops, sulfuric acid is not a good choice but hydrochloric might
be. Doing a quick calculation on what I assume you mains water to be
(see below) it would take 1.25 L of 23 Be' HCl to treat 30 bbl of
water to 50 ppm alkalinity but the residual alkalinity would be -24
(because of all the calcium). pH would be 5.6 but your but your
chloride would be a whopping 183 (no surprise there). 1.1L of HCl
would get you to 0 RA (alkalinity 74 but it's the RA that counts), a
pH of 5.1 and a chloride level of 165. Calculations assume mains pH of
7 (you didn't tell us what the actual pH is) and the other thing I
don't know is the end point you use when you measure alkalinity.
Decarbonation by lime treatment is probably not practical at 30 bbl
but people do sell lime decarbonation plant at that scale. Check
Brauwelt and similar pubs. The approximate lime dose for your water
would be about 200 mg/L but one must experiment to find the optimum
dose. For small scale I find it best to use more than the calculation
calls for in order to get the pH and calcium ion concentration high
(which means more carbonate precipitated) and to "seed" the mix with
finely divided calcium carbonate in order to provide nucleation sites.
The problem with this approach is that you finish up with water with
high pH which needs to be knocked back to something reasonable (you
want the final result of the process to be reduced, not increased
alkalinity). So you must add acid to neutralize the excess hydroxide.
If you use hydrochloric acid for this purpose you will have increased
chloride which is good in general terms but not so good in terms of
getting that "soft" quality which the best Pilsners have and which I
attribute to the water. Another approach to the excess hydroxide is to
use carbonic acid. At the HB scale this simply means sparging CO2
through the water until the pH comes to 7-ish. Or you can use just the
amount of lime stochimetrically calculated and not have to worry
about acid addition afterwards. If you do this you will be able to
decarbonate to about 50 ppm as CaCO3 alkalinity. Going to higher pH
may get you a little below this but may not be worth the effort. If
you do this manually (which I assume you would before investing in a
lime plant) you would place say 40% of the water to be treated in a
vessel which can be stirred and in which you can monitor pH. Add the
lime and seed CaCO3, mix well and check pH. If you are going to
supplement calcium chloride, do that now as the calcium will aid in
carbonate capture. Now add additional water with stirring while
monitoring pH. As the calcium carbonate precipitates the pH will fall.
The reaction isn't that fast so wait a few minutes. What you are doing
is neutralizing the base Ca(OH)2 with the acid (and it really is an
acid) HCO3- i.e. 2HCO3- + Ca++ + 2(OH)- ---> CaCO3 + 2H2O.
As the (OH)- ions get consumed the pH falls and when it arrives back
at approximately the pH of the water you started with then you have
dropped about as much bicarb (alkalinity) as you can using this method.
You are already using the other traditional method of decarbonation.
When the water sits in the HLT CO2 is driven off and chalk
precipitates: 2HCO3- + Ca++ --> CaCO3 + CO2 + H2O. This is why the
alkalinity of the water falls in the HLT from 262 to 168. As an aside,
I am assuming that the water analysis you gave in the post was for HLT
water because the calcium and magnesium numbers you gave don't balance
with an alkalinity of 262. The lime value I gave above is based on the
analysis you posted. If I guess that the original calcium was 2 mEq/L
higher (i.e. reduced in the HLT by the same amount as the alkalinity)
it would be at about 90 and the amount of trial lime calculates to 307
mg/L. This aside, you will have about 100 mg of calcium carbonate
sitting in the bottom of your HLT for each liter of water that you
ever heated in it and if you haven't been cleaning that out you should
look into it.
More to the point, you can get more CaCO3 to drop out using the same
mechanism i.e. heating. If you bring the water to near boiling (you do
not have to boil it) and sparge it with air that air will sweep out
the CO2 and aid the precipitation of chalk (Le Chateleier's
principal). OTOH if you do boil it steam will do the CO2 sweeping but
it seems to me that pumping some air in there through a carbonation
stone would use less energy than boiling though you don't have to boil
long. Again, if you are intending to supplement with CaCl2 do it
before undertaking this process. Here again adding some chalk for
seeding might help. Also note that this method will only get you down
to about 50 on the alkalinity though supplementation with CaCl2 my get
you a bit lower. The trade between lime treatment and heating/air
sparging is that the former requires more effort, the lime and the
tweaking of the process to get it right and the latter uses more
energy. Large operators usually go (or went in the past) with lime for
this reason. Today with the improvement in RO and nanofiltration
technologies breweries seem to be trending in that direction.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 27 May 2010 15:09:24 -0400
From: Andrew deLange <ajdelan at gmail.com>
Subject: Additional on Aqua Pt-II
f you soften this water you will be swapping out 2.55 mEq of calcium
and 1.45 mEq of magnesium for 4 mEq (92 mg) of sodium in each liter
for a total of 92 + 12.24 = 104 mg/L. How do you get 175.8? If that is
the result of a measurement at the output of the softener then there
is a problem. Brine is leaking into the process stream. If the
measurement was taken right after a regeneration we can assume that
the resin bed just didn't get as thoroughly rinsed as we'd like and
that after a few gal. through the system the sodium level would drop
back to around 104. There is no practical way to get the sodium out
other than RO and we can argue as to whether that's practical. Boiling
works if he steam is separated and condensed (i.e. distillation) as
does passage through acid/base ion exchangers (swap H+ for cations and
OH- for anions - think Brita pitcher, lab pure water systems...) are
about all I can think of. Nanofiltration systems let the small ions
through. Boiling does not cause sodium to precipitate.
Opinion on again: Given that you apparently have a softener (for
boiler feed?) RO is perfect for your application if your goal is to
brew an authentic Bohemian Pilsner. It won't cost you $8000 for an RO
system of sufficient capacity. A 2500 GPD system (produce 30 bbl in 9
hrs) can be had for half that and a 500 GPD system (collect 30 bbl in
about 2 days) for around $2000. Now that's just for the system. If you
have a vessel to collect the water into then you really don't need to
do anything except plug the unit into 110, plumb the inlet, rout the
concentrate to a drain and the permeate to the collection vessel. If
you don't have a collection vessel then one of those must be acquired
and if you get fancy with level controls, pressure tanks, pumps etc
then the cost will clearly go higher. Other potential problem is that
there may be restrictions on concentrate disposal. Assuming your mains
water is at 262 alkalinity and 90 mg/L calcium your TDS going in (if
you don't feed softened water which you doubtless should) is about 480
and if you operate at 50% recovery the concentrate (waste) stream will
be at 960. Obviously if you operate the RO system at 50% recovery you
will be buying 2 gal of water from the city for every gallon that
winds up in the HLT. Also RO systems don't have 100% rejection. My
experience with RO units is around 97% with some ions being better
rejected than others. Using 97% for a quicky calculation would mean
hardness out (assuming mains feed) of about 9 and alkalinity out of
about 8 - pretty darn good for Boh. Pils. Now as noted in an earlier
post with hard water membrane life is extended if an RO unit is fed
with softened water. If you did this you would be feeding about 104 mg/
L sodium and the permeate would thus contain about 3 mg/L sodium. The
alkalinity is not effected by softening. The calcium will be very low
and probably should be supplemented. The easiest way to do this is to
blend some of your source water with the RO water. Using 97% rejection
and my assumptions about you mains water adding 1 L of mains water to
25 L of RO water would give you an RA of about 14 with an alkalinity
of 17 and an effective hardness of 10. This is pretty close to
Pilsen's water. I find water like this to make excellent Boh. Pils as
long as mashtun pH is controlled (and not a terribly bad Pils if it
isn't but definitely better if it is). Again I must caveat that there
is an opinion being offered here. And I think the major area of
contention in this case would be as to whether the calcium should be
supplemented for the sake of the yeast, bright runoff, oxalate
capture... and chloride for the sake of mouthfeel. I have not
experimented with that up to this point. I feel I am making a darn
good authentic, in the sense that water and hops are authentic and a
couple of us going to be experimenting with Weyerman's "heirloom"
floor malt in the next couple of weeks, Pils. Whether some extra
calcium chloride might make it even better is another question and one
I want an answer to.
Well it's nice to see a little activity here on the HBD and yes, you
have shamed me into sending along a wee something to Pat & Co.
Cheers, A.J.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 27 May 2010 21:16:58 -0400
From: mossview5 <mossview5 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Sodium/Chloride
AJ asked about Nanofiltration and why it might be better than Reverse
Osmosis.
Nanofiltration is a more porous membrane that does let more ions through.
In particular, the monovalent ions such as sodium and chloride. In my trade,
nanofiltration is a process referred to broadly as 'membrane softening'.
Since most potable water supplies tend to be more afflicted by unwelcome
hardness than saltiness, softening is a desirable goal. The real bonus to
major water producers and users is that membrane softening produces an
acceptably softened water while using much less power and wasting less
water.
Home RO units are terribly wasteful with water. For every gallon of RO water,
about 4 to 7 gallons of water goes down the drain. Commercial RO units are
much less wasteful, but they still end up sending about 1 gallon down the drain
for every gallon of RO water produced. They use very high pressure pumps to
drive the water through the membranes and the raw water typically has to be
acidified to help avoid clogging the membranes. These are complications that
few home owners would want to wrestle with.
Commercial Nanofiltration units are more efficient than the commercial RO units
since they do not require pumping to as high a pressure as RO and the amount
of wasted water is further reduced. These units can produce a gallon
of product
water while only sending about 1/3 gallon down the drain.
AJ's final point about nanofiltration was still correct. For the
small amount of
water that we require for brewing, its not really worthwhile to worry about our
wasting water and energy. Home RO systems are good enough.
Martin Brungard
Indianapolis, IN
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End of HOMEBREW Digest #5686, 05/27/10
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