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Mash ph beersmith4/29/2023 Using BeerSmith 3.1, I let the software automatically calculate my salt additions using the same “yellow balanced” target profile. This got me in the ballpark for the water profile I normally use when brewing a Kolsch.Īfter manually entering the water additions in Bru’n Water, the water profile adjustment calculator reflected the following: Bru’n Water Kolsch For this I opted to go with a Kolsch recipe, since that’s one of my favorites.įor the target water profile, I went with “yellow balanced”. The first test was to create a very light beer, with a minimal grain bill, one where the SRM was right at 3.0. What follows is a comparison of the adjustment salts and acid additions between Bru’n Water and BeerSmith 3.1. The acid addition was then manually calculated to get the pH to equal what Bru’n Water calculated. The only manual changes made to BeerSmith was to change the acid model to “BW” within the Mash tab. No changes were made to the water adjustment salts that were automatically calculated in BeerSmith. I leveraged the water tab in BeerSmith, and selected the same target water profile that I used in Bru’n Water. Once I had my water profile dialed in, I then went back to BeerSmith 3.1 to calculate my water profile. All recipes used a distilled water profile as the base. Which is to say I used Bru’n Water after sorting out the recipe. I created three sample recipes in BeerSmith, and used my existing way of calculating the water profile. So does BeerSmith 3.1 improve upon the way it calculates your acid additions? Let’s compare the latest release of BeerSmith vs Bru’n Water to find out. This isn’t just my opinion, a quick Google search will highlight the frustration. It was grossly over estimating the amount of acid required to hit your mash pH. Unfortunately, the acid addition part left a lot to be desired. No manual fussing around with mineral additions like you have to do in Bru’n Water. You then selected your target water profile, and it automatically calculated the mineral additions for you. With BeerSmith 3.0, you entered your existing water profile, just like you would in Bru’n Water. It’s fully automated! Well except for the acid addition part, and it not being accurate. The thing I really dig about BeerSmith is how it handles the water profile calculations. Again, not a huge deal, but when you compare it to how BeerSmith automatically calculates the mineral additions, you kind of get spoiled. I also have to manually play with my mineral additions and tweak them ever so slightly to hit my target water profile. Now granted, it doesn’t take a lot of additional time, but it’s kind of a pain having to enter my grain bill and water information into a spreadsheet. This is an extra step in my recipe creation that I could do without. The one downside to Bru’n Water is the need to use a separate program (Excel) to calculate my water profile. I’ve actually been meaning to purchase the supporter’s version, but I seem to get everything I need out of the free version. My tool of choice for water chemistry has been the free version of Bru’n Water by Martin Brungard. I decided to do a couple of tests, and compare the water profile adjustment of BeerSmith 3.1 vs Bru’n Water. Is there an opportunity to finally use one piece of brewing software that fit all my requirements? BeerSmithĬould the BW Model be short for Bru’n Water? Has BeerSmith actually improved the way it calculates acid additions? In general the BW model results in similar pH estimates, but the acid additions are significantly lower than the MPH model. You can now choose whether to use the MPH model (recommended) or a new BW model. There are new mash pH models available under the mash screen. A quick glance of the release notes state: While it works great when it comes to calculating my water profile, it’s one extra step I have to go through every time I put a recipe into BeerSmith.īut wait, BeerSmith just released a new version of their software, version 3.1. That’s led me to use the free version of Bru’n Water. While I love the simplicity of BeerSmith and the way it calculates your mineral additions, I can’t rely on it for my acid additions. It fails miserably in calculating my water profile for the beer I’m brewing, specifically the acid additions.Ī quick search of BeerSmith vs Bru’n Water, will yield you a number of results on water profile adjustment frustrations.īeerSmith consistently overestimates the amount of acid required to hit your mash pH targets. The brewing software I use is BeerSmith, and it does everything I need, except one thing. I’ve been a huge fan of water chemistry when it comes to all-grain brewing, and it’s helped up my brewing game.
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