water treatment question

[BrewMax]

I know that light beers like soft water and pale ales like harder water and dark beers like more carbonates, but all mashed grains are in the 5.0 to 5.5 ph range. What is a good way to adjust water properties after the mash and when?

[BrewDog]

pH really only matters during the mash and the sparge.
The differences you note are due to the historical local water sources, and the way that the brewers figured out and dealt with the pH issues by brewing beers through trial and error that tasted good because of the local water chemistry (and availability of malt, yeast, and hops).

Whole books can be written on the subject of water treatment, but generally, you either add acids (phosphoric or lactic) or salts (gypsum, calcium carbonate, etc) to adjust the pH. You can read up in Palmer, Noonan's and Daniels' books on this topic.

Sorry, I know this doesn't answer your question, but they do a much better job on this than I can.

[BrewMax]

Thanks for your quick response as I have a brown ale mashing as we speak. I guess I'll add calcium carbonate at knockout and see what happens.

[BrewDog]

Why?
The pH only matters WHILE it is mashing. Adding it AFTER will serve what purpose?

[BrewMax]

I'm not adding it to adjust the ph but to add the carbonates that a dark beer needs. I didn't do it during mash in order to hit my mash ph. Is that wrong?

[Mad Scientist]

Yeah....what matters is the mineral that you add tot he water for the mash...true, it does make a difference in the final product, but where it makes the most difference is in the mash. Typically, you'll be okay. A lot of brewers just brew witht the local water and be happy about it....the grain genrerally has enough buffering power to hold the pH in the desired range. Sometimes, people just want to use a traditional (say munich) water profile, and they will then have to deal with mineral additions to adjust. Randomly adding CaCO3 could yeild poor results. Additioanlly, due to solubility issues, CaCO3 must be added tot he mash, otherwise it will not dissolve.

FYI, the only mineral addition that can be safely made is CaSO4 (gypsum) to boost sulfate for hop accentuation, even then, you really should have knowlege of you water's mineral content, so you do not over do it.

[BrewMax]

Thanks much for the eyeopening instruction. I've been making this water treatment thing a whole lot harder than it really is. My mash ph has always been fine but I was still trying to tweak the profile. Since I use soft water at ph 6.5 raising the ph has never been necessary. My mash settles out nicely at target with a little gypsum.