Problem with HCO3, can someone help me?

[Yohkox]

Good morning, first of all I apologize for my English, I'm from Spain. I'm trying to cook a Scottish Ale.

I'm having problems with the amount of HCO3 in the recipe editor, I'm showing you two images, the first one corresponds to the water calculator, once I've added the salts. In the calculator I have 135 ppm of HCO3, and then when updating, in the final recipe this amount drops to 45 ppm of HCO3. Does anyone know what could be the cause of this decrease?

If anyone knows what is the cause, could you please help me? I don't know if it's due to the use of dark malts or any other circumstance.

Thank you all very much! Greetings!

 

[BarbarianBrewer]

Are you adding something to lower the pH, such as Phosphoric Acid, Lactic Acid or Acidulated Malt? I don't think dark grains would alter the bicarbonate level much. Are you adding any brewing salts to your strike water? Please post a link to your recipe if you can; and make it public. That will help us.

And welcome to the forum!

 

[Yohkox]

Good afternoon, thank you very much for your reply! Yes, indeed, I add salts to the mash water to adapt my water profile to the target water, in this case a Scottish Ale. In the water calculation the pH came out at 5.66, so I activated the option to add 75% phosphoric acid to reduce this pH. The fact is that in the water calculator itself this reduction of HCO3 does not appear, only in the recipe editor. I also tried removing the acids, and the result is the same, this HCO3 continues to decrease.

Thank you very much!

This is the recipe
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/1510110/scottish-export-eddlc

 

[BarbarianBrewer]

I'm not able to find the problem. Maybe @Pricelessbrewing or @Yooper will know why.

I did notice a couple of things in your recipe you might want to change. One is you have the Chocolate Malt and Roasted Barley as late boil additions. Did you intend for them to be late mash additions? Possibly a clue to the water calculator issue: I saved your recipe and when I set them as full mash additions & saved the recipe and then, from the water calculator I clicked "Update Grist From Recipe" the HCO3 values matched. But when I could not duplicate the results when I repeated the steps.

The other item is that you are using chalk. Chalk is very difficult to get into solution so very few homebrewers use it.

Sorry I couldn't be more helpful but, this isn't the first time I've been unable to figure out the water calculator. Fortunately there are smarter people than me on the forum!

 

[Yohkox]

Hello! Thank you very much for your response and for your time! Yes, dark malts are late additions direct to the boil, they are not added to the mash, they are cold infusions to give color and background flavor. It is possible that it is due to what you mention.

Regarding the chalk, I don't know, I can try to configure the water profile with other available salts, if not, I will have to try to dissolve it as best I can.

Thank you very much for your invaluable help, barbarian. Greetings!

 

[Megary]

1st off, as @BarbarianBrewer said, I hope you aren’t adding your dark grains to your boil! Change that to late Mash addition or just add them to your mash for the duration.

#2. I don’t understand why you’re adding Chalk, Slaked Lime and Baking Soda to raise your mash pH, and also adding Phosphoric Acid to lower your pH. You are chasing your tail. I’d get rid of them all, as well as the NaCl and see where you’re at.

Almost every water can be treated with CaSO4 (Gypsum) and CaCl for those minerals and either an acid to lower pH or something alkaline to raise it. That’s it.

One last thing, HCO3 is never a target. If your mash pH is in line, don’t worry a lick about your bicarbonate number.

 

[Yohkox]

Thank you very much for your help Megary! I will take your advice regarding the use of salts and try to adjust the water profile again.

Regarding the use of dark malts in the boil, this is a recipe that is not mine. The use is by cold mashing the ground dark malts in water the day before, and only using this liquid in the boil kettle during the last minutes of the boil. I don't know if this is a good or bad practice, it is just an adaptation of someone else's recipe.

Thank you so much!

 

[BarbarianBrewer]

Regarding the use of dark malts in the boil, this is a recipe that is not mine. The use is by cold mashing the ground dark malts in water the day before, and only using this liquid in the boil kettle during the last minutes of the boil. I don't know if this is a good or bad practice, it is just an adaptation of someone else's recipe.

Very interesting. I have never heard of that process before but, it sounds like it would work just fine. And like @Megary, I don't worry about the bicarbonate value. Pretty much because it's so hard to get that where I want it without throwing all the other ions out of whack.

 

[Yohkox]

Yes, they are added 15 minutes before the end of the boil. They are used to reduce the astringency of the black malts, providing a softer and less intense flavour, and adding some colour and a slight toasted flavour in the background.