Views: 0 Author: Brewman Publish Time: 2022-01-26 Origin: Site
Why High PH In Water Of Hot Liquor Tank?
What is water ph?
The watter pH value is a way of expressing the acidity or alkalinity in water.
Most brewers are familiar with the pH scale and know that values over 7 are basic (or alkaline) and values under seven are acidic.
One customer was seeing high (7.8) pH in the water in his Hot Liquor Tank.
Incoming water to hot water tank is usually about 6.8-7.2 pH.
He also did an acid wash of the HLT, and it dropped to 7.0 for a few days, then crept up to 7.8 .
Why it happened and how to solve it?
Why it happened?
First please analysis you water quality to test if your water have a high hardness.
Maybe your water have much Mg2+ and Ca2+, they will turn to Mg(OH)2 and CaCO3 in high temp.
Mg(OH)2 and CaCO3 are slightly soluble in water, that will cause ph rise.
Second, Calcium bicarbonate has a lower pH than calcium carbonate.
The calcium bicarbonate decomposes to calcium carbonate and CO2 - so the pH rises.
Thirdly, lots of carbonate ions exits in the water.
How to solve it?
If the hardness is higher, we would suggest a water treatment for you.
If the total hardness is acceptable for brewing water, we suggest to treat it would be to add some lactic acid.
We do not suggest if the carbonate alkalinity is high enough to cause this issue,
using phosphoric acid would probably result in deposits of calcium/phosphate solids such as apatite instead of calcium carbonate.
Contact with Brewman and share your experience with us.