I've used BeerSmith for a couple years now and am just getting into water adjustments. My water report shows Alkalinity as: 366 (HCO3)
I read somewhere that I should adjust this number and put it in the bicarbonate field in my water profile. Is that accurate and what's the formula? I read multiplying it by 51/60 but that seems strange ... why not just say multiply by .85??
I believe this is going to result in a high alkalinity number in any case. Should I be looking to cut my water with RO to bring the number down and avoid excess lactic acid additions? The last two brews I did resulted in 4.9ml in a 2.5 gal Pale Ale recipe which got mash PH to 5.5 and an irish stout 4.5gal batch requiring 13.8ml to get to PH 5.2.
I read somewhere that I should adjust this number and put it in the bicarbonate field in my water profile. Is that accurate and what's the formula? I read multiplying it by 51/60 but that seems strange ... why not just say multiply by .85??
I believe this is going to result in a high alkalinity number in any case. Should I be looking to cut my water with RO to bring the number down and avoid excess lactic acid additions? The last two brews I did resulted in 4.9ml in a 2.5 gal Pale Ale recipe which got mash PH to 5.5 and an irish stout 4.5gal batch requiring 13.8ml to get to PH 5.2.