Water profile feedback - not there yet

Hi,

As a longtime user of BS for recipe design and Bru'n Water for water, I was glad to see the addition of an updated water profile tool. However, it is still not useful to me, and I wanted to pass along my feedback.

Feedback:
1. The profile tool and integration into a recipe is very confusing.
2. Pickling lime is still not an available addition - this is a miss IMO as it is a good way to add Calcium and raise pH.
3. I use RO for my base water. I treat the mash water and not the sparge water (as it is already low alkalinity). It seems there is no way to handle this in BS.
4. The Match Target Profile function does not work well. I find I can almost dead on match the profile manually adjusting the additions, but the automatic function settles on multiple missed totals.

So unfortunately for me, I will need to continue BnW.

-BD

Hi,
- Treating sparge water is optional - you don't have to include the sparge water acidification if you don't want to.  It is calculated to make sure your pH does not rise too high in the mash however.
- The match target profile is based on a least squares fit of all of the parameters.  It tries to match them all by treating them equally and minimizing the square of the distance from the target. As far as I know that is the optimal match if you weight them all equally and want to minimize the distance you are off.

I did write an article here on how you can use the two tools (water profile tool and recipe mash tab) to adjust water.
  http://beersmith.com/blog/2016/08/10/using-the-new-brewing-water-and-mash-ph-tools-in-beersmith-2-3/

Brad

Thanks Brad.

My point here is all my salts go in the mash. Therefore the water profile is for the final beer, but the pH is for the mash only. I don't treat my sparge water at all (I mean both salts and acid). Since it is low alkalinity, acidifying it is essentially unnecessary. Doing this is an option in BnW, but not BS. I am personally not sure why more people who use RO do not do this - it is very easy. I dough in my salts, grain, and acid at the same time. Doing this, I do not sweat the salts not dissolving or pooling below the mash false bottom, which has happened to me previously.

Also, as I mentioned, Lime is not an option (nor MgCl, though it is not used much in brewing) in BS. Chalk is, which should not be used unless you are acidifying the water, and then only a limited amount will dissolve. The Match Target Profile automatically figures in Chalk. My recommendation is to provide the user an option to lock it out.

Anyway, my post was not meant to knock. BS is great software and I use it religiously. I just look forward to the day when I don't need a separate water calculator, as the new version doesn't handle the way I brew.

Thanks again,
-BD