Food Grade Acids

[Benniee]

I have read bits and pieces about people using a combination of salts and acid when adjusting their mash pH. A question for those who use acids to adjust - where are you buying your acids from?

I've seen citric acid in powdered form at the supermarket - but I was really hoping to use some lactic acid. I've even heard John Palmer reference sulphuric acid as being suitable as it will add sulphates. I have a feeling Sulphuric will be harder to find than lactic.

Benniee

 

[Wolfy]

Grain and Grape stock Ascorbic, Lactic, Malic and Tannic Acid, but not Sulphuric or Hydrochloric (which I belive can also be used).

 

[unrealeous]

Grain and Grape stock Ascorbic, Lactic, Malic and Tannic Acid, but not Sulphuric or Hydrochloric (which I belive can also be used).

And phosphoric acid - and I was reading a while ago that this one imparts very little flavour so is preferred over some of the others. Can't remember now, but thought I'd throw that in there.

And you can use it to acid wash your yeast - I think MHB posted this link before http://oz.craftbrewer.org/Library/Methods/...YeastWash.shtml

 

[AndrewQLD]

The phosphoric acid is good as a sanitizer. My preference for ph adjustment in the mash is Lactic acid if I am not adding any salts, as pointed out by Wolfy G & G sell it quite cheaply or some Chemists will sell it also but you better have deep pockets.

 

[MHB]

I like Lactic acid too, it's made by the same type of bacteria that live on malt (same as you get if you bio-acidify your mash).

Rule of thumb:

0.6 mL of 80% Food Grade Lactic will drop the pH of 1 Kg of malt in the mash by 0.1
0.3 mL of 80% Food Grade Lactic will drop the pH of the wort by 0.1

Makes the calculations fairly straight forward.
Say you wanted to drop the pH of a 4.5 Kg mash by 0.5 (pH)
0.6 X 4.5 X 5 = 13.5 mL
Naturally, if you have lots of minerals in solution there might be some buffering and you would want to retest to see if you hit the number, but the above is pretty close.

MHB

 

[Benniee]

I like Lactic acid to, it's made by the same type of bacteria that live on malt (same as you get if you bio-acidify your mash)
Rule of thumb
0.6 mL of 80% Food Grade Lactic will drop the pH of 1 Kg of malt in the mash by 0.1
0.3 mL of 80% Food Grade Lactic will drop the pH of the wort by 0.1

Makes the calculations fairly straight forward
Say you wanted to drop the pH of a 4.5 Kg mash by 0.5 (pH)
0.6 X 4.5 X 5 = 13.5 mL
Naturally if you have lots of minerals in solution there might be some buffering and you would want to retest to see if you hit the number but the above is pretty close.

MHB

Thanks guys - I guess I hadn't hunted hard enough before I posted up this thread.

One thing I would like a bit more info on is the addition calcs you've used here Mark. I have been punching in some rough numbers in the RA spreadsheet that is available from the How to Brew website and it seems to recommend substantially less lactic acid than you do. Obviously this is very dependant on mineral additons and the colour of the dominant malt in the mash. So to put some numbers behind it....

Let's say it's a light coloured beer - a German Pils - say around 7 EBC.
If I punch in the figures for Newcastle water - and a mash liquid of around 20L.

The spreadsheet calculates that an addition of around 3-4mL will bring the mash pH down to an acceptable range. It's interesting that the spreadsheet doesn't consider the amount of grain though.

Benniee

 

[fraser_john]

Phosphoric acid can help precipitate calcium out of solution, kind of undoing some of the other work you have done by adding calcium salts. Hence the use of lactic or hydrochloric acid in Palmers spreadsheet.

I use lactic acid from Grain and Grape, one or two drops in a 40 litre batch is all that is needed in both mash and sparge.

 

[MHB]

Not really my area of expertise, I just took the numbers from Kunze mind you if the calculation doesnt include the amount of grain it wont be any use at all.

MHB

 

[brendanos]

I read this yesterday re: making sour beer with acid.

http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2009/...-with-acid.html

 

[Goose]

nobody mentioned tartaric acid in here. I use it without issues though have heard some say it can be detected in the beer if used in too greater quantit (but I've not noticed it) and if your water hardness is very low you will find you need only minute amounts of acid to adjust the pH of water you use for brewing.


pretty much all homebreshops that also sell winemaking ingredients stock it.