PH Mash Adjustments

[jimmyfozzers]

Pickaxe, where did you get the lactic acid? None of my local brew shops stock it.

 

[micblair]

Just about to "examine" my water profile in ezwater calc, and had an idiot question to start.

Lrgoomba recently suggested my overall efficiency may be improved with ph adjustments.
My local water has a mean ph of 8, min 6.4 and max 9.2. Being quite alkaline it seems from what ive read my mash may suffer?
Is this correct. &
Could this also effect hop isomerisation? I have a sneaking feeling I'm not quite getting all I could from my hops (galaxy and ass. Fruit and us and nz hops in pale grists.

As it has been suggested not to mess with water unless necessary, and it seems a complex learning curve, can I improve beer quality starting with ph alone?

If your alkalinity is too high, it's going to buffer anything that would otherwise acidify your mash i.e. acid malt, CaCl2/CaSO4 etc. You might have to take measures to remedy this such as boiling or adding acid to precipitate out salts. From memory 200 mg/L or more of CaCO3 is going cause issues.

 

[Dan2]

Pickaxe, where did you get the lactic acid? None of my local brew shops stock it.

G&G - One of our sponsors
About $10 for the bottle which should last a few hundred brews.
They're in Melbourne - not sure where you are, but postage to rural S.A. cost me ...... bugga - must've deleted that email - $5?

 

[micblair]

50-100g of acidulated malt works seems to get me bang on pH 5.2 most of the time. I would dabble in that and 100 ppm of Ca (as CaCl2) before you started experimenting around with acid solutions.

 

[Pickaxe]

Ive noticed people using acidulated malt, it does seem like a good solution. What sort of flavor does it introduce? Or does it not have a flavor as such?
Going to see what the cacl2 and calcium sulphate does, and I have lactic acid on hand if I need it for now. Really looking fwd to testing and trialling this. As bum said, I'm nerding out.

 

[Khellendros13]

Well I didn't **** up my 2nd AG brew as much as the first, and ended up with 19L into the FV, target was 20L. Just had some issues hitting mash temp of 69c, so kind of ended up with short mash steps...and ended with a thin mash at 67-68c. Oh well.

Anyway, calculated my water additions again using the EZ water spreadsheet, and with the calculated 2ml of lactic acid (stings like buggery if you have a scratch or cut!) had a mash PH of 5.3-4 in cooled wort. Spot on to the 5.4 I calculated.

I'd rather just add 0-4ml of lactic acid than have to buy/remember acidulated malt every brew. That is just me though.

 

[ianh]

I'd rather just add 0-4ml of lactic acid than have to buy/remember acidulated malt every brew. That is just me though.

I am the other way. I would rather add some acidulated malt to all my low ESB brews than be adding another chemical in the form of lactic acid.

 

[Pickaxe]

Without knowing exactly what is going on with my mash Ph exactly, I have noticed a massive difference at the end of primary fermentation, in both flavour and yeast activity, having used additions of cacl and gypsum.

Will post further results in 3 weeks or so when I try an early sneaky one.

 

[toncils]

Anyone know how fermenting affects the ph?

I did two big brews earlier this year, both stalled; 1095 -> 1035. I thought it was because I didn't do a big enough starter, or didn't airate enough. I was VERY high on black malts, so recently though it could be the pH. Might crack one open and test.


On that note, does anyone know if barrel-aging affect the pH?

 

[toncils]

Any takers?

 

[Pickaxe]

Not me, defer to experience.

pickaxe

 

[mabrungard]

Fermentation always drives down beer pH. Wort is typically in the low 5 range after the boil and the fermentation process takes it into the 4 range. Some yeasts are more acid producing than others and the resulting beer pH can differ for that reason.

 

[toncils]

Righty, that makes sense.
Thanks Mabrungard