Would you recommend using a pH stabilizer?

Kai Troester, who is an extremely smart and experienced homebrewer, does not recommend 5.2 pH Stabilizer:

“The 5.2 mash stabilizer doesn't work as advertised and adds about 100 ppm sodium to your beer if used at the recommended rate. Don't use it. Kai”

Cheers!

 

Everything I have read about 5.2 suggests that it MIGHT work for some very specific water types, but it is basically useless for most people.

I'm pretty sure AJ Delange has written about it, but Kai is a good source as well.

 

I'd consider it if my water was really crappy (but I'd also consider buying RO water). If your water needs minor adjustments you are much better off using specific minerals and acids to customize it - especially since different beer styles need different water chemistry to be at their best.

 

I tried 5.2 many years ago. Useless. I agree with jackhorzempa's internet research.

 

It's so much easier to specifically target the shift you want to happen in the hardness/softness, alkaline/acidity in your beer than it is to blindly adjust toward the center with a stabilizer. Do research on your water, and figure out what needs to be done to get it to the specific profile you want for the type of beer you're trying to brew.

 

No...I used it for maybe a year until I realized all the beers I used with it had a weird off-taste that my ex-wife oh so cleverly nicknamed "the thing". As soon as I stopped using it "the thing" vanished.

 

Dave, while using the stabilizer did you ever measure your mash pH? If so, what values did you obtain?

Cheers!

Jack

 

Hey Jack, no never measured mash pH back then...but knew i had hard water. I know my current water supply is hard, but think that well should be even harder considering that it's surrounding my marble quarries. Definitely the reason I was always happy with my darker beers than say my kolsch or hefes...

 

Bru'n Water reports pH stabilizers are 1) worthless products although 2) they can help water with initially high alkalinity.

 

This is one of my favorite things that I've read on these forums. I'm not being sarcastic, I get a real kick out of this.