Acidulated malt..

Differences:
- Acid malt is more traditional (see the German purity laws)
- Lactic (or Phosphoric) acid is a more precise way to control pH, because the acid contribution of acid malt is fairly variable.

For a single (once and done) batch, it would be cheaper to buy a little bit of acid malt. But for multiple batches, Lactic Acid would be cheaper, because a single small bottle is good for many batches. I'm not as familiar with phosphoric acid prices.

 

FWIW I have used both and prefer the malt.

 

Acid malt uses malt sprayed with sauergut. Sauergut is a pillar of the German beer flavor. If you are making German beer, you need to have the proper pillars. Making your own sauergut is even better! Did I mention sauergut?

 

Explain this... You should be adjusting your strike water for the mash but it’s a bit more complicated than that. It all depends on the buffering capacity of your water.

 

The pH of your strike water, especially if it is RO, is irrelevant. Let me say that again, it is irrelevant. If using RO water, the acidity and buffering capacity of the malt is everything. In order to hit the desired mash pH, you typically need to add some acid and/or calcium/magnesium. If brewing a darker beer with lots of roast and/or dark crystal malts, you might not need additional acid. It all depends upon the malt bill.

A very good approach to dealing with mash water chemistry is discussed in a talk given by @VikeMan, to which he has posted a link at times on this forum. You can search around for it, or perhaps he’ll be kind enough to post it again here.

Cheers!

 

The .pdf presentation, "Intro to Brewing Water Treatment" can be viewed or downloaded here:
http://sonsofalchemy.org/library/

Slide 9 has a step-by-step approach to building from distilled/RO water.

 

As has been discussed RO water has no buffering power. So you’re adding a tiny amount of acid which then can’t lower the pH of the malt (which will normally be around 5.8-6.0 depending). You just need more acid. Plenty of water calculators available online.

 

You should estimate what you need to add, given your starting water and your grain bill, to hit your desired mash pH. There is no point at all in targeting a specific water pH.

 

There's no point in measuring the water's pH. Just enter the starting water profile in the software. Since you're using RO water, just enter zeros for everything. If the software also asks you for your water's starting pH, you can enter 7.0 for RO. (Or enter 6.0. It won't really matter for mash pH.) You can't accurately measure the pH of RO water with your pH meter anyway.

But yes, add your salts to the water, i.e. the salts that you have already entered into the program, along with the grain bill, starting water profile, and any acid additions needed to predict your target mash pH.

Checking the pH mid-mash is a good idea, but if you have followed the process above, you've already adjusted the mash pH. It's really too late to adjust it further at this point, IMO. Checking serves to see how close you are to the software's prediction, and if off by very much, try to figure out what went wrong and/or how to adjust the next time.

 

I wouldn't. It makes the probe wear out faster. And even if the meter has automatic temperature correction (which compensates for the temperature of the probe (not the liquid), you'd still have to adjust the reading for the fact that the wort itself is a different pH at different temperatures. And there's no precise standard adjustment for that.

Enjoy your beer, and live and learn.