double check my water and pH?

5.43 (5.68 before Acid Malt) with BrewCipher (MpH), assuming a water to grain ratio of 1.5 qts/lb.

ETA: There's nothing wrong with using acid malt, but it's easier to control the amount of acidity added if you use lactic acid or phosphoric acid.

 

BrewCipher is a spreadsheet workbook, and it comes in two formats...

.xls for Excel or Gnumeric
.ods for Apache Open Office

If you don't have Excel, Gnumeric and Open Office are both free downloads

 

FWIW, both Beersmith and BrewCiper use essentially the same model to predict mash pH. Cheers!

 

Huh? Are you saying I can reduce my workload if I replace my acid malt with a bottle of acid and an eyedropper?

 

I don't know about workload, but you should get a more predictable result with the latter.

 

I'm getting 5.28 with Bru'n Water. I've found that Beersmith can be finicky and I do not trust it for water calculations.

EDIT: I'm also using 1.5 qts/lb. to keep things consistent

 

Using ez water calculator, assuming 1.5qt per lb water ratio, and assuming your mineral profile is natural (aka not due to brewing salts) I'm coming up with 5.4 at room temperature with the acid malt. In this scenario, I'd recommend dropping the acid malt down to 0.25lb which brings the mash pH to 5.52 at room temperature.

Now again I'm guessing you are adding brewing salts to get your mineral profile that way. If so, they will affect the pH so please let me know how many grams of each salt in the mash and grams of each salt in the boil and I can give you more accurate info.

 

I'm confused by this question/statement. If he already knows the ions in ppm (and it seems he does), it doesn't matter whether they were in the water originally or if they are the result of salt additions. They have the same effect either way. How could knowing where the ions came from allow you to give more accurate info?

 

I make no claim as a water geek . . . rather . . .

. . . my normal state.

But in the interest of more feedback, I ran your recipe through Brewers Friend water tab: At 1.5 qt/lb it predicted a pre-acid ph of 5.69 . . . after adding 0.438 lb acid malt a ph of 5.37. In the spirit of Vikeman's suggestion it showed substituting 9ml of lactic acid (~1.8 tsp) accomplished the same. For me, using lactic acid isn't any easier considering I'll have to post a look-out for the Reinheitsgebot Police.

 

I have never used phosphoric acid myself, but have read it can precipitate calcium and maybe make it more difficult (apatite reaction).

 

You're totally right. I am now reminded of why I previously made a concerted effort to not read/reply to thread posts first thing in the morning.

 

dang homey…going for it with the chlorides!

the phosphoric acid will also react with the CO3 to produce H20 & CO2 helping drive down alkalinity & pH…but yeah also need to be aware it will strip some Ca as well. Looks like SFACRKnight shouldn't have problems with that though…but he could always boost with some gypsum too…

I would aim for a mash around 5.2 here seeing what looks like your mash is going for a NE-style IPA. I tend to lean towards a more acidic environment than basic for these...