I've got some ph adjusting I plan on doing for some upcoming beers. One beer I'm gonna shoot for a wort ph post mash/lauter of 4.5-4.8. This is for a sour wort Berliner. I'm thinking i may just adjust ph with lactic acid after all the worts collected. I have no idea though how much to add? Any links out there as to how big of either acid additions or salt additions to adjust ph up or down? Rules of thumb? I also plan on bumping ph up to 5.6-5.8 on my next dark stout/porter to try and see if that keeps the roasted malts in check with more chocolate and coffee notes. For this ill probably add baking soda to bump ph up. Again I have no idea of how much baking soda to add to increase my ph to where ill want it. Any input is appreciated. Thanks!
There are a number of water spreadsheets that can help you here: Bru’n Water, EZ Water and MpH. My personal preference is MpH. You can download v1.2 here:http://homebrewingphysics.blogspot.com/ Cheers!
I use lactic acid for sparge, if I use any. Generally, I use acidulated malt in the mash. Brewcipher can calculate it for you.
For the Berliner, I've had great success on a few batches with sour mashing. Mash in and just let the grain sit for 3 days, do not open until your ready to raise temp to mashout. The mash will smell like a vinegar cider, but it has the goods in it. This is no boil method that I did, mash out, lauter really well though & I pitched a big starter of German ale yeast to let it do it's thing then the lacto continues exert character as it sits another month or two after the sacch strain finishes. For my house Brett ales, I lower mash pH with acidulated malt. Some phosphoric acid will also work. Gypsum & roasted malts will also lower mash pH.
www.themadfermentationist.com/2013/11/focus-on-brewing-ph-american-pale-ale.html?m=1 Old sock mentions adding acid malt around ~1% of the grist to lower ph by .1 Any percentages out there on straight lactic acid and or ph raising minerals?
Do you know what the pH of your brewing water is? That's a good place to start. You'll also want to have your grain bill determined as that will impact what happens to your pH after you mash and sparge. I'd look for a link to BrewCipher (Im sure you've seen the threads) and/or Bru'n Water. These spreadsheets will give you the amounts you need for your recipe. Prepare to do a lot of reading.
Could you elaborate? I thought the ph of strike water would have influence on how you treat your strike water. Thanks.
You can have water with low or high buffering capacity. The water may be hard (Ca and Mg), which will drop pH in the mash as those hardness ions combine with phytin in the malt to produce a H+ ion, which by definition drops the pH. High alkalinity will buffer the pH. Read this. https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/water-knowledge
This is a good idea. I try to keep my dark malty ales that include chocolate and especially roasted barley in this range to take some of the harshness off of the roasted bite you can get. I'm really happy with the character of the beers as a result, and I've never had much of a problem with conversion in this range either.
Thanks Matt. Do you have a specific amount of say baking soda you add to hit your target ph on those dark beers? Say I mash in and I'm at a mash ph of 5.4. I want to raise my ph to 5.8. How much baking soda would I need?? Add a teaspoon then recheck after 5 minutes or so??
I used to use bru n water spreadsheet and I didn't have a meter so I would just go with the calculations for the water I wanted. I also had my home water profile. I recently bought a new house and have yet to get a water report. I recently got a ph meter however. So I'm currently just checking my ph on brew day after I mash in. I'm not sure exactly how much acid or baking soda to add when I want to raise or lower my mash ph.
Pat, you need to obtain your tap water information and you need to enter your water and malt information into your preferred spreadsheet (I prefer MpH) in order to determine how much of a given addition (I use lactic acid to acidify) to achieve a target mash pH. There is absolutely no way an outsider can provide additions/amounts to you. It is too dependent on the aforementioned details which we don’t have. Cheers! Jack
I was kinda hoping that there was some info out there as to amounts. Say that 10 grams of baking soda will raise your mash temp by approximately .1. Or every 2ml of lactic acid will drop your mash ph by .1. I guess ill start documenting my mash adjustments and post the results.
Yeah, the amount needed is highly dependent upon your water profile and grist. Start playing with the sheet, you'll get it. Usually, I add all the salts/acid before I mash in - then use the meter to verify. Occasionally I'll then make another addition to adjust, if it's a bit further away than I'd like (although I get pretty accurate results with MpH - usually within +/- 0.05-0.1).
I use EZ Water, though I think the other programs are just as good. Using this program I feed in my water and grist, and then make adjustments using as necessary. The program calculates how much acid malt, baking soda, or whatever may be needed to get pH in the optimal range. I probably should get a pH meter but I'm really resisting it. They're not cheap, especially when you figure in that you have to replace the probes regularly, they have to be cleaned and stored and calibrated meticulously, and I just haven't taken the plunge. Plus I'm skeptical about the whole idea of adjusting pH on the fly: seems like it would be very difficult to do in a uniform fashion throughout the mash. But I'll probably do it eventually.
I've used EZ, Bru'n, and MpH (stand-alone and via Brewcipher.) If you put the same water profile, and same recipe, in all three programs you get different numbers in each one. My efficiency and consistency has been better with the MpH calculations...I have not tested the accuracy of all 3 with a meter, however. I believe several people have done tests with EZ and Bru'n, and found the latter to be more accurate. My personal experience seems to reflect this also. Perhaps give one of the others a try, and see if you have similar results.
I have used Bru' Water, EZ Water and MpH to predict my mash pH for three different batches. For all three batches the Bru'n Water predicted a higher mash pH then what I measured. Both EZ Water and MpH provided estimates closer to the measured values. One feature that I like about MpH v1.2 is that it also provides information on the sparge water. MpH is the 'winner' for me. Needless to say but YMMV. Cheers!
