Just curious if anyone knows or could measure the pH of PtE? I had a fresh Maine Dinner and it was 4.8 which led me to wondering if that is normal for the well regarded west coast style IPAs.
Is that a degassed sample with a well calibrated meter? That seems very high for Dinner. It’s rare to see final beer pH above 4.6 and for microbial stability issues it’s not really encouraged. I’d guess Pliny is closer to 4.4/4.5 final pH although there are a lot of other pH readings throughout the process that are much more important.
It does sound a bit high. It's also worth mentioning that heavily dry hopped beers tend have a higher finished pH than beers that aren't.
I did not degas the sample since I had read somewhere on here that it does not make a large difference. I just checked the pH meter used and it reads +/-0.01pH expected with both a 4.01 solution and a 7.01 solution (off the shelf). I sampled a different DDH ipa just now and it also read what might be called high at 4.71pH. After degassing it read 4.88 pH, but it had warmed from 11.2C to 14.8C.
Vinny provided in a Craft Beer & Brewing podcast that they target 4.3 when starting the dry hop. PtY is around 4.5 after dry hop. He also mentioned that 4.6 pH is the dividing line for what is considered safe for consumption (or at least to the FDA is more susceptible to bacterial contamination as the pH goes higher than 4.6).
Thanks for that. Dry hopping will increase pH, that has been found. A pH of 4.6 or less suppresses botulism spores, hence food safe.
