Sparge pH preferences. IPAs vs stouts

Alkalinity of the sparge water is more important than the pH. Sparging with low alkalinity water (which is water with small concentrations of carbonate/bicarbonate) is desirable. If one already has low-carbonate water, pH is largely irrelevant. If one has high-carbonate water, then it is best to reduce the alkalinity by adding acid. If one reduces the pH of high alkalinity water to ~5.4, then the alkalinity will be sufficiently low. Details about this can be found here.

I personally sparge with RO water.

All of this is more important when fly sparging (vs batch sparging).

Cheers!

 

Roasted malt and caramel tend to lower mash ph all by themselves... a little baking soda for buffering and you are usually good to go.

 

Your sparge water pH can affect tannin extraction and boil pH. I generally lower mine to 6 since I have alkaline water, but I'm not sure if it would make much of a difference.

 

The main point of the paper is that if you lower the pH of your sparge water to ~5.4, then you will have reduced the alkalinity sufficiently that you should not observe a substantial rise in the pH of the grain bed during the sparge. For example, if you had water with 300 ppm bicarbonate, then lowering the pH to 5.4 via acid addition will (in most cases) take the alkalinity down to ~30 ppm. I would classify 300 ppm bicarbonate as very high and 30 ppm bicarbonate as reasonably low (and perhaps at the upper end of low).

I hope this helps. Cheers!

 

My mash and sparge pH is 5.4 for all styles.