Mash pH woes

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timtoos

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I did a beer today, Galaxy Delight by Dennis King.

The grist was:

Marris otter (6.0 EBC): 4.6kg

Light Maris otter (3.0 EBC): 0.35kg

Vienna (9.0 EBC): 0.3kg

Aromatic (50 EBC): 0.1kg


I brew on a Braumeister 20L set up so mashed in with 30L treated water (Gypsum, calcium chloride and Epsom salts).

I ran my water details (my water is very soft water, RO like) through Bru’n water and with the appropriate salt additions I expected a mash pH of 5.37.

I use an Extech ph110 meter for pH measurement and up to now it’s not too bad. Anyway on this brew day my mash recorded a pH of 5.70 – 5.75. The meter had been calibrated with buffers at the correct temperature of 25C. The mash sample was at 20C so all the temperatures were what I was looking for.

I let the brew go as previous attempts many moons ago to correct ended in disaster.

I am on spring water so I guess I cannot guarantee my water profile 100% all of the time. I have had the water properly analysed, but my point before, this may change. I check the TDS on every brew day and on this day it was what I would normally expect.

Do you guys have any advice? What do you think I will expect from this brew? A mess fit for the drain?

Should the brewing salts be added into the mash water? Added to the grist? Or added into hot water, dissolved as best and then added to the mash water?

TIA
 
Never waste a beer!! Let it live and use it as a data point. It will still be beer and it may turn out that there was an error somewhere that ultimately won't matter.

It's good that you're monitoring TDS of your water, but it can't tell you how the various ion concentrations have varied. It's always possible that the water alkalinity went up.

It is best to mix all your mashing salts and acid into the water so that they can be fully dissolved and dispersed. Be sure to stir, since may salts just fall to the bottom and need a little help to get into solution (stir).
 
My first AG (a Saison) I mashed at about that pH. Beer came out fine, just had naff efficiency (60%) and had to add DME to reach target.

Do you check your KH as well as your TDS at all? It's surprising how much water chemistry can differ whilst having the same TDS.
 
I completely agree with the "never waste a beer" comment.

If you want to drop the pH have you thought of adding some Lemon Juice or Grapefruit Juice as a Post Boil adjunct?

I can't give a definitive answer as to whether it would work or not, but apparently Citrus flavours in beer are popular nowadays.:gulp:
 
I don't really understand this - your ph after salt additions should have been 5.37 but in fact turned out at 5.7, is that right? That's hardly any difference at all so considering that most of us never check our water supply and just brew with it anyway, and turn out decent beer, so why should there be any problem?
 
A teaspoon of citric acid in the total brewing liqour gives me a mash pH of 5.2 - 5.3 every time. Every..single...time. Except for stout and porter which receive no acid but hit the same mash pH. Aren't I lucky?
 
I don't really understand this - your ph after salt additions should have been 5.37 but in fact turned out at 5.7, is that right? That's hardly any difference at all so considering that most of us never check our water supply and just brew with it anyway, and turn out decent beer, so why should there be any problem?

In my experience it's the difference between over 80% efficiency and 60% efficiency. Which in real terms is the difference between been able to get more beer out vs having to add more grain instead to offset lower efficiency. In terms of pH that's actually quite a big difference.
 
A teaspoon of citric acid in the total brewing liqour gives me a mash pH of 5.2 - 5.3 every time. Every..single...time. Except for stout and porter which receive no acid but hit the same mash pH. Aren't I lucky?
Going to give that a go. I haven't got a ph meter but know my water is slightly alkaline.

I ordered a pH meter and got sent a light up LED guitar. Seriously. No, it doesn't measure homebrew twang.
 
That's hardly any difference at all so considering that most of us never check our water supply and just brew with it anyway, and turn out decent beer, so why should there be any problem?
It may not sound like much of a difference, but pH 5.37 is over twice as acidic as pH 5.7.
@timtoos the problem is that predicting mash pH is very difficult, so just take not of what you did and adjust accordingly for next time. As AdeDunn suggests, it's worth checking the KH before treating your water, because it can be rather variable. At the end of the day though, a pH of 5.7 isn't all that bad. Yes it's a tad higher than you'd like, but certainly not enough to ruin the batch.
 
I appreciate that it's a very unscientific method of checking the pH but if the copper pipes at the bottom of my Mash Tun didn't come out shiny after a Mash I would assume that the pH value was too high and start to worry.

Luckily, this hasn't yet happened so I presume that my pH is okay!:gulp:
 
You never mentioned the details of your water profile ie. Calcium, Chloride, Sulphates, alkalinity, magnesium etc which you need to calculate the amount of additions to give you the correct PH value for the mash. There’s a band of salts and minerals that need to be adhered to for beer styles, the four main ones being bitter, mild, stout and lager. All of these need totally different water treatments.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
I always worked on the premise that 5.8 was the top end of the scale for brewing so you should be OK. Hope it comes out OK, this is my favorite home brew recipe.
 

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