I acidify all my brewing water for every beer I produce with phosphoric acid at 1ml acid per 10l tap water. I've also used lactic acid at the same rate (1ml/10l). Acid malt will do the same thing, but the amount you use depends on the amount of dark malts in your grist, as dark malts will acidify the mash too. In a pale beer, use up to 5% and drop that down to 1-2% for a dark beer like a porter or a stout. You should also add a campden tablet (1 tablet per 80l water) to eliminate chloramines from tap water.
I've actually been meaning to arrange a bulk buy of phosphoric acid because it's hard to come by in 100-200ml quantities. Anyone interested?
Mark, when you add the acid, are you doing it to adjust the pH to a particular target number? Do you measure pH during the mash or just at the start? Do you use a meter or ph strips?
I started measuring pH with strips but I bought a pH meter too. I used to use it religiously every time I brewed to measure mash pH but I haven't used it in quite a few years now. Once you nail your water treatment it's pointless to measure pH because it's always the same.
1ml acid per 10l water is enough to get my mash pH into the proper range for anything that I brew. I actually cut back on the acid a wee bit for really dark beers with a lot of roasted malts because the roast drops the pH too. But to answer your question, you want your mash pH to be approx 4.6 - 5.8 and your sparge water should be about 6 - 6.5 but closer to 6 is better. If you monitor the pH of your runoff, stop the runoff when it hits 5.8. Above that and you're pretty much guaranteed to have an astringency problem.
Thanks that's exactly what I
Thanks that's exactly what I was looking for.
I'm sitting on an unopened 150 ml of Lactic acid from More Beer so I'm good right now.
Euan Gilmour
I acidify all my brewing
I acidify all my brewing water for every beer I produce with phosphoric acid at 1ml acid per 10l tap water. I've also used lactic acid at the same rate (1ml/10l). Acid malt will do the same thing, but the amount you use depends on the amount of dark malts in your grist, as dark malts will acidify the mash too. In a pale beer, use up to 5% and drop that down to 1-2% for a dark beer like a porter or a stout. You should also add a campden tablet (1 tablet per 80l water) to eliminate chloramines from tap water.
I've actually been meaning to arrange a bulk buy of phosphoric acid because it's hard to come by in 100-200ml quantities. Anyone interested?
Mark, when you add the acid,
Mark, when you add the acid, are you doing it to adjust the pH to a particular target number? Do you measure pH during the mash or just at the start? Do you use a meter or ph strips?
Cheers,
Ian
I started measuring pH with
I started measuring pH with strips but I bought a pH meter too. I used to use it religiously every time I brewed to measure mash pH but I haven't used it in quite a few years now. Once you nail your water treatment it's pointless to measure pH because it's always the same.
1ml acid per 10l water is enough to get my mash pH into the proper range for anything that I brew. I actually cut back on the acid a wee bit for really dark beers with a lot of roasted malts because the roast drops the pH too. But to answer your question, you want your mash pH to be approx 4.6 - 5.8 and your sparge water should be about 6 - 6.5 but closer to 6 is better. If you monitor the pH of your runoff, stop the runoff when it hits 5.8. Above that and you're pretty much guaranteed to have an astringency problem.