Brewing water.... again.

[berley]

Just curious as to what you guys and gals do when it comes to water pH.

For your mash water, do you add brewing salts to lower mash pH (as well as add calcium, sulfate, etc.)? Do you CHECK your pH for your mash water? If so, using a pH meter, or color-coded strips?

And for sparge water, do you check the pH there as well? And/or treat with phosphoric or lactic acid to lower pH?

pH meters seem expensive and a bit picky when it comes to longevity, storage, etc.

[mr x]

I checked my waters about 5 years ago when I started brewing, and haven't bothered since. I have pretty soft water, so I'm confident the pH goes the right way for me. I add salts per the style I'm brewing with no worries. If I'm doing a heavy percentage wheat beer, I might add a few drops of phosphoric acid to the water, but that's it.

[akr71]

I use this spreadsheet. It gives an estimation of the mash pH based on the grain bill and salt additions. I've used the crappy test strips a couple times, but since I don't seem to be having conversion issues, I don't usually bother. Like X, I'm mostly concerned about getting appropriate for style - mash pH seems to fall in line. I've never really concerned myself with the sparge water.

Bru'n Water v1_10us.xls

[berley]

Yeah, I've seen those spreadsheets before, and in this case I'm actually more wondering about the sparge water.

I know most people don't concern themselves with the sparge pH, but re-reading some of "Brewing Better Beer" by Gordon Strong, he mentioned about it being important to have your sparge water below pH 5.8 or so, to prevent leeching of tannins and such. Seems like phosphoric acid is a good way to lower pH in sparge water... I know Fredericton city water pH is listed as 7.8 (pretty high), so I'd be curious if I'd notice a difference in astringency if I bothered to use some phosphoric acid when sparging.

[mr x]

My water has a high pH too, but it is so soft, it has almost no buffering capacity to stay that high. Mash brings it down.

Sent from my Nexus S

[berley]

My water has a high pH too, but it is so soft, it has almost no buffering capacity to stay that high. Mash brings it down.

Sent from my Nexus S

Ah, so you mean your alkalinity is low... unfortunately, while mine isn't super-high, it could still stand to be a lot lower. Another option would be to cut the whole amount with distilled water. Or use RO water for sparging, I suppose.

[NASH]

Malt has a HUGE buffering capacity so basically you don't need to do anything to keep your mash PH in line. If you think you do and want to measure something, measure the mash. That will show if you need any water adjustments. For sparge water, it's not that important until you get toward the final runnings although this is somewhat dependant upon your sparge technique. One question is, how final are your final runnings? PH of your final runnings fall somewhat inline with sugar content, when the sugar content falls you slowly loose buffering capacity therefore PH begins to rise. For many craft brewers it's of little concern because final runnings gravity well exceeds 4, 6 or 8 percent sugar in solution, final runnings of big beers can be a lot higher. So, it becomes more important if you brew small beers and fly sparge leeching everything possible from the malt, like the big boys. Once you get down below ~ 4% sugar the PH will begin to sky-rocket. If a mash/fly sparge is calculated out perfectly for your brewhouse efficiency on a 1.045 wort your final runnings should drop to ~2% sugar content, possibly as low as 1%, in this scenario acidifying sparge water is very important. Likewise, acidifying sparge water is much more important with a fly sparge than with BIAB or batch sparging so brewing technique can have a lot to do with it. If you're set on acidifying the water then let's say the ideal mash PH of today's brew is 5.3, then what should you acidify your sparge water to? You guessed it, 5.3. You're going to make good beer either way, acidifying sparge water is a bit of an added safety buffer for fly-sparge technique and much more so when combined with lower gravity brews

[berley]

Malt has a HUGE buffering capacity so basically you don't need to do anything to keep your mash PH in line. If you think you do and want to measure something, measure the mash. That will show if you need any water adjustments. For sparge water, it's not that important until you get toward the final runnings although this is somewhat dependant upon your sparge technique. One question is, how final are your final runnings? PH of your final runnings fall somewhat inline with sugar content, when the sugar content falls you slowly loose buffering capacity therefore PH begins to rise. For many craft brewers it's of little concern because final runnings gravity well exceeds 4, 6 or 8 percent sugar in solution, final runnings of big beers can be a lot higher. So, it becomes more important if you brew small beers and fly sparge leeching everything possible from the malt, like the big boys. Once you get down below ~ 4% sugar the PH will begin to sky-rocket. If a mash/fly sparge is calculated out perfectly for your brewhouse efficiency on a 1.045 wort your final runnings should drop to ~2% sugar content, possibly as low as 1%, in this scenario acidifying sparge water is very important. Likewise, acidifying sparge water is much more important with a fly sparge than with BIAB or batch sparging so brewing technique can have a lot to do with it. If you're set on acidifying the water then let's say the ideal mash PH of today's brew is 5.3, then what should you acidify your sparge water to? You guessed it, 5.3. You're going to make good beer either way, acidifying sparge water is a bit of an added safety buffer for fly-sparge technique and much more so when combined with lower gravity brews

I've brewed 52 batches now, and never have fly sparged once! It's your typical stainless-steel braid, Coleman cooler mash tun. And I'm not too concerned about getting all I can from the malt either, so maybe it'll be ok.

I was more concerned with paler beers, since I assume that when brewing porters and stouts, they're doing more than enough to bring the pH down, like you said.

Either way, right now I don't have a pH meter or even the strips, so I have no way of knowing exactly what I'd be getting my sparge water to, if I added phosphoric acid. I wouldn't start adding anything unless I had an accurate way to measure it, or I'd likely just make things worse!