3% acid malt over taste threshold

I've been working on using acid malt to get my mash pH right and have found that 3% brings the mash down, but also makes a tart beer. It is not undrinkable, just noticeable.

How much acid malt do you all use on a regular basis?

For the record:
4 lb pilsner malt
4 lb two row
2 lb flaked corn
4 oz acid malt
Zeus for bittering
Saaz for flavor
3.5 g calcium chloride

Our well water is med-low hardness and slightly acidic. Without the acid malt this mash would be about pH 6.1, with the acid malt it was 5.3. It was fermented with US05 to 77% apparent attenuation.

riderkb said:

I've been working on using acid malt to get my mash pH right and have found that 3% brings the mash down, but also makes a tart beer. It is not undrinkable, just noticeable.

How much acid malt do you all use on a regular basis?

For the record:
4 lb pilsner malt
4 lb two row
2 lb flaked corn
4 oz acid malt
Zeus for bittering
Saaz for flavor

Our well water is med-low hardness and slightly acidic. Without the acid malt this mash would be about pH 6.1, with the acid malt it was 5.3. It was fermented with US05 to 77% apparent attenuation.

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I don't usually notice any tartness with a mash pH of 5.3, but I usually go with a mash pH of 5.4 in lighter beers. Could that be why?

Yooper said:

I don't usually notice any tartness with a mash pH of 5.3, but I usually go with a mash pH of 5.4 in lighter beers. Could that be why?

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I forgot to mention that I added 3.5g of calcium chloride, not that it should have a big effect.

Have you done comparison batches without pH correction? My beer came out tasting similar in tartness to many commercial beers, not sour by any means, just not what I've become accustomed to in my homebrew.

I'm going to check the pH of some finished beers to see how mine compares.

Of the three home brews on tap, two measured 4.7 and one was 5.0. We had a can of Sunken City Steemboat and a bottle of Star Hill Northern Lights open; both were 5.0. This was with an uncalibrated pH pen, but I can say for certain that 0.3 pH units is a tasteable difference.

In the future I'm going to stick to 3 oz of acid malt or less.

riderkb said:

Of the three home brews on tap, two measured 4.7 and one was 5.0. We had a can of Sunken City Steemboat and a bottle of Star Hill Northern Lights open; both were 5.0. This was with an uncalibrated pH pen, but I can say for certain that 0.3 pH units is a tasteable difference.

In the future I'm going to stick to 3 oz of acid malt or less.

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But finished beer is always lower than wort. In fact, the pH of the wort is much lower just after the boil, and then during fermentation the yeast lowers the pH even more. So, post boil wort has a lower pH than the mash pH as well. That really doesn't tell you anyting- except 5.0 is a very high pH for a finished beer so I suspect your meter is faulty. I think most beers are 4.0-4.5 pH, with 4.5 being on the high end.

Im with Yooper. I think your meter is faulty. If your water is slightly acidic and you are adding that much acid malt, the PH would be lower than 5.3 would be my guess. you may not even need any acid malt.

It is probably not faulty, just uncalibrated, which doesn't change the fact that the tart-tasting beers are 0.3 pH units lower than the others.

riderkb said:

It is probably not faulty, just uncalibrated, which doesn't change the fact that the tart-tasting beers are 0.3 pH units lower than the others.

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If it's not calibrated you don't really know that despite you believing a difference in reading means for sure that the beers are 0.3 apart. Also, that difference in pH is not going to make a noticeably tarter beer. Lastly, I seriously doubt 4oz of acid malt would affect the flavor in any detectable way. I think something else did it.


Rev.

I just got into the water/mineral/ph side of homebrewing. I found that personally I could taste the tart/sourness of acid malt at only 3 oz per 5 (6.5) gal batch. I didn't like it so I went to phos acid. I can taste it too. It tastes like a Dr. Pepper. I'm also getting this metallic tone in the aftertaste, whereas with lactic it was a coating sourness.

In one sense I love what proper ph does to my beers. efficiency, hot break, clarity, shelf life, etc... But I can taste these acids. I have read the taste thresholds for both, but I can taste it. I would love for someone to shine some light on this for all of us who are struggling with this now and in the future.

What is standard for breweries? Who doesn't have to acidify there water in light beers? This hobby is getting complicated. rant end

I did one batch with citric acid for mash pH adjustment and two others with acid malt (lactic acid). The ones that have mash pH below 5.5 taste tart regardless of which acid I use. I am going to try just 2 oz of acid malt in my next batch, which will probably get the mash to pH 5.6.

If I have to use more than 2 oz acid malt in the future then I'm also going to bump up the kettle pH with calcium carbonate. I like my beer bitter and the tart-bitter combination is not pleasant.

Ok I've had a few, but you say medium low hardness water- so RO wouldn't be much better correct? Really what I want to say is can you modify your water or cut it with RO so you can add less acid. I don't want to argue whether you are or aren't tasting it, just I always try to add minerals and the least amount of acid without getting too crazy mineral additions.

Using minerals should be the first step. Getting Calcium between 50-80ppm and having Chloride and Sulfate below 100ppm should give you pretty good water for low SRM beers. Now some like to jack that Sulfate up to 300ppm on pale ales but that's a personal thing, not a water chemistry requirement.

In all my pale beers I use RO water, the above numbers and 1-2% (usually about 3-4oz) acid malt and end up with 5.3-5.4 mash pH without any liquid acid adjustments.

If a mash pH of 5.3-5.4 generates a beer that is too tart for your taste then you are going to have to mash at a higher pH and take the hit on the benefits of that pH range.

I have never had a tart beer using that amount of acid malt.

bigdongsr94 said:

Really what I want to say is can you modify your water or cut it with RO so you can add less acid.

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I'm not the OP but when I tried cutting my water with RO water I wound up with a higher pH. Unless I did something wrong the only thing I can see is that I made the water have less buffering capability since I then had less minerals in the water to buffer the pH?


Rev.

I'd rather have tart beers, than the blue moon clone I did that tasted like soap for 4 months. 8.9 PH tap water ftw. Had no clue my tap water was this bad, after running the numbers my mash would've been around 6.0 for the blue moon.

Moral of the story, my dark beers always tasted fien, pale beers were always unusual and now I know why.

Rev2010 said:

I'm not the OP but when I tried cutting my water with RO water I wound up with a higher pH. Unless I did something wrong the only thing I can see is that I made the water have less buffering capability since I then had less minerals in the water to buffer the pH?


Rev.

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That's not possible. RO water can't possibly make the pH go up- it has little alkalinity and can't raise the pH.

Cutting your alkaline water with RO is the perfect way to dilute your tap water, and I do it all the time to ensure a good mash pH. Some acid may still be required, especially for the lightest beers, but sometimes none at all is needed when starting with RO water.