I brewed a pale ale today. My mash pH was a tad lower than I'd wanted, at 5.29, but I was fine with it (I'll just add 1ml of lactic acid next time, instead of 2.). Anyways, the potential problem I ran in to was me not thinking. I used Poland Springs water for my water, including the sparge. The alkalnity, based on reports I've seen online, and a kH test kit I have, is about 20 as CaCO3. Stupidly I added 2ml of lactic acid to the sparge water (I should have just left it alone.). I'm not sure what the pH of the sparge water was, but I'd imagine it was pretty low, considering the low alkalinity. However, I'm also thinking there would have been basically no alkalnity left in the water after the acid was added, and therefore the pH of the grain bed, since the the grain bed acts as its own buffer, would have prevented much of or most of any pH change from the residual acid. I know a lower boil pH can lower hop utilization. Can anyone think of any other problems I might run in to if the boil pH was too low? Does anyone know if it's likely that the finished pH of the beer will end up too low?