Mashing a strawberry blonde

Hey all, I'm going to be making a strawberry blonde next week and had a few questions regarding how to mash this beer. Since this beer will be lightly hopped with only a 60 minute addition and the grist is 80-20 pilsner/wheat, I'm afraid I won't have a ph suited for optimal mashing. What should I do to overcome this? I plan on using strait RO, or some kind of blend of RO and tap. Thanks in advance!

Look in to this.

Acid malt or water additions or acid rest. I know the typical tricks, trying to get advice on which is best.

whats wrong with that grist.....seems fine to me. why not use non-RO water?

Do you have a water report and ph meter? No sense in just adding salts/acid based on conjecture.

Ph 7.4
Total alkalinity as caco3 174
Bicarbonate 212
Fluoride .26
Chloride 52
Sulfate 14
TDS 290
Calcium 50.9
Iron .335
Mg 8.28
Sodium 39.7

I typically dilute my water with 50-75 % RO or Distilled due to iron concentration.

You need to plug those numbers into a spread sheet, here's a good one. That will tell you what you need to add.

http://www.ezwatercalculator.com/

I use that spreadsheet, however, I'm not sure if I should just put a lot of gypsum in, use acid malt, or just go with a ph stabilizer.

tmurph6 said:

I use that spreadsheet, however, I'm not sure if I should just put a lot of gypsum in, use acid malt, or just go with a ph stabilizer.

Click to expand...

No gypsum, but I'd definitely dilute with a significant amount of RO water to drop the alkalinity!

Pick one method. Try it. Pick another next time. Try that. Continue with small batches until you find what works for you best.

I run HERMS so the acid rest is my method of choice because I can do steps pretty easy.