Acid to boiling wort

About 20 minutes into my boil (all grain batch), I checked the pH and wanted to drop it. I added 10+ drops of 85% phosphoric acid. I noticed "trash" in the wort and removed it with a fine mesh screen. Had about 1 cup of something that looked like what comes out of a dryer filter screen. Any ideas what happened here ? Never added acid, and never had this break out of solution during a boil. Thanks

Answering my own question. Kegged 5 days ago, and the beer is fine. Head retention and lacing is minimal though. 87 IBU and dry hopped with 3 oz Columbus (13.80) with no head retention. I believe I knocked proteins out of suspension with the acid addition. In hindsight, I may have done better letting the "funk" boil until the end. May have dissolved back into the wort. Beer tastes good as usual, with exception of head retention

curious non-AG guy...

why did you want to lower the Ph of your wort?

Inexperienced non-AG guy speculating:

Methinks a Ph of 5.2 yields optimal mashing of the grains.

chillHayze said:

Inexperienced non-AG guy speculating:

Methinks a Ph of 5.2 yields optimal mashing of the grains.

Click to expand...

Understood... but he added this to the BOILING WORT (ie; after the mash).

-walker

yeah, but he added it during the boil...perhaps to get in a pH range for optimal hop utilization? (Inexperienced AG guy)

Walkers ninja speed beat me to it, man he's fast!

Checked pH after beginning of boil and was 6.20
Had 2 pH meters and the first one was not accurate. Mashed at 5.25 pH, or so I thought. Had read (Noonan?) that wort pH adjustments could be made during the boil. I think if I had diluted the acid before adding to the boiling wort, the protein would not have broken out of suspension.