Five Star 5.2 Stabilizer: Obsolete?

Not obsolete in a general sense of the product, just wondering how much it affects your brewing water chemistry, and how. I'm finally getting into adjusting my chemistry with salts and minerals, and I've dialed in my numbers, for instance, for a Helles Bock by adding 1.5gm of calcium chloride and .5gm of baking soda. But nowhere can I find what the makeup of the 5.2 stabilizer is...so I don't know what kind of effect it has on my water. All it says is that it's a "proprietary blend of phosphate buffers", but will this actually change my water numbers significantly? I don't have a pH meter, but I do know that I've always gotten better efficiency when I use the stuff.

So, now that I'm calculating and adjusting my water chemistry, should I stop using this stuff? It'd help if they listed the ingredients. And I don't want to wait until my mash to find out that my pH is way off...water report says my brewing water is 6.46, but that's not the same as mash pH.

It does not change it. It is a buffer that keeps the chemistry from dropping below 5.2. For example, if you add some phosphoric acid and it had the potential due to the amount to drop the mash to 4 the 5.2 would keep it at that, 5.2, and not allow the acid to drop the mash ph that much.

I suppose it would not hurt to still use it just in case you accidentally add to much of something. Put it this way, it can not hurt.

Thanks---that makes sense. I just got a little concerned when the tech sheet for the stuff said that it was "like adding brewing salts".

yeah, im not sure i would sub it for other salts like it suggests. I use it sometimes when i remember and I do not notice too much of a difference but I have really good water to brew with so i do not regularly adjust my water but like you have been thinking about doing it for some time just to take the homebrewing to the next level.

On a semi-related note:

1. Does this product increase mash/sparge efficiency?
2. When do you measure the mash ph? Beginning of the mash, end, sparge?

I would measure at the begining. A mash at 5.2 is perfect for extracting the most amount of sugars without getting to acidic and extracting tannins from the grain.

Reverend JC said:

yeah, im not sure i would sub it for other salts like it suggests. I use it sometimes when i remember and I do not notice too much of a difference but I have really good water to brew with so i do not regularly adjust my water but like you have been thinking about doing it for some time just to take the homebrewing to the next level.

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Well, I'm delving into it, and I must say, more than anything else in this hobby, it is really effing confusing!! I'm no dunce, either...I just don't get, for instance, how, when I plug the actual numbers from Munich into JP's spreadsheet, it says "VERY BITTER", but the beers from Munich, like Maerzen, are anything but. I can't yet wrap my head fully around the concept of just balancing the chloride/sulfate ratio for lighter or darker beers, versus upping my total numbers for various flavor influences. Right now, I'm sticking to the former---just adding some calcium chloride and baking soda to bring my chloride/sulfate ratio from "very bitter" to "malty". We'll see if it makes any difference.

Im not sure about that. I wonder if it is referring to the perception of the hops and how they relate to the hardness of water. For example we all know the harder the water (burton on trent) the more bitterness is perceived vs a softer water (pilsen) and how those seem a bit more malty.

As far as the program telling you it will be very bitter im not sure.

Reverend JC said:

Im not sure about that. I wonder if it is referring to the perception of the hops and how they relate to the hardness of water. For example we all know the harder the water (burton on trent) the more bitterness is perceived vs a softer water (pilsen) and how those seem a bit more malty.

As far as the program telling you it will be very bitter im not sure.

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It's a function, mainly, of the residual alkalinity of your water. The higher your RA, the better it is for dark beers. The ratio of chloride to sulfates deals with whether the water will accentuate bitterness or maltiness. The higher your chloride:sulfate ratio is, the more malty it will be; the lower it is, the more bitter it will be. Of course this is only a piece in the puzzle---maltiness and bitterness are functions largely of your malt/grain bill and mash temps---but this is really just fine-tuning for particular styles and beer colors. For instance, you'll be able to brew a better stout, using the exact same recipe, if your RA is higher. You can make it maltier if you have a higher C:S ratio. I'm still new to this, but that's how I understand it so far.

Not related, but Rev and his 1250 gallons ytd can kiss my arse.

Hm, reading JP a little more, it seems like the RA affects your mash pH, which is what affects the acidity of the final product. Higher pH is desired for darker beers...so that means that perhaps the 5.2 buffer is not a good thing to add, as it would ostensibly cancel out any adjustments you have made to your RA.

I remember reading some threads around here on the constituents of the 5.2. Do an in-depth search, but i vaugely remember it being phophate based (?)

Edit: Found it. My memory's getting better than it used to be.

Evan! said:

Hm, reading JP a little more, it seems like the RA affects your mash pH, which is what affects the acidity of the final product. Higher pH is desired for darker beers...so that means that perhaps the 5.2 buffer is not a good thing to add, as it would ostensibly cancel out any adjustments you have made to your RA.

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I'm not sure about the 5.2 buffer, but if it is as Reverend JC says... to not allow the mash pH to go below 5.2, then it would be a good thing for dark beers. The reason a normally-higher-mash-pH-with-lighter-beers is good for darker beers is because the darker malts bring down the mash pH more than do lighter malts. So, you have to compensate for that or it could bring the mash pH down too low. IIRC, you want to stay above 4.7 for mash pH. So, 5.2 buffer could theoretically be good for darker beers if it prevents it from getting too low.

I have just started making water adjustments as well. For what it's worth, I've been using the buffer to handle the ph side of things. Unless you are doing something super dark, your pH shouldn't be a huge obstacle.

With the Buffer in the mash, I'm just adding Salts to get the level of calcium over 50ppm and the chloride/sulfate ratio in the favor of the style I'm brewing.

My plan is to get used to that and then slowly integrate the pH into it.

I've listened to the 'Waterganza' on the Brewing Network 2 times and am still not 100% sure about it either -- it is definitely not easy.

Stevorino said:

Unless you are doing something super dark, your pH shouldn't be a huge obstacle.

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+1, unless you (are lucky enough to) have really soft water. I don't. Dark beers mash just fine with my unadjusted tap water, but I do add gypsum/CaCl2 to the sparge to keep the pH down and make the yeast happy. For lighter beers, I use part RO water and/or gypsum/CaCl2 in the mash.

Listening to Colin Kaminsky on the BN*, it seems that SO4:Cl2 ratios ought to be well over 1 for most beers.

*Session 5-31-09, 2:04

water chemistry IS hard to understand. so much of it relies upon understanding chemsitry far more than 'the layman' can grasp.

menschmaschine said:

I'm not sure about the 5.2 buffer, but if it is as Reverend JC says... to not allow the mash pH to go below 5.2, then it would be a good thing for dark beers. The reason a normally-higher-mash-pH-with-lighter-beers is good for darker beers is because the darker malts bring down the mash pH more than do lighter malts. So, you have to compensate for that or it could bring the mash pH down too low. IIRC, you want to stay above 4.7 for mash pH. So, 5.2 buffer could theoretically be good for darker beers if it prevents it from getting too low.

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But if it also prevents it from getting high enough...then that's not a good thing. I think the confusion here is that there is an assumption that 5.2 pH, as a MASH pH, is absolutely ideal. From reading JP, this is not the case. Yes, you want higher water pH (or, more accurately, RA) because the acid in the roasted malts tends to bring the mash pH down more, but from what I've read in How to Brew, you still want your final mash pH to be higher in darker beers than in lighter ones. He also says, flat out, that using a one-size-fits-all buffer like 5.2 doesn't always yield the mash you want.

In any case, I am brewing a BDSA right now, and I added some (not a lot) calcium chloride to bring my chloride/sulfate ratio to a maltier place, and some baking soda to raise my RA...though, my RA is lower than his suggested range for this SRM (20) because all my color is coming from stuff like munich and special B, not from roasted malts, so I don't have to worry as much about overly acidic mash. I'm forgoing the 5.2 this time, so we'll see...

Stevorino said:

I have just started making water adjustments as well. For what it's worth, I've been using the buffer to handle the ph side of things. Unless you are doing something super dark, your pH shouldn't be a huge obstacle.

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But from what I understand from HtB, it's not about "handling" the pH by stabilizing at 5.2.

5.2 stabilizer stabilizes the pH at 5.2. That's great if the style you're brewing benefits from a mash with a pH of 5.2, but raising the RA in darker beers isn't just about counteracting the pH-lowering effects of roasted malts---it's about getting a higher mash pH after you take into account those roasted malts. So maybe you want 5.8 for a stout, because that rounds out those roasty edges better...you wouldn't want the 5.2 buffer bringing your mash pH down to 5.2, would ya?

Anyway, I could be completely wrong, but this is how I understand it from HtB after doing some reading today.

Evan! said:

but from what I've read in How to Brew, you still want your final mash pH to be higher in darker beers than in lighter ones.

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I'm not sure about HtB, but my understanding is that a pH range of 5.2 to 5.5 is good for any beer. That is, this is the best range of mash pH, regardless of the color of the malts used as it straddles the line for all enzymatic activity.

Their "proprietary blend" of phosphate buffers, is probably mostly Potassium Phosphate Monobasic (KH2PO4). Most lab recipes for phosphate buffers are a mix of the monobasic and dibasic forms and are generally only used down to a pH of 5.8 (~90% monobasic at this pH). However the monobasic form itself has a solution pH of 4.4 - 4.7 according to the Merck Index. I'd also suspect it is the potassium salts, not the sodium salts, as too much Na is not good and I've never heard anyone say anything about too much K (not proof, I know).

Assuming mostly the monobasic, and ignoring the small amount of dibasic, in doing your calculations, for every 10g of 5.2 there is probably 2.9 gms of K and 2.2 gms of P, the 2H and 4O make up the rest

menschmaschine said:

I'm not sure about HtB, but my understanding is that a pH range of 5.2 to 5.5 is good for any beer. That is, this is the best range of mash pH, regardless of the color of the malts used as it straddles the line for all enzymatic activity.

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Well I just emailed JZ, so we'll see what he says. What I don't get is, if 5.2 is good for all beers, why there's so much hullabaloo made by JP and others regarding RA and mash pH. Just add 5.2 buffer and be done, right? That's what I can't wrap my head around, so we'll see what JZ says.

Evan,

If you want to know what Cl:SO4 ratios John Palmer is using to decide what is "malty" and what is "bitter", scroll over to the far right of the water spreadsheet (to columns T & U) and you will see a little table. This little table gives the breakpoints between each different balance descriptor (i.e. Bitter vs. malty etc.). I know this doesn't necessarily answer all of your other questions, but at least it tells you how the spreadsheet decides what the balance of your water will yield. Also, I'm not sure if you saw the discussion in the brew science forum about the Cl:SO4 ratio (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/help-me-understand-chloride-sulfate-ratio-117953/), TheChemist posted some info about a test he did by varying this ratio and its effect on flavor and mouthfeel. Very informative and worth checking out. Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Greg

gregdech said:

Evan,

If you want to know what Cl:SO4 ratios John Palmer is using to decide what is "malty" and what is "bitter", scroll over to the far right of the water spreadsheet (to columns T & U) and you will see a little table. This little table gives the breakpoints between each different balance descriptor (i.e. Bitter vs. malty etc.). I know this doesn't necessarily answer all of your other questions, but at least it tells you how the spreadsheet decides what the balance of your water will yield. Also, I'm not sure if you saw the discussion in the brew science forum about the Cl:SO4 ratio (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/help-me-understand-chloride-sulfate-ratio-117953/), TheChemist posted some info about a test he did by varying this ratio and its effect on flavor and mouthfeel. Very informative and worth checking out. Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Greg

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No new news to me, except for thechemist link. I'm not confused about the chloride:sulfate ratio---that makes sense to me. It's more about the RA and mash pH, and whether you need to worry about it at all, or if I can just keep on using 5.2 stabilizer.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/5-2-chemical-composition-86553/

As per Five Star;

"... The 5.2 stabilizer is a blend of two salts. They are neutralized versions of phosphoric acid. They are monosodium phosphate (Na H2 PO4) and disodium phosphate (Na2HPO4) in the right ratio they will form a buffer that locks the pH at 5.2..."

If your water is way off from the style you'd have to have too much 5.2 stabilizer to get it right. Also I think all the talk about water chemistry is so that you don't have to use 5.2 stabilizer. If you have your RA right you should hit the mash PH pretty close without phosphate buffers.

GilaMinumBeer said:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/5-2-chemical-composition-86553/

As per Five Star;

"... The 5.2 stabilizer is a blend of two salts. They are neutralized versions of phosphoric acid. They are monosodium phosphate (Na H2 PO4) and disodium phosphate (Na2HPO4) in the right ratio they will form a buffer that locks the pH at 5.2..."

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Then it must nearly all be monobasic (Na H2 PO4) to get that pH as at 9:1 the pH would be 5.8 and would go up from there as the ratio gets smaller (more dibasic added)

Again ignoring the small amount of dibasic, then for 10 gms of buffer, one is adding 1.9 gms of Na and 2.5 gms of P.

When adding salts to get to a specific water style you are adding to the RA and messing with the mash ph as well as the hardness. When you add the 5.2 it allows you to add the hardness to the water without worring about the ph.

That is how i understand it in laymans terms.

I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT!

John Palmer's Nomograph FTW!