Effect of acidulated malt on the flavor of my beer

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phuff7129

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I have very alkaline water (Bicarbonate - 241) and I know I should be using RO or Distilled but right now those are not an option for me, so I am trying to do the best I can with what I have.

I am using the Brunwater spreadsheet and I think I have a pretty good handle on it. Basically I am comfortable with my water adjustments but I have to acidify my mash to bring the PH down to 5.2. According to the spreadsheet I need to add 1lb of acid malt to do that.

1lb of acid malt is 7% of my grist and I am concerned that it is going to impart a very sour flavor to my APA. The only other acid I have on hand is citric acid. I have never brewed with acid malt before but after tasting the grain I found it really sour.

Any thoughts?
 
Think lemonade .. the scientists will be cringing here but there's truth to it as analogies go. You need to get a certain pH and the bicarb will be "eating up" whatever acid you add - the sugar in your lemonade. You get to a certain tartness (pH in this analogy) and it may take more or less depending how much sugar you have. When you get there you will not be more sour because you added more lemon juice, you added enough to get the right tartness. You needed it for that balance vs the sugar. pH is the same way.

If you really need 7% saurmalz to get your pH to where you need it then it's not going to be more sour than if you only needed 2%. What it will do however is begin to impart the saurmalz flavor (lemon flavor in our analogy) more assertively. Now what that is and what it may do to your APA I can't say but it will not be more sour - that I can say pretty comfortably.

So ... not even a few gallons of store-bought distilled?
 
Thanks Lee. Very nice analogy. Unfortunately I am stuck at home with no way to get to a store. My main concern was I was going to have a sour APA but it doesn't sound like it is the case. I have an RO system which is next on the list of brewery upgrades. Just have to let the price of the kegging system wear off on the SWMBO!
 
Post your water profile. You might be able to reduce alkalinity with boiling.

Kai

Calcium (ppm) Magnesium (ppm) Sodium (ppm) Sulfate (ppm) Chloride (ppm) Bicarbonate (ppm)
56 25 7 10 20 241

Thanks for taking a look.
 
Boiling would help with your water but you would need to add calcium salts (calcium chloride or gypsum) to offset the calcium that is precipitated with the carbonate when the water is boiled.

But what does your timeline look like? Boiling and the necessary settling of the precipitate would add at least 2 hrs and you want to brew today.

Instead I would not shoot for a pH as low as 5.2. This is at the lower end of the desirable range. Instead I would shoot for 5.4 which will not require that much acid malt.

What's the color or grist of your APA? For your water and a beer with about 10 SRM I need only 2% acid malt to get to a pH of 5.4. It could be that Brun Water's acid malt calculations are too aggressive and you are worrying for no reason.

Kai
 
Thanks for your analysis. Yes, I have to brew today. I am also not sure if I have enough propane to boil and extra hour or two. The SRM is 10. When I change the Brunwater mash acidification for 5.4 ph i need 8oz of acid malt so I think I will do that. Is it your opinion that the acid malt will hurt the flavor of the APA?
 
Thanks for your analysis. Yes, I have to brew today. I am also not sure if I have enough propane to boil and extra hour or two. The SRM is 10. When I change the Brunwater mash acidification for 5.4 ph i need 8oz of acid malt so I think I will do that. Is it your opinion that the acid malt will hurt the flavor of the APA?

Assuming this is a 5 gal batch I get a mash pH prediction of ~5.3 for 8 oz of acid malt. It's only 4% of the grist and I think you should be fine.

Are you able to test mash pH? I would be interesting to see where your mash pH actually ends up given the rather large discrepancy between the Brewer's Friend calculator and Brun' Water.

Kai
 
Sounds like Kai has this all tied up, but just for reassurance, I have pretty alkaline water myself and I've been using 3% acid malt for my APA's. Hasn't hurt the flavor any from what I can tell. I think you'll be fine.
 
BBL_Brewer said:
Sounds like Kai has this all tied up, but just for reassurance, I have pretty alkaline water myself and I've been using 3% acid malt for my APA's. Hasn't hurt the flavor any from what I can tell. I think you'll be fine.

Thank you for that.
I decided to use the 8oz that brunwater called for to get to 5.4 ph. My test strip said I was at 5.0 ph. They are not color phast so I don't know how accurate it is. The wort came out real nice and sweet and I didn't pick up a sour flavor. Hit my efficiency right on and my OG was 1.056 and I was expecting 1.052 so pretty close. Thanks everyone for your help !
 
Just to give you all an update on this thread. I opened my first bottle of this brew last night and it is fantastic! I have brewed this recipe 4 times now and it always has been good but with the acidulated malt and the water adjustments I made, it came out super crisp, bright, hoppy, with a nice sweetness from the malt. I pick up no flavor or notes at all from the acid malt. This is the best this beer has ever tasted. Thanks again for everyone's input.
 
Just to give you all an update on this thread. I opened my first bottle of this brew last night and it is fantastic! I have brewed this recipe 4 times now and it always has been good but with the acidulated malt and the water adjustments I made, it came out super crisp, bright, hoppy, with a nice sweetness from the malt. I pick up no flavor or notes at all from the acid malt. This is the best this beer has ever tasted. Thanks again for everyone's input.

:ban:

That's great news, and I'm so glad that you posted back the results.

I love having experts like those guys helping with the water chemistry part of brewing- it's like the final frontier for so many homebrewers. The fact that you can show the differences between the first three batches and this one proves that we can all improve our beers. Thanks for letting us know!
 
So you used 3.5% acid malt? You certainly won't get off/sour flavors from that. Weyermann (who makes acid malt) put out a PDF presentation that said it's fine up to 10% of the grist.
 
I did 8% aciduated malt in a raspberry weiss I made, hoping to compliment the tartness of the raspberries. It did what I wanted to do, but the tartness is pretty thin. If I had it to do over again, I think I would have done a 2-3 day sour mash.
 
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