Acid malt for tartness vs. pH

Hey guys,

I recently brewed a saison using WY 3711, which is a great yeast but can lack the tartness usually associated with saisons. I understand acid malt can be added to provide the desired tartness, but what will this do to my pH?

I'm assuming here the amount of acid malt required would be more than the amount needed to balance mash pH. is this going to push my mash pH out of range?

Thanks in advance.

It could push it below the nominally published desired range but is that a bad thing for a Saison? I don't know the answer. Perhaps someone else does but if not then you must experiment. You can try, for example, setting mash pH to normal levels and, at the completion of the mash, adding extra sauermalz or lactic acid.

I brew a lot of saisons, but cannot say that acid malt in the grist is really apparent in the flavor. I could use more acid malt I suppose, but I already mash my saisons around 5.2. If it falls below 5.0 there may be some issues with extract efficiency. I would also make sure that I am not using any alkali to buffer the pH when using acid malt - I believe the tartness is from the acid and the yeast and not from the malts. I often adjust down my finished saisons with a few drops of lactic acid to get the snap I am looking for (to taste, not in any scientific process).

mchrispen said:

I often adjust down my finished saisons with a few drops of lactic acid to get the snap I am looking for (to taste, not in any scientific process).

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Thanks for the response guys. Mchrispen - I heard about doing this. Do you add it after fermentation or during?

Because I am adjusting for taste... I wait until the beer has finished. Yeast selection has a lot to do with the acid production in fermentation, some of the saison yeasts bring the pH way down and don't need adjustment.

When adjusting, just make sure you can scale your acid addition to the whole batch. I tend to use 100 ml samples of the beer and dilute my lactic 1:1 with distilled so I can get a more accurate reading of the addition. You can do it by drops (not so accurate) or by weight (more accurate). I like to have three samples in front of me - add 1/2/4 drops and pick which is best. Then repeat with the good sample, adjusting up or down to fine tune.

I have also done this with tartaric acid and citric acid. Both bring some different flavors to the table - but fun to experiment with. Lactic and phosphoric are more convenient in their liquid forms.

Thanks for the advice mchrispen.