first mash pH reading

[motobrewer]

I followed aj's advice in the water sticky. I used 0.68 gram/gallon of CaCl in RO water on a 36 SRM robust porter.

pH was 5.19. pretty happy with that.

I do have a question - how do you guys pull your pH samples? Do you guys care about grain husks in the sample?

My procedure was:

1. Dough in, stir as normal, wait 5 minutes.
2. Vourlauf as if about to sparge
3. Pull 100mL of wort
4. Cool in an ice bath (86F)
5. Test

I think it was fine but the problem was it took about 20 minutes before I got a reading. At that point it seems like it might be too late to make adjustments...

 

[ajdelange]

How you pull the sample isn't so important. What is important is that the mash be well mixed. After 15 min or so the pH should have come to nearly its equilibrium value. Just grab some liquid at this point. It doesn't matter if there are husks or fragments of kernels in the sample though you should be sure to get them rinsed off before storing the meter. Cool to 70 - 75 °F and insert the electrode and read the pH.

 

[motobrewer]

Cool, thanks AJ. That's what I did today, after about 10 minutes I ladled a sample out, cooled it, and tested.