Hasty mistake with acid and mineral additions

[Phlyborn]

This past weekend a buddy and I brewed a Pale Ale. During the course of the day an event happened (armed police investigating a club across the street) which slightly distracted us. After the sparge was complete we realized the sparge additions were not made. So in our haste I added the minerals and lactic acid to the boil. However, we are using a HERMS and the additions were for 11Gal in the HLT not the 6.6Gal used for sparging. So now I'm wondering what we might expect in the finished product?

Grain bill:
16lbs brewers malt
2lbs Crystal 40l
13oz. Vienna malt

Water: (distilled water built up)
8.7Gal. in mash
2.2g. Gypsum 2.2 Epsom Salt 4.4 CaCl 0.9g Baking Soda

6.6Gal Sparge
2.8g. Gypsum 2.8 Epsom Salt. 5.5 CaCl. 14.7mL lactic acid

Boil volume was 12.8Gal and fern volume is 10.25Gal.

 

[doomy86]

You add the acid to get a correct PH in the mash. So it probably did nothing adding it that late.

There is some complex chemistry going on with the minerals in the mash and at fermentation. I can not even guess how the final product will be different.

 

[doug293cz]

Barring any other mistakes, you will still end up with beer. Probably the worst that could happen would be if the sparge water pH was too high, you might get some tannins and associated astringency in the beer. But, this is a small risk. Let the beer fully ferment before making any decisions.

Brew on

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Barring any other mistakes, you will still end up with beer. Probably the worst that could happen would be if the sparge water pH was too high, you might get some tannins and associated astringency in the beer. But, this is a small risk. Let the beer fully ferment before making any decisions.

Brew on

With 14.7 ml of lactic acid in the sparge the pH would be way low, not high. Brulosophy recently added 19 ml of lactic to a mash (not the sparge) and mashed at pH 4.45, and the batch fermented out just fine, and the taste testers in the end could not statistically distinguish it from the no lactic acid added control batch. Your pale ale will most likely be fine.

 

[mabrungard]

If you were also using distilled water for the sparging water, you shouldn't have any problems. If you were using tap water, its high alkalinity could easily be a problem. It doesn't look like the original mineral and acid additions were targeting highly mineralized levels, so you are probably fine. It doesn't matter too much when you add the sparge minerals, either in that water or directly into the kettle is fine.

 

[Phlyborn]

Thank you for the replies. Distilled water was used for both mash and sparge. The mash pH was fine (5.47) and the sparge final runnings were pH5.9 with 1.015gravity. In the end it will be beer just wanted to hear from others what might happen. It is going strong and has a strong fruity/ bready aroma filling the whole room!View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1489083968.878379.jpg

 

[day_trippr]

Ummm (waves hand) I think there might be another problem

 

[jbunton]

Blow off tube candidate right there. I'd change that before you got a real big mess

 

[Phlyborn]

Ha, yeah it was caught but not fast enough[emoji43]. London Ale III is really vigorous [emoji291]!