opinions on star-san's pH stabilizer?

[brewgrl]

Hello happy brewers...

I'm getting geared up for my first AG batch and I just got my water report from the local company:

The pH is about 8.1(!) and the total alkalinity is around 100 with the hardness being about 70 (averaged from our six community wells). Unfortunately, they didn't provide figures for Ca and Mg beyond the total "hardness".

Thus, I'm thinking that my water might be a good candidate for a pH stabilizer product...what are your thoughts on them? Are they a quick and easy fix as advertised?

thanks for the input!

 

[z987k]

It's not the pH of the water that matters, rather the pH of the mash. The mash should bring the pH down. I say do your first AG, take the pH and go from there.

 

[malkore]

I've yet to see anyone with a negative report on pH 5.2 stabilizer.

I use it unless its a dark beer (porter, stout), because I have fairly hard, ph 7.8 tap water myself.

 

[z987k]

I guess I could add that my water's pH is in the 8's at well but all my mashes I have cared to test have been right around 5.4. In fact I doubt anyone's water is below 7 unless they're using rainwater.

 

[WBC]

Some don't get it.......... Test the mash PH, not the water. If the mash is out of the conversion range of PH then, and only then do you need stabilizer.

 

[BBboomer]

Listen to WBC, he has it right on the mark.
It is the PH of the MASH not the water!
5.2 may not hurt anything, but if you don't need it save the money for things you do need.

 

[ajf]

As some others have said, you may not need it. The pH of your tap water really doesn't matter as much as the buffering capacity of that water.
To find out if you need it, you need to do one of two thing.
1. Measure the pH of your mash. If the pH is greater than 5.5, then you would probably benefit by using the buffer. If not, you would be wasting your money on using a stabilizer.
2. Make 2 identical brews, one using the stabiizer. and one not. If there's a substantial improvement in efficiency when using the stabilizer, then it would probably be a good idea..

If you choose option 1, I have found that the pH strips are a waste of time as the color of the wort affected the reading. (If you brew very light colored beers, you may get better results.) You will need either to perform a titration with calibrated equipment and reagents or invest in a pH meter where the cost of replacement electrodes will almost certainly exceed the cost of using the buffer by a considerable extent.

Hope this helps.

-a,

 

[brewgrl]

hey all,
Thanks for your responses. I am (and have been) aware that it is the mash pH that counts!
As a somewhat paranoid beginning AG brewer, I was just afraid that I'd go ahead and do my first AG batch only to discover that my mash pH was out-of-control high! Thus, I thought that it might be a good idea to have some kind of pH stabilizer/acid/calcium product around just in case.

I got some pH paper that should work fine for my planned wit (thanks for the heads up on color and pH paper, ajf) and I think I'll just go for it and check my MASH pH! Wish my luck!

Cheers.

 

[psymn]

OK guys, I have a question regarding the theory of "its the mash and not the water."

I understand that the grain lowers the pH of the mash, but what happens when you start to sparge?

I batch sparge, so my concern is that I would be adding unadjusted water to the grain and risk tannin extraction. For this reason, I use pH 5.2 in my HLT and use this water for all brewing processes.

Maybe I'm just lucky, but I've always had good to great conversion, and tasty brew from this process. The money I spend on pH 5.2, I recover by using the same solution of Starsan for 6 weeks :cross:

Cheers,
Matt

 

[malkore]

Some don't get it.......... Test the mash PH, not the water. If the mash is out of the conversion range of PH then, and only then do you need stabilizer.

my post wasn't meant to imply the tap water pH is important, just to state "I have kind of hard water, that's going to resist the pH dropping much more than soft water would, so I use pH 5.2 on some brews to help it out".

i'm very aware that tap pH doesn't directly correlate to mash pH.