Five Star pH Stabilizer

I am preparing for my first all grain brew, and I am at the planning/worrying about the pH stage. I know my water is basic. I know it is not really soft or really hard. I am trying to get a water report (I am in the South, things move slowly). So I am thinking about buying some Five Star pH Stabilizer. Is this stuff good, I have read a bunch of posts from people that really liked it, has anyone had any problem or have it not work? Also, I know it says 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons, so how many tablespoons are in a container (roughly)?

Thanks

Beerrific said:

I am preparing for my first all grain brew, and I am at the planning/worrying about the pH stage. I know my water is basic. I know it is not really soft or really hard. I am trying to get a water report (I am in the South, things move slowly). So I am thinking about buying some Five Star pH Stabilizer. Is this stuff good, I have read a bunch of posts from people that really liked it, has anyone had any problem or have it not work? Also, I know it says 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons, so how many tablespoons are in a container (roughly)?

Thanks

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I bought it and used it on my hefe. I don't know how detrimental it is to success, but my hefe sure tastes good!

I don't really know if it has truly affected anything or not, but I've been using it and getting 74-77% efficiency.

im thinking of picking up a bottle of it for my next brew.

It is just one less thing to worry about. I was thinking about buying the test strips, buy the acid/base, test, add acid/base, testing, blah blah, but adding a tablespoon-done would be great. The price is OK, that is why I asked about how many batches it will cover...if it can save me 1lb of grain by increasing efficiency then it would pay for it in about 10 batches, plus less stress.

Getting the PH right of the mash can make a big improvement to your brewing by increasing efficiency and overall clarity . At the moment I use a food grade acid and ph strips to get it right but i've recently bought some of this to try, if it does what it claims it should be good.
It's still advisable to remove chlorine and chloramines from you tap water first though, add 1/2 crushed campden tablet to 6gals of cold water, wait a moment and it's ready.

BUY SOME!!!!! never brew without it.
JJ

I use it and it works. I used to adjust my water with salts, acid and use a pH meter to try and get the mash pH right. The 5.2 makes it much easier. The directions are a little confusing but I have had good results by putting 2 Tbsp and 1 tsp into my mash water. My mash pH is usually right around 5.4. I do 10 gallon batches and will have 14 gallons of wort to start my boil.

Do we have any chemistry majors in the house? This 5.2 Ph is just an acid buffer. It would be a snap for someone that remembers a bit of chem to create the recipe. If we made our own with food grade acids, it would be a fraction of the cost.

vasie said:

Do we have any chemistry majors in the house? This 5.2 Ph is just an acid buffer. It would be a snap for someone that remembers a bit of chem to create the recipe. If we made our own with food grade acids, it would be a fraction of the cost.

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Let me check with the wife, she has her masters in Chemistry.

EDIT:
Ok after doing some digging and talking to her here is what I have come up with so far.

Here is a Phosphate buffer calculator

http://www.columbia.edu/~scb2001/tools/phosphate/phosphate.html

And from what i could tell and by the short time I was able to talk with her this morning the buffer strength will need to figured out so that the solution could cover a certain pH range. She said she can do some calculations when she gets home to give a better estimate of what the Buffer strength should be.

That said, once the buffer strength is known you would just complete the calcuation and then scale up to your batch size (ie 5gallons=19l)

Here is an example (remember I am going to use 10millimoles/l for the buffer strength as an estimate)

pH 5.2
Buffer Strength 10mM
Monosodium phosphate, monohydrate 1.3508 grams/liter=25.6652grams for a 5gallon batch
Disodium phosphate, heptahydrate .0567 grams/liter=1.0773grams for a 5gallon batch

Yeah, I know it is a buffer, pretty simple really. It is just hard to find reasonable quantities of monosodium phosphate monohydrate and disodium phosphate heptahydrate. Plus, I am buy a wort chiller from MoreBeer and adding this puts me over $59 so I can get free shipping.

HarvInSTL, thanks for the legwork.. Now we just need to figure out whose sells this stuff. I wonder if either of those two chemicals has a common name.

HarvInSTL said:

pH 5.2
Buffer Strength 10mM
Monosodium phosphate, monohydrate 1.3508 grams/liter=25.6652grams for a 5gallon batch
Disodium phosphate, heptahydrate .0567 grams/liter=1.0773grams for a 5gallon batch

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I think I'll just stick to the 5.2 buffer for $12/container.

vasie said:

HarvInSTL, thanks for the legwork.. Now we just need to figure out whose sells this stuff. I wonder if either of those two chemicals has a common name.

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Look up Sodium Acetate. I personally feel more comfortable spending a few extra bucks on a product that's been time-tested.

Cool, thanks for this thread. I placed an order with AHS earlier today, and I just called them to add this to the order. Sweet.

I bought some after my rye pale ale (lightest brew I had made to that point) had an astringent character (not undrinkable but noticeable to me). I attributed that to a overly high mash pH. I have very alkaline water with lots of carbonate. pH 5.2 is great for water with unbalanced carbonate (ie-mashes that would be too high of pH with light grain bills.....like Dublin water). So far with some lighter brews I have noticed a smoother bitterness and no astringency, so I think it's good.

If you have very soft water you wouldn't want to use it, especially if you're trying to brew a dark beer. The dark malt will acidify your mash, if you add an acid on top of that your pH may end up too low.

I think the buffer is also capable of raising the mash pH as well, although they admit it works best on alkaline water.

The principal reaction when using salts to correct a PH problem is to go in one direction and in the case of the 5.2 stabalizer it is primarily to get the PH down when using water high in bicarbonates IMO.
I have soft water low in bicarbonates and other minerals so it don't work all that well for me. I have taken to using latic acid to adjust my mash and sparge water when going for pale coloured brews.

jdoiv said:

The directions are a little confusing but I have had good results by putting 2 Tbsp and 1 tsp into my mash water. My mash pH is usually right around 5.4. I do 10 gallon batches and will have 14 gallons of wort to start my boil.

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I agree, the directions are a little confusing... they basically say 1 TBSP for every 5 gallons of recipe volume, added to the mash water. Which seems like a weird way to do it, because it totally neglects things you'd think might be important to the amount of buffering you need to do (size of grain bill, water/grain ratio, initial water chemistry etc.)

I just picked some up at my LHBS. Question for those of you who use it...do you just add it to the mash water, or do you add it to all of your mash/sparge water and then split out what you need for the mash?

Bike N Brew said:

I just picked some up at my LHBS. Question for those of you who use it...do you just add it to the mash water, or do you add it to all of your mash/sparge water and then split out what you need for the mash?

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I have used it a few times and added it to my total volume of brewing water. That way my sparge water was buffered as well to avoid tannin extraction etc. Now that I'm batch sparging that is less of an issue. As well I have my water analysis in hand courtesy of: http://www.wardlab.com/ and can adjust my pH with gypsum etc. Based on Ray Daniels pH calculations I'll still be in trouble with really light beer and will have to use 5.2 for those.

For anyone interested in getting a water analysis I highly recommend WardLab. Their web site isn't highly user friendly. Just order a water sampling bottle from them, it comes in a few days, fill it and send it back and you get your report in a few days along with an invoice to pay for it. All told took about 10 days and that was with the bottle sitting around at home for a day or 2.

To use ward labs you dont need to order anything from them. Just get a water bottle, rinse it a couple times with the water you want to test then fill it. Then send it to them, telling them your name, email, mailing and billing address (if those two are different) and the test that you want performed. They will email and snail mail the results and in the snail mail will be a bill. you can pay with credit card or check i believe. But they will do the testing before recieving payment.

This procedure might speed up the time required to get testing done. Hope it helps someone.

Bike N Brew said:

I just picked some up at my LHBS. Question for those of you who use it...do you just add it to the mash water, or do you add it to all of your mash/sparge water and then split out what you need for the mash?

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I add it to the mash after I add my strike water and stir it in.

How high in bicarbonates does your water have to be to use 5.2? I have really low bicarbonates, and the first time I used 5.2 it did nothing for me. At least that I could tell.

I need to add salts anyways, so this will raise my bicarbonates. Does anyone think that this would be enough for 5.2 to work for me? I'm thinking roughly 100 ppm will be my new level most of the time.

jammer said:

How high in bicarbonates does your water have to be to use 5.2? I have really low bicarbonates, and the first time I used 5.2 it did nothing for me. At least that I could tell.

I need to add salts anyways, so this will raise my bicarbonates. Does anyone think that this would be enough for 5.2 to work for me? I'm thinking roughly 100 ppm will be my new level most of the time.

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This should technically work no matter what the bicarbonate level is. It buffers the pH to 5.2, if you are already mashing near 5.2 then there would be no noticeable difference.

Haven't people earlier in this conversation said that 5.2 doesnt do anything for soft water?

I have used it twice, and there has been no difference that I can tell.

jammer said:

Haven't people earlier in this conversation said that 5.2 doesnt do anything for soft water?

I have used it twice, and there has been no difference that I can tell.

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Have you checked your mash pH with and without it?

unfortunately, no. I have ph test strips, but they have turned out to be a pain. I am looking for an electronic meter now. I just got back from the LHBS thinking they would have one, they did not.

I have been having problems with my beer though. Since going to AG, they just havent tasted right. And i would really be willing to bet that the pH isnt low enough. My beer has had a residual sweetness (with a FG of 1.010) and just doesnt have the taste of a low pH drink. I have been assume/hoping this is part of the problem.

It seems that you think otherwise? Have you used 5.2 with really soft water?

If you have soft water and need to keep the mash pH up see if you can't find food grade trisodium phosphate somewhere. Use it as a titrant to raise the pH if it falls below 5.2. Also, if in a pinch, the yeast nutrient diammonium phosphate can be used to raise the pH or as a buffer, as it has the formula (NH4)2(HPO4), both NH4+ and HPO4 have buffer capacity associated with them. Although, the ammonium has no buffer capacity at pH's relevant to brewing (pKa = 9.3), unless you have very alkaline water.

If you have soft water with a low sodium content, sodium bicarbonate (regular soda) or sodium carbonate (washing soda) could be used to raise pH as well, but you risk making your water taste salty (since the salt taste is cation, not the anion).

As far as the pH 5.2 stuff goes, I'm betting when they make the product they're designing it for an average bicarb concentration. So if you have low bicarb concentrations it may add in too much acid.

Does anyone know a resource that gives numbers on the amount of acid produced by specific grains during a mash?

My advice is either get a water test and learn about aqueous equilibrium chemistry and do some calculations. Or buy a pH meter and do some experiments.

What style of beers are you trying to brew? If you have soft water you have the flexibility to make changes with a variety of salts to get the target pH you need. In terms of your concern for how your beer is turning out I don't think pH is going to be the answer. It certainly will affect efficiency and may affect the body a little by favoring one amylase over the other but not as much as mashing temperature does.

If you do an iodine starch test you will know if you are converting starch completely or calculate your efficiency and if 70+% with a 60min mash your pH is likley fine.

If you can give us your water analysis and more info about what you are brewing we can probably help you more.

Reviving this thread to ask if anyone knows for sure the correct way to use this stuff. It says to use at a rate of 1 tbl/ 5 gallon leaving the kettle added directly to the mash. It seems to me, that you would want to add this to the sparge water as well. I know others add some to the mash and some to the sparge and others add some to the total volume they are going to brew with.

If you batch sparge you don't really need to use it. For fly sparging it would help prevent tannin extraction if you are trying to eek every last point of gravity from your grain.