I can easily get a higher pH by specifying a more alkaline malt. If, for example, I use Weyermann's floor Pils the estimated pH is 5.39.
All the models are proton deficit models whether the spreadsheet/calculator author is aware of it or not. As such some of them aren't terribly robust but that doesn't matter if one is deducing the acidity parameters of the malt from it's color as the error induced by doing that is more than the error induced by the simple (linear) models the calculators seem to use. The proton deficit model is quite robust but doesn't give a better answer necessarily unless you feed it accurate malt data and it requires a lot of work on your part to get that. Easier to do a test mash.
All the models are proton deficit models whether the spreadsheet/calculator author is aware of it or not. As such some of them aren't terribly robust but that doesn't matter if one is deducing the acidity parameters of the malt from it's color as the error induced by doing that is more than the error induced by the simple (linear) models the calculators seem to use. The proton deficit model is quite robust but doesn't give a better answer necessarily unless you feed it accurate malt data and it requires a lot of work on your part to get that. Easier to do a test mash.
