Citric acid?

[newfiebrew]

Hey guys.... I just finished picking up all the ingredients for my first all grain brew but accidentally got citric acid instead of lactic acid (powder form). I am doing a 5 gallon batch (brew haus pale ale) that uses about 4 gallons of sparge water and bru n water says to use 4.5 grams of citric acid for the sparge water will this cause any off flavors?? I'm using a 50/50 mix of RO and tap water that has a ph of 8.1 and an alkalinity of 160mg/l.

thanks.

Jamie.

 

[mabrungard]

So that suggests that the resulting alkalinity is in the 80 ppm range. I see that the taste threshold for citric is around 150 ppm. I don't have the conversion for figuring out how much citric acid might be needed to neutralize that alkalinity, but it may be below the threshold.

Do get lactic acid at your earliest convenience.

 

[ajdelange]

160 mg/L means about 3.2 mEq/L carbo and going from pH 8.1 to pH 5.5 will require about 90% of that or 2.8 mEq/L protons. Citric acid's proton yield is very close to 0.6pH - 1.36 so each millimole of citric will yields about 1.94 mEq protons and you will need 2.8/1.94 = 1.44 mmol =1.44*192 = 277 mg/L citric to get the water alone to pH 5.5. If the taste threshold is indeed 150 ppm (and I have no reason to doubt that number) then it will certainly be above taste threshold. OTOH when I started brewing all the recipes called for a tbsp of citric acid in each batch so the flavor can't be that objectionable.