Imperial Stout pH

[Cloud Surfer]

I’ve started measuring pH throughout the whole process, not just the mash.

For my recent Imperial Stout, I had a mash pH of 5.42, a post boil pH of 5.02, and a post fermentation pH of 4.60.

Looking into this, seems 4.1 to 4.5 is a target bottled pH for most beer. Is that the general consensus? This Imperial Stout is sitting just outside that range. I can fix it with a bit of lactic acid, but I’ve never done that before, because I’ve never measured post fermentation pH before.

What do you guys think? Should I bother? Cheers

 

[mabrungard]

You didn't comment on where the final SG of the beer ended up. The slightly elevated beer pH suggests that the yeast didn't get the opportunity to acidify properly before they were exhausted.

If you're bottling, then I'd be a little concerned about the beer pH being a little high. But if it's going into a keg, then its less likely to have a future problem.

 

[marc1]

How are you measuring pH?

 

[Cloud Surfer]

You didn't comment on where the final SG of the beer ended up. The slightly elevated beer pH suggests that the yeast didn't get the opportunity to acidify properly before they were exhausted.

If you're bottling, then I'd be a little concerned about the beer pH being a little high. But if it's going into a keg, then its less likely to have a future problem.

As an extra, this brew I re-oxygenated 12 hours after pitching the yeast and didn’t add any sugar on brew day, rather I added it straight to the fermenter on day 3. I’ve made this beer several times and it always finishes at FG1.034, but this time it finished at FG 1.026. So those processes made a big difference, and for a 12.5% beer, really it’s over-attenuated a bit for the style.

So to answer the question, it was a very strong and healthy fermentation. I’ll be bottling the batch after force carbonating for bottle aging.

 

[Cloud Surfer]

How are you measuring pH?

I’m using a very nice Milwaukie pH meter.