Low Mash pH Effect on Taste in Pilsner

[Blazinlow86]

Maybe it’s ugly baby syndrome, but I believe that my beer, probably through no fault of my own, is better than commercial. Believe me, I’m surprised too and often wonder how my ice packs and little cooler make such great beer. I put a lot of effort into my beer, but ask questions like this because I want to put my effort where it makes the most difference.

Having read “A Good Hobby Mashed”, by Chris L. Burcher, it becomes painfully obvious to homebrewers that their methods and processes are almost completely useless when scaled up. As new information from sources like Brülosophy and Experimental Brewing come out and myths are busted about secondary and fermentation temps etc. I think it’s becoming clear that commercial practices don’t apply to making homebrew either.

maybe im just picky. i dont feel that Brülosophy or Experimental Brewing (although i have and enjoyed the book) have busted anything.you cant belive everything you read on the net. ive had lots of beers my buddies made they thought were great and i would have dumped. they all follow rdwahahb. 10/10 beer is VERY hard to make and takes lots of effort. dont let one website convince you that the whole world of pros over all the years have been incorrect. it all adds up together. its not ONLY one thing like in those test. that one thing might only make a 3% differance but when theres 15 of those things all skipped it adds up to 45%. that said alot of brewers dont care to make a 10/10 product and love the beer there making and thats honestly great for them. i wont be having any though lol. cheers

 

[Blazinlow86]

If you have been blessed with pretty good water (or mix your own), and your grain bill creates an environment to where your pH falls in the happy range, you probably have a great beer without dinking with a bunch of chemistry. Keep in mind that not all recipes need a pH adjustment.

Where it can bite you is, for example, using a really bad water while brewing something with a ton of pilsner (or similar) base malt. It all depends on many factors. Knowing when and how you will get bit is the key.

very good point

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

maybe im just picky. i dont feel that Brülosophy or Experimental Brewing (although i have and enjoyed the book) have busted anything.you cant belive everything you read on the net. ive had lots of beers my buddies made they thought were great and i would have dumped. they all follow rdwahahb. 10/10 beer is VERY hard to make and takes lots of effort. dont let one website convince you that the whole world of pros over all the years have been incorrect. it all adds up together. its not ONLY one thing like in those test. that one thing might only make a 3% differance but when theres 15 of those things all skipped it adds up to 45%. that said alot of brewers dont care to make a 10/10 product and love the beer there making and thats honestly great for them. i wont be having any though lol. cheers

It’s impossible to make 10/10 beer. If you consider off flavors and style guidelines as valid, different people still have different preferences. Even then communities influence preference, so its a moving target that can’t be nailed down. Unless you are one of the 18 Master Cicerones, then judging someone’s beer as a dumper is not really cool. Further a Master Cicerone wouldn’t do that, even if pressed. Be picky, enjoy what you enjoy, but you literally can’t say that you friend’s homebrew is worse than yours because you can’t speak for everyone that enjoys beer.

 

[Blazinlow86]

It’s impossible to make 10/10 beer. If you consider off flavors and style guidelines as valid, different people still have different preferences. Even then communities influence preference, so its a moving target that can’t be nailed down. Unless you are one of the 18 Master Cicerones, then judging someone’s beer as a dumper is not really cool. Further a Master Cicerone wouldn’t do that, even if pressed. Be picky, enjoy what you enjoy, but you literally can’t say that you friend’s homebrew is worse than yours because you can’t speak for everyone that enjoys beer.

You wouldnt be saying that if you tried my friends beers and you cant stop me from trying to brew a perfect beer. cheers

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

You wouldnt be saying that if you tried my friends beers and you cant stop me from trying to brew a perfect beer. cheers

You said your friends are RDWHAHB brewers and you were critical of those who subscribe to that philosophy. This shows you are biased against their beer. So even without trying it, assuming that your judgement is good. I can say with almost certainty that their beer is better than you say it is.

I really think that most of us are trying to brew 10/10 beers in our own way, I would never suggest that anyone stop doing that. You will excuse me if I don’t agree that your way is the only way to do that.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I think that so long as I start with a reasonably neutral water, that I can ignore PH as a factor in my homebrew.

I know that you have put a lot of time and effort into understanding PH, do you agree that I can just RDWHAHB?

Generally starting with water that has no alkalinity and a moderate amount of Ca++ (50-70 ppm) gives you a pretty good chance of mashing within acceptable pH ranges across a quite broad spectrum of common recipes. The two most likely exceptions (extremes) would be a 100% Pilsner malt grist and a grist with very high quantities of combined deep roasted and crystal malts, a bit beyond typical quantities. The first will give you a mash pH in the 5.7's and the second will potentially get you as low as the measured 5.0 pH range, depending upon how overboard one goes on the crystal and deep roasted. I've simply never done the side by side mash pH variance recipe comparisons required to see if I could personally tell the difference. I've listened to years of advice from "experts" telling me that pH must be held between 5.2 and 5.6 when measured in the mash at room temperature. Such that I wrote a spreadsheet to assist with accomplishing this. But I must admit that the Brulosophy pH related exbeeriments do give pause to re-think this logic. A recent robust Stout I brewed (with 2.3 grams of baking soda added in advance to the mash water) came in at 5.18 pH at 30 minutes into the mash, and it read 5.22 pH for a sample taken at the 60 minute mark, and I'm currently enjoying it very much (but for all practical purposes it mashed at pH 5.2, so it was not "out of bounds"). A Bohemian Pilsner I made long ago before owning a pH meter, and which had no acid adjustment, and therefore was most likely in the 5.7's mash pH range is still the single beer of that style that I consider my personal best effort.

But the key here is starting with water that exhibits right close to no alkalinity "plus" moderate mineralization. If alkalinity is present it must be accounted for and adjusted, and excessive mineralization may likewise bring cause for pH adjustment. All of this being recipe dependent. A.J. deLange is convinced that the best way to address alkalinity is to properly knock it out (to a pH of 5.4) before the mash. He calls this his zero alkalinity method as I recall.

For the specific case of zero alkalinity and moderate mineralization the bottom line may be to simply RDWHAHB.

 

[ajdelange]

pH mostly effects efficiency.

It does effect efficiency but not as much as you might think and that's not why we monitor and control it. Conversion of starch to sugar is only one of a large number of brewing reactions that are mediated by enzymes and so effected by pH. We want the pH that gives us the best tasting beer and that may not be the same pH which gives the greatest conversion efficiency. Thus home brewers aren't really concerned about the effects of pH on efficiency. This may not be true for a large commercial brewer but even he will trade efficiency for flavor (or really sales) if it turns out that the pH for best taste and best conversion are appreciably different.

 

[Blazinlow86]

You said your friends are RDWHAHB brewers and you were critical of those who subscribe to that philosophy. This shows you are biased against their beer. So even without trying it, assuming that your judgement is good. I can say with almost certainty that their beer is better than you say it is.

I really think that most of us are trying to brew 10/10 beers in our own way, I would never suggest that anyone stop doing that. You will excuse me if I don’t agree that your way is the only way to do that.

If you enjoy the beer your making your doing it correctly. Be happy you don't require all the extra steps and processes that some of us need to do to enjoy ours. Cheers

 

[Bassman2003]

My overall impression is that pH should be thought of as an optimum through the entire brewing process. Mash pH gets a lot of attention but boil pH and into the fermenter help affect hop utilization and yeast performance.

 

[ajdelange]

If by that you mean that there is an optimum pH at each step of the process that is, of course, true. Fortuitously, if you get the pH right at the first step it more or less tracks throughout the rest though brewers sometimes adjust pH, usually downward in the kettle as a lower pH leads to brighter runoff. The yeast can take care of themselves pretty much but if you present them an environment in which the pH is high they must process sugar to make acid which sugar is, preferrably, processed into beer. This does not mean it is necessary to establish wort pH of 4.5 at pitching. Something close to 5 is generally considered acceptable.

Hop bittering compounds are like any other acid: they are more soluble when dissociated so high pH does increase utilization but that is at the expense of the benefits of lower pH such as biological stability.

 

[Big Monk]

Be picky, enjoy what you enjoy, but you literally can’t say that you friend’s homebrew is worse than yours because you can’t speak for everyone that enjoys beer.

There are, however, objective measures used to gauge the quality of a beer. We can't always hide behind the whole "taste is subjective" rap.

 

[Bassman2003]

If by that you mean that there is an optimum pH at each step of the process that is, of course, true. Fortuitously, if you get the pH right at the first step it more or less tracks throughout the rest though brewers sometimes adjust pH, usually downward in the kettle as a lower pH leads to brighter runoff. The yeast can take care of themselves pretty much but if you present them an environment in which the pH is high they must process sugar to make acid which sugar is, preferrably, processed into beer. This does not mean it is necessary to establish wort pH of 4.5 at pitching. Something close to 5 is generally considered acceptable.

Hop bittering compounds are like any other acid: they are more soluble when dissociated so high pH does increase utilization but that is at the expense of the benefits of lower pH such as biological stability.

Thanks for your reply. I was meaning optimum range but you described it very well. A simple homebrew translation would be to get your pH in the low 5's in the mash and you can't go wrong. Everything else will fall into place. But is interesting to know which levers to pull or push to affect things. This side of brewing is of interest to me.

 

[Bassman2003]

There are, however, objective measures used to gauge the quality of a beer. We can't always hide behind the whole "taste is subjective" rap.

Derek, I always find your posts enlightening. Your name descriptor says you like pH. What are your thoughts about pH focus at the homebrew level? Is it worth tracking down stage by stage or is the Xbeeriment the reality of minute differences?

Thanks for your input!

 

[Big Monk]

Derek, I always find your posts enlightening. Your name descriptor says you like pH. What are your thoughts about pH focus at the homebrew level? Is it worth tracking down stage by stage or is the Xbeeriment the reality of minute differences?

Thanks for your input!

My opinion is that a mash pH of 5.4 is desirable and attainable.

I’m against trying to chase pH through the mash. Use a software that gives reasonable parity between estimates and actuals and take great notes.

I also acidify to 5.0 at flameout.

I think people should really concern themselves with consistency in mash pH.

 

[ajdelange]

There are, however, objective measures used to gauge the quality of a beer. We can't always hide behind the whole "taste is subjective" rap.

We could launch a whole new thread on that statement. Not necessarily suggesting that we do that though so let me pose the question here: What are some of those objective measures? I have the MOAs on the bookshelf so I know what they (or many of them) are so I guess the question isn't so much "What are they?" as it is "How do they relate to or correlate with perceived beer quality?"

 

[Bassman2003]

My opinion is that a mash pH of 5.4 is desirable and attainable.

I’m against trying to chase pH through the mash. Use a software that gives reasonable parity between estimates and actuals and take great notes.

I also acidify to 5.0 at flameout.

I think people should really concern themselves with consistency in mash pH.

Thanks for your reply. Is the 5.0 at flameout for yeast health? Does this vary with beer style? Hefe vs IPA vs Stout...

 

[Big Monk]

We could launch a whole new thread on that statement. Not necessarily suggesting that we do that though so let me pose the question here: What are some of those objective measures? I have the MOAs on the bookshelf so I know what they (or many of them) are so I guess the question isn't so much "What are they?" as it is "How do they relate to or correlate with perceived beer quality?"

Before I get too far into the weeds I’ll make a distinction.

I am in support of the idea that you can’t say a beer is worse than another because you don’t like that style. Here is where subjectivity is king. I personally don’t like spurs but I wouldn’t say that they are worse than X beer, etc.

I guess I was implying that we can taste and detect flaws in beers that would make them objectively worse than a similar beer without them. That would be the objective part.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

I guess I was implying that we can taste and detect flaws in beers that would make them objectively worse than a similar beer without them. That would be the objective part.

Unless a brewer/drinker likes the particular 'flaw' and wants to get it in their beer. Better or worse against a set of criteria doesn't mean better or worse for a particular drinkers tastes.

 

[ajdelange]

I guess I was implying that we can taste and detect flaws in beers that would make them objectively worse than a similar beer without them. That would be the objective part.

And my question was: "What would one of those objectively identifiable flaws be?"

How about DMS. Canned corn! Yuch!

When LaTrobe, famous for its Rolling Rock "ponies" (sold by the bushel basket in a bar in State College, Pa), was bought by whoever it was that bought them the brewing scientists from the new parent descended on the plant and advised what process changes were to be made to get the DMS out of the product. These were carried out and sales plummeted. Thus we have at least one example of an objective "flaw" (I think most everyone here would agree that DMS is a flaw) that was not a flaw in the opinion of that brewery's customers. Quite the contrary. After the "flaw" was "corrected" they wouldn't drink the beer any more.

I remember another conversation with a craft brewery's master brewer. He stated flat out "There is absolutely no place for diacetyl in lager beer!" My response was to ask him whether he had communicated that to Pilsen.

I think a beer with 400 mg/L sulfate is deeply flawed. Colin Kaminsky thinks a beer without 400 mg/L is flawed. The only reason he doesn't brew them is because he can't sell them.

So here are three examples of things which can be objectively measured (though a GC may be required to do it). But when it comes down to it whether a particular level of any of those things is deemed desirable or not the decision is made subjectively. This is why breweries use tasting panels tuned to their customer base's preferences.

 

[Blazinlow86]

I think it would be fair to say if you took a room of 1000 beer enthusiasts and served them a sierra Nevada pale ale as a example vs a home brewed sierra Nevada pale ale clone that omitted all the processes that Bru found irrelevant the actual sierra Nevada brew would win by a very large amount. Could be wrong. Cheers

 

[Big Monk]

And my question was: "What would one of those objectively identifiable flaws be?"

How about DMS. Canned corn! Yuch!

When LaTrobe, famous for its Rolling Rock "ponies" (sold by the bushel basket in a bar in State College, Pa), was bought by whoever it was that bought them the brewing scientists from the new parent descended on the plant and advised what process changes were to be made to get the DMS out of the product. These were carried out and sales plummeted. Thus we have at least one example of an objective "flaw" (I think most everyone here would agree that DMS is a flaw) that was not a flaw in the opinion of that brewery's customers. Quite the contrary. After the "flaw" was "corrected" they wouldn't drink the beer any more.

I remember another conversation with a craft brewery's master brewer. He stated flat out "There is absolutely no place for diacetyl in lager beer!" My response was to ask him whether he had communicated that to Pilsen.

I think a beer with 400 mg/L sulfate is deeply flawed. Colin Kaminsky thinks a beer without 400 mg/L is flawed. The only reason he doesn't brew them is because he can't sell them.

So here are three examples of things which can be objectively measured (though a GC may be required to do it). But when it comes down to it whether a particular level of any of those things is deemed desirable or not the decision is made subjectively. This is why breweries use tasting panels tuned to their customer base's preferences.

I can’t disagree here.

I guess Ill further clarify and say that I have had beers with flaws that were unreedemable, in constrast with things like DMS and something like diacetyl (which as you correctly pointed out can actually become an acquired taste to drinkers of beers that “feature” it), including bad fermentation off flavors, solvent, etc.

I have to agree with the points you present though.

 

[ajdelange]

Remember "de gustibus non est disputandem". Foul fermentation products? Lambic. I remember a class on same where a wag in the back of the room raised his hand and asked for clarification on how to tell "your fecal enterics from your vomit enterics". Solvents: ever had Tetly's?

In principle, of course, I agree that there are unforgivable flaws. I'm just having a hell of a time coming up with one. Any beer with pH < 1 ?

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

If you want to have a flawless beer, go no further than your local grocery store and purchase a sixer of Bud Light. What’s the PH of Bud Light? I think that’s what we all should be shooting for. Dilly dilly!

 

[Blazinlow86]

If you want to have a flawless beer, go no further than your local grocery store and purchase a sixer of Bud Light. What’s the PH of Bud Light? I think that’s what we all should be shooting for. Dilly dilly!

They do make a very popular light american lager that's one of the hardest styles to nail . Cheers

 

[SoCal-Doug]

Many commercial beers, including some of the best German beers, do have what we consider to be off flavors. However, its in moderation, not overflowing.

A German pilsner smash boiled for 10 minutes may reek of DMS and be undrinkable to many. Whereas a Bitburger or Urquell may have a few PPM and at that level, is very acceptable. Some perceive it as canned corn, to others its more like asparagus (I like corn and asparagus, but not a bunch of it in my beer).

Many styles are considered "ok" if there is a tiny amount of diacetyl. When it gets so bad it coats your mouth and tastes like lard or margarine, now we have a problem Houston.

A lot of Belgian beers are supposed to have some yeast "funk". We expect it and its part of the style. When your cream ale or California common smells like sourdough, something went seriously south.

I draw the line on complete "mishaps". When the beer is obviously lightstruck, throw it away. When it is badly oxidized or spoiled, there is no level of acceptable, trash it. When you ferment your lager yeast at 85F and the esters and phenols can knock a buzzard off of a crap wagon, you belong on timeout. Oddly, some beer drinkers think these taste fine. But we are human and all different. After all, some people actually like kale or rotten duck eggs.

 

[SoCal-Doug]

If you want to have a flawless beer, go no further than your local grocery store and purchase a sixer of Bud Light. What’s the PH of Bud Light? I think that’s what we all should be shooting for. Dilly dilly!

The don't put enough of anything in bud light to generate flaws. It's kinda hard to screw up an OG of 1.020 made with rice. It's basically heavily diluted Asahi or Sapporo

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

The don't put enough of anything in bud light to generate flaws. It's kinda hard to screw up an OG of 1.020 made with rice. It's basically heavily diluted Asahi or Sapporo

True, I was being sardonic which comes across in text even worse than sarcasm. Bud Light is certainly tested to specifications and almost certainly doesn’t have flaws at levels that are perceptible to the vast majority of people. In an effort to try and stay on the topic in this post, I would bet that there are PH monitors through the whole process of making bud light and if the control limits are breached, something is done to bring it back into spec. BL is the result of compromises to sell as much beer as possible. This effort has left it devoid of any character whatsoever.

Once I had a beer that I couldn’t drink. It was a Chardonnay barrel aged sour that tasted to me like drinking apple cider vinegar. The bartender said that people would come to their brewery specifically for that beer and drink only that for hours. There is no good and bad beer only a continuum. On one end is Bud Light which is completely unoffensive and devoid of character on the other is a fecal vomit fest durian sour that one guy in the world will drink with a smile on his face right before he keels over dead from drinking it. There’s so much rich diversity in between that a beer that I don’t like is still just as valid of an experience as a beer that I do. It is this tapestry that is woven where the gold thread is not more important than the linen one.

 

[SoCal-Doug]

here is no good and bad beer only a continuum

Continuum or evolution?

 

[hopjuice_71]

This has become one of the more interesting threads I have read in a while. I haven't always thought that beer preferences are subjective - in my younger years I believed there was such a thing as empirically good beer and bad beer. However, my perspective has changed having realized that as "bad" as a beer may be there always seems to be people who will genuinely like it, excepting the irredeemably contaminated or otherwise fouled brew. On this note, I am reminded of a time when I monumentally messed up a recipe. I can't remember the exact details (I turfed that recipe quickly) but it had some weird combo of hops and amber malt that resulted in a beer that tasted just like tobacco smoke and coffee. To me, it was abhorrent. I felt shame as a brewer and out of a sense of pride I planned to dump it before it hit the palettes of anybody I considered a friend. However, I delayed the dumping and at one summer party some craft beer drinking friends did get into the keg.. ..early on in the drinking as well. I was horribly embarrassed, but wouldn't you know it, they LOVED it. I still never went anywhere near that recipe again.

 

[bierhaus15]

Following the Rolling Rock DMS comment by AJ, it is important to note that many times off flavors in industrial beer are intentional. And often a tremendous amount of time and money are spent ensuring the beer has exactly X amount of that character. Another example of the same is Pilsner Urquell and Sam Adams. Both breweries target diacetyl levels above threshold, to add complexity and achieve a taste target preferred by their consumers.

For what it is worth, a well known craft brewery started adjusting their post boil pH to 5.0 to enhance a supposed "crispness" and the result was determined to be highly detrimental, as the resulting fermentation resulted in an earthier and duller hop character. It was a pretty expensive blunder as the consumers didn't like the change. It was also later learned that the pH change largely prevented the linalool shift of R to S form during fermentation, along with affecting yeast performance.

 

[dmr]

I brewed a Pilsner Urquell clone yesterday. I was doing an experiment to quantify the effects of starter vs. non-starter by splitting my batch into 2 fermentors. Anyway, I've been starting to measure and try to adjust for mash pH. So BeerSmith2 was telling me to add 5 ounces of my 10% Phosphoric acid to bring the predicted pH down from 5.67 to my target of 5.2. My mash way undershot with the following values in my 90 minute mash:

- 18 min into mash: pH=4.41
- 30 min into mash: pH = 4.59
- 90 min into mash: pH = 4.86

I thought that was a lot of acid, but I haven't targeted a pH that low before since tracking my pH, and adjustment predictions from before were accurate so I just dumped it in (actually only had 4.9 oz).

When I pulled the lid off the kettle once the strike water had hit its target temperature, I caught a sweet odor and I thought to myself, "Why did I add so much dumb acid?". Tasting the wort samples, they all tasted fine. My wort sample after boil, when getting my OG measurement tasted good, but I did notice a slightly tart bite to it like an orange juice type of acidity.

My question is, would a low pH like this present itself as a particularly tart finished beer? Anyone have any experience with this?

Recipe for 7 gallon batch:
13.5 lbs German Pilsner
0.5 lbs Cara hell
0.15 lbs Dark Munich
2 oz. Saaz (6.5%) @ 90 minutes
1.35 oz. Saaz (6.5%) @ 15 min
1.35 oz. Saaz (6.5%) @ 5 min
Wyeast #2278 Czech Pilsner Lager
0.71 oz Saaz (6.5%) dry hop

Brew parameters:
- Mash for 90 min @ 151F
- Mashout for 10 min @ 168F
- Boil for 90 min

8.3 Gallons of this Base Water in the mash:
- Ca 24 ppm
- Mg 2.4 ppm
- Na 24.4 ppm
- SO4 0 ppm
- Cl 30.0 ppm
- HCO3 96.0 ppm

Mash water additions:
- 4.1 g Gypsum
- 7.1 g Epsom Salt
- 1.7 g CaCl

This is some really nice mash pH data you have posted here. Would you be willing to post more such data to the thread https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/wanted-mash-ph-measurements.661544/ ?

If so, it would be of great help to those that are trying to develop mash pH estimation software. Cheers!

 

[Bilsch]

When LaTrobe, famous for its Rolling Rock "ponies" (sold by the bushel basket in a bar in State College, Pa), was bought by whoever it was that bought them the brewing scientists from the new parent descended on the plant and advised what process changes were to be made to get the DMS out of the product. These were carried out and sales plummeted. Thus we have at least one example of an objective "flaw" (I think most everyone here would agree that DMS is a flaw) that was not a flaw in the opinion of that brewery's customers. Quite the contrary. After the "flaw" was "corrected" they wouldn't drink the beer any more.

Ah.. I remember Rolling Rock, con methylthiomethane circa mid 80's, very well. Don't generally care for DMS but in this beer it was actually quite pleasing. The good old days.

 

[ajdelange]

This is some really nice mash pH data you have posted here.

I find to my amazement that I never looked to the left of the decimal point and wonder if others have done the same. Those are 4's. And note that he used 5 Oz of lactic acid. Little surprise then that he got pH this low. I'm guessing that the program advised him to add 5 mL of acid.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I find to my amazement that I never looked to the left of the decimal point and wonder if others have done the same. Those are 4's. And note that he used 5 Oz of lactic acid. Little surprise then that he got pH this low. I'm guessing that the program advised him to add 5 mL of acid.

Actually he said he added 10% Phosphoric Acid. But either way it was an overkill of acid.

 

[micraftbeer]

I'm guessing that the program advised him to add 5 mL of acid.

Nope, BeerSmith 2 told me 4.9 oz of 10% Phosphoric Acid. So several little 5 ml CVS syringes worth...

 

[ajdelange]

If it was 10% phosphoric as opposed to 88% lactic that's not quite so dramatic but it is, as you have demonstrated, way off.

 

[micraftbeer]

Yeah, to me the giveaway was when I took the lid off my heating kettle of sparge water and was hit by a sweet/sour odor. The problem is, BeerSmith is just way so easy to use. I've already got my recipe in there, I don't have to flip back and forth as I type it in one of the other water calculators...