philosofool
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- May 8, 2007
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I noticed an odd think in Bru'n Water the other day that I don't really understand. I've always just used RA for estimate my mash needs and it has served me well. I don't own a pH meter as I'm reluctant to add all that fuss with calibration, lifespan and so on, given the cost.
But I'm interested in my beer pH right now and I'm trying to understand the estimate that Bru'n water gives. It seems to make pH a linear function of the amount of acid put into the beer (rounding makes it a little hard to tell for sure.) Since pH is a log function, that seems off: it should take ten times the amount of strong acid to reduce a solution from 6 to 5 as it does from 7 to 6. So, if one acidifies for a target mash of 5.4, the chance of accidentally going to 5.1 is much lower than going to 5.7. But of course, there are a bunch of buffers in the mash, so maybe that's not right.
How far should I trust Bru'n water for mash pH? Or should I just stick to RA?
But I'm interested in my beer pH right now and I'm trying to understand the estimate that Bru'n water gives. It seems to make pH a linear function of the amount of acid put into the beer (rounding makes it a little hard to tell for sure.) Since pH is a log function, that seems off: it should take ten times the amount of strong acid to reduce a solution from 6 to 5 as it does from 7 to 6. So, if one acidifies for a target mash of 5.4, the chance of accidentally going to 5.1 is much lower than going to 5.7. But of course, there are a bunch of buffers in the mash, so maybe that's not right.
How far should I trust Bru'n water for mash pH? Or should I just stick to RA?