PH Meter Replacement

[Rev2010]

It is not sufficient to be between 5.2 and 5.6. Each type of beer has an appreciably narrower range that produces the best results. When we say 5.4 - 5.6 is good for lagers we don't mean you can be anywhere in that range. We mean you should shoot for that range to start and then find the point within it that gives the most pleasing results.

Not disagreeing with you in any way, I'd just like to pose a question I am curious about. Before the advent of modern pH readings, especially those of modern day accuracy, how did all other producers of (in this case just for the quote) lagers manage to produce their beers within a specific "ideal" range and also keep them in that range given any natural variances?

Again, not posing this question to debate your point as I don't disagree, I'm really just curious to know how these things could've been kept fairly in line before modern tech or were they just not kept in line and their beers often varied dramatically?


Rev.

 

[ajdelange]

I'm really just curious to know how these things could've been kept fairly in line before modern tech or were they just not kept in line and their beers often varied dramatically?

Perhaps 'not sufficient' was too strong. I made passable, even good, beer before I started controlling pH but it wasn't until I did that I started making very good beer. Certainly beer had been made for thousands of years before the concept of pH was even introduced early in the 20th century and clearly those brewers did not monitor pH with a pH meter. But those brewers, just based on observation with nothing but their senses, were able to formulate recipes and brewing practices that produced, over time, beers that were better than other beers though I am sure that they were much more variable than they are over time.

Why is a dark beer dark? Presumably because the brewers of that beer recognized that it tasted better when a certain amount, but not too much, dark malt was added to the grist. Without fully realizing what they were doing, the brewers that used this dark malt were controlling for pH. Perhaps they were even sophisticated enough to know that the amount of dark malt should be adjusted for each barley harvest, each batch of malt or seasonal variations in water supply. This is speculation of course. I was not there!

Remember that there was industrial brewing in a time when neither thermometers nor hydrometers were available either.