Potential Lactic acid mash issues

[Silver_Is_Money]

People keep saying this but it's not 100% of the picture.

Mash pH helps with conversion, true. But it doesn't stop there. Mash pH carries into kettle pH, which will have a fairly pronounced effect on break formation, hops utilization, and final beer flavor. It's not merely for conversion.

I acknowledge this and stand corrected. Even if you miss the enzymes pH window of highest activity (itself a compromise between alpha and beta) there can still be other downstream benefits for on the fly pH adjustment in the mash or even post mash.

 

[ajdelange]

Beware that 75 - 85% phosphoric acid is extremely dangerous.

Concentrated phosphoric acid certainly should be treated with respect but lets not exaggerate things too much. It's rated 3 on the NFPA health scale which means "Short exposure could cause serious temporary or moderate residual injury (e.g. liquid hydrogen, carbon monoxide, calcium hypochlorite, hexafluorosilicic acid)". With proper, but simple, protective measures (gloves, face shield, coat...) it can be handled safely. "Extremely dangerous" would be NFPA 4 stuff like hydrofluoric acid brief exposure to which can be fatal or cause severe residual injury.

For the brewing application it should be noted that it is also hygroscopic which means that as it takes on water from the air it will become weaker (normality at a given pH will drop).

 

[Redtab78]

If I use the 85% Phosphoric (HERE) I would use WAY less of it (maybe 1-2ml or so) making a 1,000 ml (for $25) last a very very long time.

I am very familiar with the dangers of chemicals, and proper handling techniques, so I am not worried about that, but the 10% stuff goes for $9 or so for only 8oz, and I would be using close to 30ml per batch of that....logic here seems that the 85% stuff would be more of a value, no?

 

[ajdelange]

Yes and it's good, when mixed with nitric for beer stone.

Were I to use it I would dilute the 85% stuff down to 9.3 % w/w as that is 1 N to pH 5.4. Thus if you have water of alkalinity 100 ppm (2 mEq/L) you know right away that you are going to need 0.9*2 = 1.8 mEq/L acid which is 1.8 mL/L to treat this water.

 

[Redtab78]

Ok, so going back and double check both beer smith and bru'n water to ensure all grain and water inputs were correct i am finding that the phosphoric acid additions for both are very close, but im now left wondering why such different reccomendations (both programs have matching salt additions as well as grist)

Beersmith 3 recommends a 5.6ml of 88% to bring mash ph down to 5.35 (for a total 10gal treatment)
Bru'n water reccomends a 2.2ml for mash and 2.4 for sparge to target 5.35ph for 4.6ml total
Brewers friend recommended a 4.2ml total to target the 5.35ph area

So which program should i use! Sucks i have paid money for all 3, wish i knew then what i know now....oh well, lifes lessons i guess

 

[brewgar]

Ok, so going back and double check both beer smith and bru'n water to ensure all grain and water inputs were correct i am finding that the phosphoric acid additions for both are very close, but im now left wondering why such different reccomendations (both programs have matching salt additions as well as grist)

Beersmith 3 recommends a 5.6ml of 88% to bring mash ph down to 5.35 (for a total 10gal treatment)
Bru'n water reccomends a 2.2ml for mash and 2.4 for sparge to target 5.35ph for 4.6ml total
Brewers friend recommended a 4.2ml total to target the 5.35ph area

So which program should i use! Sucks i have paid money for all 3, wish i knew then what i know now....oh well, lifes lessons i guess

Bru"n Water rules!

 

[ajdelange]

So which program should i use! Sucks i have paid money for all 3, wish i knew then what i know now....oh well, lifes lessons i guess

I'd say use all three. When you obtain answers like:

Beersmith 3 recommends a 5.6ml of 88% to bring mash ph down to 5.35 (for a total 10gal treatment)
Bru'n water reccomends a 2.2ml for mash and 2.4 for sparge to target 5.35ph for 4.6ml total
Brewers friend recommended a 4.2ml total to target the 5.35ph area

...that should make it quite plain to you that one is right and the others way off or, more likely, none of them is accurate. The latter is the case. None of them implements a very robust model of malt acid base characteristics.

I can't see into the detailed workings of any of them, of course, but from dialogs with their authors and the things Kai has published it is my feeling that Brewer's Friend has a model which is closest to the best model of malt acidity as we now understand it. There are still some shortcomings in its model in that it is a linear model and pHDi is estimated based on malt color. There are some new calculators out there that use essentially the right model in that they allow the user to specify pHDI but do not quite get the buffering part of it.

Use a spreadsheet or calculator only to get an idea of how much acid you might need (e.g. 2.2 - 5.6 mL) but use a test mash to determine how much you do need.

 

[Redtab78]

To be honest, i have decided the best way of knowing for myself is to brew 3 different batches using exact same recipie, in each batch i will use what the recommendation from one of the 3 models and test it myself with some friends to determine which one taste the best in the end.

 

[RPh_Guy]

To be honest, i have decided the best way of knowing for myself is to brew 3 different batches using exact same recipie, in each batch i will use what the recommendation from one of the 3 models and test it myself with some friends to determine which one taste the best in the end.

??
Your pH meter can tell you with one batch whether you hit your target mash pH.

Edit: though I would like to see more side-by-side blind tasting comparisons of different mash pH, to replicate the brulosophy results.

 

[ajdelange]

To be honest, i have decided the best way of knowing for myself is to brew 3 different batches using exact same recipie, in each batch i will use what the recommendation from one of the 3 models and test it myself with some friends to determine which one taste the best in the end.

A more productive approach would be to make a couple of test mashes starting with lactic acid scaled from the lowest level. Who knows at this point? That may give proper mash pH. If it doesn't then do another test mash with the maximum level. You can then interpolate (or, much less likely, extrapolate) between the two pH reading to determine the amount of acid needed for the desired pH.

 

[Redtab78]

Well, after doing some more extensive reading in several resources both online and in my books, i have decided to purchase an RO kit and learn to build water from 0. That way, no matter what i am starting from the same point, and where i am going in Guam, i wont have to worry about the subtle changes in the local supply, nor will i be relying on what to water plant distributes every 2 years.

I found the HbrewO system to meet my needs of easy usage as well as transportability.

 

[ajdelange]

Now I think that is really the best way to go but there is another way to get 0 alkalinity water without water reports, calculators or spreadsheets and with out fear of the consequences of secular variation in the alkalinity of the water supply and that is to acidify the water to your desired mash pH prior to each brewing session. Then tell your spreadheet or calculator that you are using 0 alkalinity water and let it calculate the additional acid required for the grains (and the diminution thereto because of calcium additions). If the 0 alaklinity calculation tells you you need to add a base rather than an acid things get a little trickier. I'll be happy to explain what to do in that case as soon as someone asks "Gee, what do you do if your calculator tells you you need to add base?" but though I have been pushing this approach for a couple of years now (since I found out that Sierra Nevada was doing it) no one has ever asked.

Try to keep the Boiginae out of your gear in any case.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Now I think that is really the best way to go but there is another way to get 0 alkalinity water without water reports, calculators or spreadsheets and with out fear of the consequences secular variation in the water supply and that is to acidify the water to your desired mash pH prior to each brewing session.

Try to keep the Boiginae out of your gear in any case.

My only concern in the teaching of this approach is that the unaware listener to such teaching may misconstrue it to imply that this "intermediate" process simplification is the end-all answer and becomes in effect all that is required, and that beyond this there is no further need of concern for the pH nature of the grist components, or the aggregate of the grist components with respect to a final mash pH, with the addition of a far lesser influence that is associated with mineralization.

The truth of course is that there is still serious concern for the very real influence of the acidity of the aggregate grist regardless of the alkalinity nature of the strike water, and also to the influence of mineralization upon mash pH.

 

[ajdelange]

I usually, when advocating this approach, tell people that if they take it they should then use their calculator with an value of 0 entered for alkalinity but I didn't this time because no one seems to understand the implications of this approach sufficiently well to try it so I figured I'd just be wasting my time. But as you have mentioned this aspect of it I went back and edited No. 42 to include the material that should cover your concern. Thus everyone who was at all interested in what I saud in No. 42 should go back and read it again.

 

[Redtab78]

Now I think that is really the best way to go but there is another way to get 0 alkalinity water without water reports, calculators or spreadsheets and with out fear of the consequences of secular variation in the alkalinity of the water supply and that is to acidify the water to your desired mash pH prior to each brewing session. Then tell your spreadheet or calculator that you are using 0 alkalinity water and let it calculate the additional acid required for the grains (and the diminution thereto because of calcium additions). If the 0 alaklinity calculation tells you you need to add a base rather than an acid things get a little trickier. I'll be happy to explain what to do in that case as soon as someone asks "Gee, what do you do if your calculator tells you you need to add base?" but though I have been pushing this approach for a couple of years now (since I found out that Sierra Nevada was doing it) no one has ever asked.

Try to keep the Boiginae out of your gear in any case.

So your saying.....collect my 10 gallons of RO, then get the ph to 5.35 (target ph) but in brun water, put the carbonate/bicarbonate to 0, with a ph of 7.0 and add in my grains and see what it says for acid additions?

 

[ajdelange]

So your saying.....collect my 10 gallons of RO, then get the ph to 5.35 (target ph) but in brun water, put the carbonate/bicarbonate to 0, with a ph of 7.0 and add in my grains and see what it says for acid additions?

Yes, that is the procedure but it really isn't necessary for RO water as its alkalinity is essentially 0 without adding acid. Thus it will take very very little acid to shift the pH of RO water to target and you will have to be quite careful with your acid addition or you will undershoot. The alkalinity of pure water to pH 5.35 is 0.00437 mEq/L. For 10 gallons (37.5L) you would thus need 0.164 mEq. The 88% lactic acid we buy is 11.4 N to pH 5.35 so you would need only 0.0144 mL of that were the RO water essentially pure. In fact you will probably need 2 - 4 times that much as real RO water is going to contain some bicarb. Were you to decide to do this with RO water it would probably be best to put 1 mL of lactic acid in 100 mL of DI water and use that rather than the neat acid.

Better yet with RO water just skip this, tell the program that the water's alkalinity is 0 and proceed from there. The small amount of alkalinity in RO water won't induce enough error to make an appreciable difference.

But the value of this method is that it allows accurate treatment of carbonaceous waters when the alkalinity is appreciable but not exactly known. It also eliminates calculation errors induced by naive calculators/spreadsheets algorithms, errors in data entry, lab errors... because no calculations are involved (in most cases).

 

[ajdelange]

I'll be happy to explain what to do in that case as soon as someone asks "Gee, what do you do if your calculator tells you you need to add base?" but though I have been pushing this approach for a couple of years now (since I found out that Sierra Nevada was doing it) no one has ever asked.

This got me thinking about this a bit more. It turns out that it is simpler to determine what to do when base is required that I thought it would be. And as the technique is potentially of such great value to homebrewers I wrote it up as a candidate Sticky and posted it at https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/the-0-effective-alkalinity-method.651983/