water chemistry for pils - brewing tomorrow

[elj4176]

Brewing a pils tomorrow and went through Bru'n water to figure out my adjustments and it seems like it's telling me to add a lot of 88% lactic. I would like some input to see if I might be doing something wrong in the spreadsheet.

Water profile from Ward Labs:
Ca= 54
Mg = 18
Na = 29
K = 1
Fe = .1
HCO3 = 210
SO4 = 21
Cl = 54
CaCO3 = 172
pH = 7.2

mash gal = 7.5
sparge gal = 9.73
total wort vol = 11.5 gal

20# pils malt

The sheet is saying I need 5.6ml in the mash and 10.5ml in the sparge. Est pH = 5.5 even though I entered 5.2 as my target.

What am I doing wrong? That seems like a lot of acid. I also tried adding 30% distilled but the acid additions stayed the same.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[doug293cz]

That amount of acid doesn't look unreasonable given the high alkalinity of your water, and the light grain bill. You might want to think about phosphoric acid rather than lactic, as you might be getting close to, or above, the taste threshold for lactic acid.

You didn't say which calculator you are using, so difficult to guess what might be going on. Although, it might be trying to keep your lactic acid from getting too high. Anyway, 5.2 is kind of a low pH target. 5.4 is more reasonable for light beers.

Brew on

 

[elj4176]

I'm using Bru'n water spreadsheet. I will pick up some phosphoric today on your suggestion and see if that changes things a bit.
Thanks

 

[TX_Brewing]

It may be easier to start with RO water for a pils, if that isn't an option them yeah you need acid to knock down that alkalinity.

 

[elj4176]

brewshop was out of phosphoric so it looks like I'm diluting with 30% distilled. That should drop the alkalinity down and then I can use a smaller dose of lactic to hit my pH.

From some other googling it looks like ~1ml/gal is about the limit before it could be tasted in the beer. I do not want to have a tart pils.

 

[mabrungard]

For a pils, that water might be a little too mineralized. Dilution should be a consideration. The other benefit is the reduction in alkalinity that is driving the large acid addition. 1 ml/gal of 88% lactic should not create an overt lactic flavor in the beer for most tasters, but some might object. Most tasters are going to find that lactic acid is apparent at around 1.4 to 1.5 ml/gal. Employing phosphoric or a combo of lactic and phosphoric could be considered if dilution can't be used. However, I find that lactic acid is a desirable component in many German and continental styles, so don't discount it's use. Acid malt supplies lactic acid, but dosing with liquid lactic acid is more accurate and reliable.