Adjusting mash pH on the fly

I am hunkered down trying to absorb everything I can on water chemistry and controlling mash pH in order to produce better beers and tweak flavors more to my liking.

I have fairly soft water and have been recording mash pH's in the high 5.7-5.9's brewing exclusively pales, blondes, IPA's.

I'm reading through all the primers on water chemistry. Knowing exactly what adjustments your water will need prior to brewing a specific beer is certainly ideal, as you can make the additions or dilutions before dough in and sparge and be quite confident that you will hit your pH's. It sounds like when woking out a new recipe some folks will add brewing salts and/or acid malt to the mash AFTER dough in in order to buffer pH of the mash into ideal range. Is that correct? How is that best done?
My next brew will be an IPA and I'm considering having some ground sauermalz on hand to add to the mash in order to bring it down after I take a couple of pH readings post dough-in. I'm also considering following ajdelange's water chemistry primer for my soft water and make sauermalz, gypsum and calcium chloride additions per the instructions for "Minerally" beers. Any thoughts on which route I should take? On the one hand I wouldn't want to inadvertently tank my pH and make a pucker beer. But I've seen pretty consistent higher pH's and while my beers are turning out decent, they are certainly missing a sharpness and intensity of flavor that I believe will be corrected by getting my pH under control.

el_loco said:

I have fairly soft water and have been recording mash pH's in the high 5.7-5.9's brewing exclusively pales, blondes, IPA's.

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5.7 is to be expected but "high 5.9's" (which I take to mean 5.97, 5.98...) seems quite high. Be sure to follow protocol for calibration of your meter.

el_loco said:

Knowing exactly what adjustments your water will need prior to brewing a specific beer is certainly ideal,

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Experience will teach you how to do that.

el_loco said:

It sounds like when woking out a new recipe some folks will add brewing salts and/or acid malt to the mash AFTER dough in in order to buffer pH of the mash into ideal range. Is that correct? How is that best done?

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It's best not to do it but if you have a mash pH that is way out of whack then you don't have much choice. Use liquid acid for this purpose as sauermalz takes some time to solubilize and release its acid.

It is preferable to predetermine the amount of acid and/or sauermalz required by means of a test mash. The rule of thumb of 1% per tenth pH drop desired (e.g. if you are getting 5.8 and you want 5.4 use 4%) should get you pretty close.

el_loco said:

My next brew will be an IPA and I'm considering having some ground sauermalz on hand to add to the mash in order to bring it down after I take a couple of pH readings post dough-in.

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If you want to make corrections after strike then I recommend lactic acid rather than sauermalz.

el_loco said:

I'm also considering following ajdelange's water chemistry primer for my soft water and make sauermalz, gypsum and calcium chloride additions per the instructions for "Minerally" beers.Any thoughts on which route I should take?

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I usually advise starting out with a small amount of minerals - say 1/2 tsp/gal of each of gypsum and calcium chloride, add more in the glass when you taste the beer and if it results in an improvement then use more in the next brew i.e. work your way up to higher mineral levels.

el_loco said:

But I've seen pretty consistent higher pH's and while my beers are turning out decent, they are certainly missing a sharpness and intensity of flavor that I believe will be corrected by getting my pH under control.

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Good chance that it will.

Awesome, thanks AJ! I will re-post with real numbers post brew day. Maybe this thread can help someone else with similar challenges. I appreciate your help tremendously.

One more question- I really like the idea of a test mash the night before. Can I do this in a small pot or 2 gallon cooler and use a 1/10 scaled down grainbill?

You don't need that much. A pound of grain and a quart and a half of water will do.

ajdelange said:

You don't need that much. A pound of grain and a quart and a half of water will do.

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I'm really interested in doing this. Would you scale down the entire grain bill to one pound in total?

Yes.

In reference to post #2: is that 1/2 tsp per 5 gallons water treated or per 1 gallon?

5 gal.

First get an actual water report so you have a base to work off of.

Second, water report in hand, use a calculator like EZwater or bru'n water to then calculate your additions

Very small additions can be typical and if you just add willy Nilly you can do more harm then good

I'm going to opt to use RO water and build it to my specs. I ran a test mash using EZwater and the pH was just about exactly .2 below the EZwater prediction. I think I've read that this is typical of EZwater, in which case I can just adjust my mineral additions to be .2 points higher in the spreadsheet than I am aiming for and should be on the money, right?

el_loco said:

I'm going to opt to use RO water and build it to my specs. I ran a test mash using EZwater and the pH was just about exactly .2 below the EZwater prediction. I think I've read that this is typical of EZwater, in which case I can just adjust my mineral additions to be .2 points higher in the spreadsheet than I am aiming for and should be on the money, right?

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Well, mineral additions aren't really going to adjust the pH much. They do change the flavor, but if you're relying on them to change the pH, you may overdo it.

Yooper said:

Well, mineral additions aren't really going to adjust the pH much. They do change the flavor, but if you're relying on them to change the pH, you may overdo it.

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I disagree with part of this. Very good advice in regard to the potential to overdo it with minerals, which can result unwanted flavor impact. But especially with distilled water, adding calcium back to the water will result in more precipitation of phosphates from the mash and a lower resulting mash pH. As long as one doesn't overuse minerals, like when someone is attempting to match a regional water profile like Burton and ends up with salty or minerally beer, then the right amounts and ratios of salts and minerals will have a significant impact on the pH compared to distilled water.

el_loco said:

But especially with distilled water, adding calcium back to the water will result in more precipitation of phosphates from the mash and a lower resulting mash pH.

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True, but it doesn't drop the mash pH much. For base malt only mashes 100 mg/L Ca++ drops, according to Kolbach, knockout pH by 0.12. Mash pH is, presumably, reduced somewhat less than that.

Elaborate on "knockout pH"?

Kolbach (who did the original work determining the pH shift from mineral additions - you can find his paper at http://wetnewf.org/pdfs/Brewing_articles/KolbachPaper.pdf) specifically notes that his results apply to "Ausschlagwürze" which I translate as "knockout wort". I think this is because at the completion of the boil the wort was released from the kettle by literally knocking out a wooden plug with a mallet.