Do I need to lower my PH for first BIAB

[strongarm]

Just tested my filtered water today with electronic PH tester....8.2 I'm doing my first BIAB lager and was wondering if I should adjust my PH to get close to 5.2 and if so the easiest way to do it. If so any household ingrediants I can use so I don't have to go out to the HBS?

 

[Yooper]

Just tested my filtered water today with electronic PH tester....8.2 I'm doing my first BIAB lager and was wondering if I should adjust my PH to get close to 5.2 and if so the easiest way to do it. If so any household ingrediants I can use so I don't have to go out to the HBS?

In order to adjust the water, you need to know the composition of the water, primarily CaC03, sulfate, chloride, calcium, magnesium, etc. The pH really is meaningless for this. It's mash pH that matters.

You can take the measurement of the pH of your mash (cooling the sample first!) but by then it'd be too late to add much and certainly nothing you probably already have in your household as the acid you use is most often lactic acid, or phosphoric acid.

 

[tre9er]

Can't he do a scaled-down "mash" and test that? Ie. a few ounces of grain, crushed, with 1.25qt/lb. of strike water, placed in a bowl or something?

 

[strongarm]

I forgot I have an acid test kit that I purchased for making some wine a while back. I need to see what's in it but it was a standard acid test kit. Also I have citric acid? Any of that help. I can test the mash PH but am really clueless on what and how much acid to put in to adjust. I don't have a problem doing this on BIAB batch #2 but if it's easy enough I wouldn't mind trying this time. The acid test kit comes with "This kit comes complete with test vial, syringe, color solution, sodium hydroxide and detailed instructions. " also I have potasium sorbate.

 

[wolfman_48442]

Don't use citric acid, it's very easy to detect by taste at pretty low levels. If you're going to do acid adjustments, follow Yooper's advice and use lactic or phosphoric.

If you're doing a dark(ish/er) lager with any crystal or roast grains, they will lower your ph some by themselves.
If you like the way your water tastes now, you can probably brew a nice beer without acid, and get some for next time.

 

[aiptasia]

Both Yooper and Wolfman are correct.

I would make the basic beer using your recipe and then see how it turns out. If the water quality needs tweaking from there, you can fine tune your water quality to see if that helps. That, or brew two batches, tweaking the pH on one and leaving the other au natural.

Owning a hydroponic pH pen (with calibration solution) can be a quick way to test the pH of your wort after it cools. They're generally more accurate than the liquid based test kits.

 

[TopherM]

As long as you are using a good % of base malt, the mashing base malt is going to change the acidity of the strike water down into the high 5s without having to do anything (I'm generally around 5.6-5.8 in the mash without additives, our tap water PH is around 7.6-7.8). From there, you can use about a small amount (0.25-0.5 lbs) of acid malt in the mash to get down into the low 5s if you really want to.

There are a few guys in my brew club that are into perfecting the water chemistry. I just do a teaspoon of gypsum in the boil to soften our FL hard water and the method above and I can't say their stuff is any better than mine.

Good luck!