When to add lactic acid to mash?

[Bryceefisher]

I recently have been building my water from distilled. I will be brewing this weekend and using 88% lactic acid to lower my pH without further adding gypsum etc because I have all the levels where I want them on brunwater. My question is should I add it to the water before dough in or add it straight to the mash? I am considering taking a reading at 5 min and then adding accordingly... That is if it will have no negative effects on the mash to wait that long?

 

[butterpants]

But you do have a source of Calcium added to mash/DI water right? If not your enzymes will not be happy

 

[RM-MN]

Conversion starts as soon as the grains get wet so I would think you would want to add the acid either before the grains or while adding the grains. Tests I have done with grains that are milled very fine so they wet through immediately show that conversion is done in less than 3 minutes. Your grains won't be milled that finely so you have a little more time but you do want the pH correct when the conversion starts.

 

[Bryceefisher]

But you do have a source of Calcium added to mash/DI water right? If not your enzymes will not be happy

Yes I have all the levels in the recommended ranges using brunwater.

 

[Bryceefisher]

Conversion starts as soon as the grains get wet so I would think you would want to add the acid either before the grains or while adding the grains. Tests I have done with grains that are milled very fine so they wet through immediately show that conversion is done in less than 3 minutes. Your grains won't be milled that finely so you have a little more time but you do want the pH correct when the conversion starts.

Yea that's what I was thinking just wanted to be sure I wouldn't dilute the effects of the acid. Also I don't know if I have a method to bring the ph back up if it gets to low. As far as I know you shouldn't use an acid and an alkaline in the mash together?

The initial mash pH will still be in the correct range I am just trying to get it to the low edge because I am brewing a Saison and want it to be crisp and tart. I guess I will dig around a little more and see what others have done.

 

[mabrungard]

All minerals and acids should be thoroughly mixed into the water BEFORE doughing in. Another brewer just performed a simple experiment where he added minerals and acid to a test mash and then mixed to a degree that he thought was thorough. He measured pH and temperatures at various points in the mash and was surprised to see at lot of variation even though he thought the mixing was good. Adding the minerals and acid beforehand, avoids the pH variation.

 

[tootal]

We set out hot liquor ph at 5.8 - 6. Your mash will naturally lower the ph so we start on the high side since it's only going to get lower. We set the sparge water at 5.4 +/-.

 

[Bryceefisher]

All minerals and acids should be thoroughly mixed into the water BEFORE doughing in. Another brewer just performed a simple experiment where he added minerals and acid to a test mash and then mixed to a degree that he thought was thorough. He measured pH and temperatures at various points in the mash and was surprised to see at lot of variation even though he thought the mixing was good. Adding the minerals and acid beforehand, avoids the pH variation.

I agree with you and have decided that I will add acid this way. But in my experience and research the pH will increase a fair amount almost always thought the mash.

 

[Bryceefisher]

We set out hot liquor ph at 5.8 - 6. Your mash will naturally lower the ph so we start on the high side since it's only going to get lower. We set the sparge water at 5.4 +/-.

Are you using any water software to come to these conclusions or do you always adjust to these pH levels?

 

[fearwig]

If you know how much acid you need based on a spreadsheet, add it before. If you don't, you can definitely get to the right pH by using a cautious educated guess and going a pinch at a time. I know I need a little in my water, so I acidify slightly before dough-in. Then I keep it going (and I keep mixing) until I hit the low fives. There should be a lot of stirring going on at this stage anyway.

I don't think you need to stress that much about your pH as long as it's in the right range. If you're anything like me, you're trying to avoid tannin extraction, not hit some scientifically optimal pH for conversion (conversion isn't that hard?).

pH 5.4 seems low for sparge water to me. Maybe if I were scraping the bottom at 1.010 I'd go that low, but I never seem to be doing that.

 

[Bryceefisher]

fearwig,
I think it's about 1ml. I'm just super anal about everything being perfect.

 

[tootal]

Are you using any water software to come to these conclusions or do you always adjust to these pH levels?

Trial and error. We use untreated well water and no we have never tested it. We use phosphoric acid and it takes 3 capfuls to reach 5.8 and 3.5 capfuls to get 5.4. We just experimented until we hit our numbers. Another factor is we step mash which might help with some acidation of the mash. Our goal is to be at 5.2 to 5.5. This was from Greg Noonan's book, Brewing Lager Beer.

Our efficiency is at 86% in the fermenter. Before doing this our beer had an astringency we didn't like, especially our stouts. Now they come out wonderful. I now believe that was from being around a ph of 7 mixed with all the dark malts and fly sparging. Treating for ph has made a huge improvement.

On the other side of the coin we've brewed a Pre Prohibition Pilsner and a Budweiser clone with both using 30 percent rice and a cereal mash. Both of these beers turned out flawless. As you know, there's no hiding any mistakes in a light beer!