Finished beer pH

[marchio-93]

Hello everyone! I brewed a best bitter of OG 1.036 and FG 1.008. During the mash the pH was 5.6, the sparge water was at 5.5, and that of boil / post boil unfortunately I forgot to measure it. Now, after a week of fermentation, with OG stable for three days, I find myself with a pH of 4.65, quite high. Is this serious enough? Will it go down again? I read that the bitterness will feel less elegant, the beer will be less stable and the flavors less bright

 

[thehaze]

Finished pH at 4.65 isn't bad, although lower could* be better. Most NEIPAs have a very high final pH - between 4.4 and 4.6. I find that some English yeast strains will drive the pH closer to 4-4.1. No matter the mash pH, the yeast will lower the pH on its own. There can be reasons why it didn't go lower, reasons I cannot speculate about. I don't think your beer is spoiled or worse for that matter, but whether it could've been better with a lower final pH, I don't know. I guess it depends on the style, beer, expectations...

 

[Robert65]

Yeast will always lower the pH, but their ability does have a limit. It's too bad you didn't measure the pH of the wort. Adjusting the pH of the wort going into the fermentor to 5.0-5.2 with acid is recommended practice, as the yeast will have an easier job of getting it down closer to the 4.0 range. (In fact, pH should be adjusted in the boil, before adding Irish moss or other kettle finings, as they require this pH level to function properly.) Under the right conditions, some British yeasts will drop the pH of the finished beer as low as 3.7-3.8, but 4.0-4.4 is more common (for all yeasts, including lager) and sufficient. Going forward, try making a habit of measuring and adjusting the pH in the kettle. It appears that everything else was in order in your case.

 

[marchio-93]

Thank you very much! The beer now tastes good, so I think it's not gonna be the best brew of my life but also not a bad beer because of the high pH, am I right? So I hope it's not a big mistake

 

[couchsending]

Hello everyone! I brewed a best bitter of OG 1.036 and FG 1.008. During the mash the pH was 5.6, the sparge water was at 5.5, and that of boil / post boil unfortunately I forgot to measure it. Now, after a week of fermentation, with OG stable for three days, I find myself with a pH of 4.65, quite high. Is this serious enough? Will it go down again? I read that the bitterness will feel less elegant, the beer will be less stable and the flavors less bright

How are you measuring? If it’s a pH meter is it calibrated often?

5.6 is a bit high for mash. Remember you can always adjust everything on the fly. The buffering capacity of your water is more important than it’s pH remember.

Optimizing mash pH for enzyme efficiency isn’t really that big of a deal on the Homebrew scale. For huge breweries where 1-2% efficiency increase equals a sizable chunk of money then it’s worth it.

However if your mash pH is high you run a much higher risk of extracting tannins from the mash when sparging.

Really boil pH shouldn’t be much higher than 5.4 and there’s many people that believe pH at the end of the boil should be adjusted close to 5.0 for optimum fermentation health.

Fun variables to play with for sure.