It occured to me this morning that a simpler explanation for the buffer is that a buffer is a mixture of an acid and a base and if water is removed both are concentrated by the same amount so that their concentration ratio stays the same.
Calichusetts,
Thanks for the input! So, does your taste preference lie with a 5.2 mash pH for hoppy beers? Or will you stick with the standard 5.4 pH in the future?
My small batches of Zombie Dust are still in the fermenters - I may bottle them this coming weekend. Then it'll be three weeks of bottle conditioning. However, as previously noted, my targeted pH values weren't where I wanted them to be. As a result, it is likely that I won't perceive much difference in the taste. I'll report back regardless.
Thanks again for your input!
All,
Just had another thought on this topic (kind of an obvious one) - has anyone emailed/asked Kimmich what he meant about his statement concerning mash pH? Was he talking about pH at mash temperatures or pH at room temperature? See - I said it was obvious.
I think I missed the boat on the whole "5.4 as standard." When I actually got into mash pH I simply put in my favorite recipies into a water profile calculator. I found most were in the 5.3s, one around 5.4 and several in the high 5.2s
As to the "5.4 standard", I was going by the Instructions tab on the Bru'n Water workbook. Martin references "Malting and Brew Science" as the source for setting an optimum mash pH of 5.3 to 5.5. The reference can also be found on the Mash Acidification tab.
Keep experimenting. Don't conclude that 5.4 is optimum based on a single brew session. It is very hard for home brewers to control things from brew to brew well enough that we can vary one and only one parameter. Try other pH's as well as 5.4. If you consistently find that 5.4 gives you the best result then and only then conclude that this is the optimum pH for this beer. Try 5.5 and 5.6 too. We should all do this but of course most of us don't because we don't brew the same beer that many times.
I realized that I never posted my tasting notes about my two one gallon batches of Zombie Dust. I mashed one at 5.29 and the second at 5.45. The unanimous conclusion was that the 5.45 was far superior of the two.
Would you please share what additions you made to your RO water for your 5.45 pH batch, perhaps scaled up to a 5.5 gallon batch? I have all the ingredients to brew the Zombie Dust clone, and I'm just waiting for a free day to brew it. A water recipe would be most helpful. Thanks.
Would you please share what additions you made to your RO water for your 5.45 pH batch, perhaps scaled up to a 5.5 gallon batch? I have all the ingredients to brew the Zombie Dust clone, and I'm just waiting for a free day to brew it. A water recipe would be most helpful. Thanks.
OK. Here goes. I'm going to (try to) share some pictures from my version of Bru'n Water. I'll start off with a listing of the grist that I used for the version of Zombie Dust that I brewed.
I found that I prefer a mash pH of 5.4ish for my IPAs as well. At least, the ones I"ve done over and over. I think it really has "bright" flavors that way, for lack of a better term. Since I brew mostly APAs, IPAs, and American reds with a blonde or a lager tossed in the mix, that was a big "Aha!" moment for me.
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