Odd Question About Mash Adjustments

[ArkotRamathorn]

Ive started using Brun water spreadsheet and I am wanting to nail down my water chemistry and had a question I couldn't find a straight answer on. If I completely missed this in one of the stickies or the Brun water faqs then just call me an idiot and I'll know I can find it there.

My source water can be difficult to brew pale beers with due to high bicarbonate level (125) so I have purchased some lactic acid. Previously I used acid malt and did rough adjustments that worked well(ish). So this was never a question before. For the acid addition to bring mash pH into desired ranges do you or can you go ahead and add the acid to the straight water before heating and mashing?

Usually I will measure my water out a few days in advance or at least the night before, so my question is if I can go ahead and add my acid (and other salt additions) when I'm measuring the water prior to brew day? I don't understand or know enough about adding acid to a solution with no buffering capability, and got a score sheet back on a black IPA that the judges thought was too acidic (it was well past its prime and I agreed with them when I opened a bottle, it scored a 40 though when it was very fresh and netted me my first medal).

Should I hold my acid till I am actually mashing in and throw it in once there's the malt buffering the pH drop? Or does it not matter, throwing the acid in when I measure my water out will still give me the calculated mash pH?

 

[ajdelange]

I really want people to understand that in dealing with question like this we need to know the alkalinity, not the bicarbonate. If you insist on specifying bicarbonate then I need to know the pH as well. OK, I'm being pedantic here as I can, knowing your bicarbonate is high, also know the alkalinity is high so I can, in fact, answer the question.

In treating alkaline water for mashing you want to reduce its alkalinity WRT mash pH to 0. The easiest way to do this is to add enough acid to bring the water pH to mash pH. If I knew the actual alkalinity I could tell you how much acid that takes. I could also guess what the alkalinity probably is and use that to estimate the acid but that's not really what you are asking.

For pale beers just acidify the whole volume of water you are going to use to the mash pH then tell your program you are using water with 0 alkalinity. It should calculate the amount of acid you need to hit the target pH, then, based on just the malt (you have already taken care of the water). Add that extra acid to portion of the water that you are going to mash with.