Offsetting too Much Acid Malt

[str1p3s]

I scaled down a recipe I found from 12 gallons to 5.5 gallons that included acid malt. I've never used acid malt and naively believed after scaling it down and plugging in the numbers into bru'n water, that the pH would come out right. It came out at 5.02.

I already milled all the grain, including the acid malt (3.4% of the grist) at the homebrew store and it's all mixed in one bucket waiting for brew day.

My question is, should I add baking soda to bring the ph back up? Will that cause a significant flavor impact? Let it ride?

As a last resort, I could scale the recipe back, minus the acid malt, up to 6 gallons (or more) to get the pH back above 5.2.

Any thoughts?

 

[ProblemChild]

What are you making?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

You will not know if you actually have pH 5.02 in the mash until you mash and measure it at room temperature about 10-15 minutes into the mash with a well calibrated pH meter. It takes a lot of acid to get to pH 5.02 for a recipe presumed to have higher DI mash pH grist components such that acid malt was required in the first place, presuming that the original (un-scaled) recipe was targeting 5.4 pH in the mash.

What are the specifics for the scaled to 5.5 gallon size batch?

 

[str1p3s]

Hopslam recipe:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/352338/bell-s-hopslam-clone

I used that recipe and plugged it into beer smith and scaled it from 85% efficiency to 80% and from 12 gallons to 5.5.

The link above provides the water profile as well, so I plugged the unscaled 12 lb version into bru'n water and got 4.97 so something isn't adding up.

I don't have a pH meter. People have sworn by bru'n water and I've trusted it with my last 6 or 7 batches (using distilled and adding minerals) and the beer has turned out much better than previous when I didn't pay much attention to the water.

 

[LLBeanJ]

I'd just go with it as-is and see how it turns out. Maybe mash a little longer in case the pH does end up on the low side to ensure full conversion, as low pH can somewhat inhibit conversion. Is this BIAB, or is a it traditional MLT setup? If MLT, maybe go with the thinnest mash you can accommodate in your mash tun, which should increase pH a bit.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Here is what I see for the unscaled recipe. For a target mash pH of 5.4 it appears to me that it should only have called for about 7.5 Oz. of Acidulated Malt instead of 16 Oz.

 

[str1p3s]

Here is what I see for the unscaled recipe. For a target mash pH of 5.4 it appears to me that it should only have called for about 7.5 Oz. of Acidulated Malt instead of 16 Oz.

Yeah, lessoned learned... Don't just trust everything you find on the internet

Thanks for the input. I think I'm just going to let it ride and see what happens.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Yeah, lessoned learned... Don't just trust everything you find on the internet

Thanks for the input. I think I'm just going to let it ride and see what happens.

My educated guess is that you will mash at a measured pH of closer to 5.2 rather than 5.0. Will you be capable of measuring it?