[klickitat jim]

Agreed, but im trying to brew professionally eventually, and since everything adds to the cost of the beer, learning to use the correct chemicals(lactic acid adds taste to beer in large quantities, phosphoric doesnt) in the correct amounts and sourcing larger quantities for cheaper becomes paramount. 

I know a few breweries that use lactic to acidify their water without harm.


Didn't Kai's experiments show that it takes about 5ml in 5 gallons to notice the flavor? You are using close to that at 20ml for a 1bbl. Most I have used is about 2ml in 5 gallons.


I understand pinching pennies. Looking at your last grain bill (Kolsch from the Software Eff Thread), you must of had $60 invested in malt alone for that beer. $0.50 is less than 1%. At least 10% of my costs go to water with an additional 15% to propane. I'm not sweating a $0.05-0.10 for lactic acid.

Edit - not looking to troll. Just saying, don't sweat the small stuff.

I think its much higher than 1 ml per gallon. But sadly I can't get onto his site to verify

[dkfick]

I think it's around 1.2ish ml/g is suppose to be the flavor threshold of 88% lactic acid.  I use lactic acid for all my german style beers.  Even if you're above that threshold it doesn't nessisarily mean the beer will be 'sour' tasting.

[AmandaK]

Lactic Acid:
Typical Concentrations in Beer:
0.2-1.5 mg/L

Perception Threshold (in neutral solution):
0.04 mg/L

So, 0.2-1.5 ppm would be what is normal in beer anyway - perception would depend on the base beer. For comparison, I dosed Coors Light at a rate of 1.5 mg/L lactic acid in an off flavors presentation I did and about 50% of our club members picked it out correctly.

[Jeff M]

Lactic Acid:
Typical Concentrations in Beer:
0.2-1.5 mg/L

Perception Threshold (in neutral solution):
0.04 mg/L

So, 0.2-1.5 ppm would be what is normal in beer anyway - perception would depend on the base beer. For comparison, I dosed Coors Light at a rate of 1.5 mg/L lactic acid in an off flavors presentation I did and about 50% of our club members picked it out correctly.

This is good to know, thanks Amanda. Maybe ill douse a yuengling to tone my taste buds.

[mabrungard]

As Amanda points out, the perception of these off-flavors is not exact. Differing tasters have different taste thresholds for these compounds. Don't be surprised if someone says that they can taste it at X and someone says, Y.

[shockerengr]

Here is where I bought mine... the 1 gallon... It looks untouched a year later lol...
http://www.dudadiesel.com/search.php?query=phosphoric

I use the 85% from dudadiesel as well, but I dilute it down to 10% with distilled water and store it in gallon jugs (fewer hazards to worry about during brew days)

I used the spreadsheet here (http://www.dudadiesel.com/mixing_chemicals.php) to calculate and weigh everything out by weight.  remember to always add acid to water, not the other way.