keep playing with it... look at the actual alkalinity and the actual acid needed to bring your standard grain bills down to between 5.2-5.6. Phosphoric is fine. I find that I need far less lactic and haven't hit a taste threshold yet. Look at your boil pH (at room temperature) and just track where it naturally goes (I test my hydro samples). So for example, I see 0.2-0.3 units drop in the boil kettle (usually). So if I am targeting a mash pH of 5.4, I am looking for 5.1 in the kettle which ensures really nice hot break formation. (These you have a lot of control over).
The distilled water should have, by definition, low to no alkalinity. So the tiniest acid addition will have a relatively large impact. With your well water, the alkalinity is naturally higher so it takes far more acid to neutralize that alkalinity (along with the mash) to achieve a reasonable mash pH estimate. Think of alkalinity or buffering the ability to resist a change from the introduction of an acid. It's the comic book sand kicking advert for a muscle program... the weakling has low alkalinity compared to the muscle bound jock. In the presence of a strong a strong adversary (acid) the jock is most likely going to last a lot longer than the weakling.
Finally, look at the fermentation pH, where the yeast naturally produce acid; the pH will drop in the lag phase long before any krausen shows. The nominal levels mentioned in the previous thread are pretty close to my records. When preparing a finished beer for competition, I almost always sit with a dropper and evaluate adding some acidity - especially with my saisons or sour beers. That said - I don't find that I like my saisons always at 3.9 or 4.0... really depends on the grain bill or yeast character I am after. Maltier beers seem to be richer at a higher finished pH. Wild beers can be extremely low.
Topic: PH Meter (Read 3843 times)
