[mchrispen]

Get BeerSmith! You'll never regret it. It will tell you how much to add to adjust your water.

With respect, there is a water ion calculator for mineral additions in BeerSmith, but I have never seen anything useful to calculate lactic/phosphoric acid additions to estimate mash pH in the program. This is why I use Bru'n Water religiously.

[factory]

Get BeerSmith! You'll never regret it. It will tell you how much to add to adjust your water.


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?
I was not aware of this Tool in BeerSmith?  I know that there is a Water Profile tool to help a brewer match water profiles, but the Water Profile tool provides no pH information.

[nathan74]

I was WAAY to enthused with some beer when I wrote that.  Disregard!

Get BeerSmith! You'll never regret it. It will tell you how much to add to adjust your water.

With respect, there is a water ion calculator for mineral additions in BeerSmith, but I have never seen anything useful to calculate lactic/phosphoric acid additions to estimate mash pH in the program. This is why I use Bru'n Water religiously.

[nathan74]

Pay no attention to that comment.  I removed it btw.  After a liter of RIS, I shouldn't have been trying to answer questions in the forum! #beerhappiness

Get BeerSmith! You'll never regret it. It will tell you how much to add to adjust your water.


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?
I was not aware of this Tool in BeerSmith?  I know that there is a Water Profile tool to help a brewer match water profiles, but the Water Profile tool provides no pH information.

[factory]

Pay no attention to that comment.  I removed it btw.  After a liter of RIS, I shouldn't have been trying to answer questions in the forum! #beerhappiness

Get BeerSmith! You'll never regret it. It will tell you how much to add to adjust your water.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

?
I was not aware of this Tool in BeerSmith?  I know that there is a Water Profile tool to help a brewer match water profiles, but the Water Profile tool provides no pH information.

No worries.  I was just wondering if there was something I had missed.  BeerSmith makes a lot of things easy for recipe calculations/design, but I have always used Bru'n Water since I started making adjustments to my water.  I tried the nomograph in Palmer's "How to Brew a couple of times, but found Bru'n Water to be much easier and more accurate when playing with mineral additions.  If such a tool were in BS, I would be happy to use it and ditch the additional steps.

[PORTERHAUS]

Just out of curiosity- how many minutes into the mash is everyone taking their first sample?  5 min, 10 min?

I have been taking one 5 minutes after I reach my target mash temp.  I am assuming this is enough time for a proper pH to stabilize.  Any thoughts?

I thought about this when I was mashing my Porter earlier today. I took an initial sample to test my ph maybe 8-10 into the mash once I was all stirred in well and happy with my temps. The first cooled sample had a room temp reading of 5.75 so my actual mash ph was about 5.4. I took another sample with about 10 mins left in the mash just to see what it was then and my cooled sample gave my meter a reading of 5.7 so that's about 5.4 in the mash. I'm guessing the reading changed slightly with more time to allow the reactions to take place, but it wasn't much enough to worry about. It also could have been just a slight difference in the room temperature sample I pulled from the mash the 2nd time. Temps would have to be exact when measured to really be relevant. But in the end, not enough difference to worry about and no more than 10 mins into the mash seems to be plenty of time for reliable reading.

[hopfenundmalz]

Just out of curiosity- how many minutes into the mash is everyone taking their first sample?  5 min, 10 min?

I have been taking one 5 minutes after I reach my target mash temp.  I am assuming this is enough time for a proper pH to stabilize.  Any thoughts?

I thought about this when I was mashing my Porter earlier today. I took an initial sample to test my ph maybe 8-10 into the mash once I was all stirred in well and happy with my temps. The first cooled sample had a room temp reading of 5.75 so my actual mash ph was about 5.4. I took another sample with about 10 mins left in the mash just to see what it was then and my cooled sample gave my meter a reading of 5.7 so that's about 5.4 in the mash. I'm guessing the reading changed slightly with more time to allow the reactions to take place, but it wasn't much enough to worry about. It also could have been just a slight difference in the room temperature sample I pulled from the mash the 2nd time. Temps would have to be exact when measured to really be relevant. But in the end, not enough difference to worry about and no more than 10 mins into the mash seems to be plenty of time for reliable reading.

The cooled sample is what you base the the reading on.

[PORTERHAUS]

^^^...Could you elaberate?

[JT]

^^^...Could you elaberate?

Your mash pH was 5.7, not 5.4.  The pH is always measured at room temperature.  5.7 is at the high end but no worries, it should be just fine. 

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[PORTERHAUS]

5.7 at 70* or so... 5.4 in the mash at 150 degrees plus. Correct?

[JT]

5.7 at 70* or so... 5.4 in the mash at 150 degrees plus. Correct?

Roundabouts, yes.  But the texts that talk of optimal mash pH are referring to a cooled mash sample, so it doesn't really matter what the heated mash pH is.  That would only be useful if you were reading the hot mash temp, and that will damage your probe (been there, done that). 

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[PORTERHAUS]

I see a lot of mixed info of how ph is talked about which seems to cause confusion. I always understood we needed to factor in the .3 of ph difference when we measured our cooled sample. If this is not the case, I have been doing it wrong all this time. When I read or hear talk of mash ph, I understood it as the ph at mash temps. So in turn when I use water calculators to estimate mash ph I understand that was for a cooled room temp sample, but I always shot for .3 higher with the undersanding the true ph in the mash would be .3 lower. Sounds like I've been running my mash ph to high?

Wow, talk about a light bulb going off. No wonder I was always so confused, I confused my damn self. I failed to realize the "ideal ranges" often indicated were/are for cooled samples. Damn, well I appreciate the info to help set me straight. I guess at least with this last batch, being a nice big Porter a mash ph of 5.7 isn't too bad considering all the talk lately of higher mash ph's for darker beers like these. Moving forward I'm no curious to taste improvement in my beers because of this.

[hopfenundmalz]

^^^...Could you elaberate?

It was bedtime for me, 6 hour difference. Just back on. JT has summed it up. The Texts say the pH is for the room temperature measurement. Martin has talked about this, along with others.

[klickitat jim]

Whenever I deal with pH the numbers are at 70F. Targets, actual, mash, preboil, post boil, final in the glass. It leaves out the math.

[JT]

Sounds like I've been running my mash ph to high?

Maybe a bit, but you're still within range for conversion.  The big risk if you you start high like is that it will likely climb higher when sparging and that can extract some tannins that you probably don't want in your beer.  This risk is reduced a bit if you batch sparge and/or use reverse osmosis or distilled sparge water. 
There is still a BIG gap in my own understanding as to how pH plays a role in all the various stages of the process.  The list includes, but is not limited to conversion in the mash, hop utilization in the boil, flavor stability post fermentation, taste when packaging, etc.  There are many on the forum tinkering with this now.  Good stuff. 
Time to get up and turn on the HLT.  Cheers!

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