[Village Taphouse]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe BrewBama is brewing with RO water and thus holding his dark grains is in fact a way to not have them “futz” with the mash.  For my moderately bicarbonated water, the dark grains are a blessing for the full mash (as far as pH goes). My using the roasted barley, chocolate malt etc. in the mash allows me to leave the acid on the shelf.
Maybe it’s to be understood that everyone uses RO water (I have no idea), but I just think a distinction needs to be made.
Cheers.

I feel like it all comes out the same way regardless.  BB does use RO water so his strategy to get his water to a pH of 5.5 prior to mashing is one way.  I have 138ppm of bicarb (the rest of my water numbers are very modest) so I need 2.75ml of lactic acid in five gallons of my filtered source water (which has a pH out of the tap of 7.9) to reach a pH of 5.5.  BrewBama does the same (ish) thing on every batch and so do I.  Simplification.  I could adjust the acid on each batch based on the amount of dark grains but this way I don't have to.  It's not for everyone.  Denny mentioned that he likes the character he gets from having his dark grains in the mash the entire time so this is not for him.  Is it cookie-cutter?  Maybe.  Is it cheating and getting around doing the proper work that's required to make a great batch of beer?  Maybe.  But I am really liking the way the beers are coming out.  I was open-minded enough to try some LO stuff because I wanted to know what it was like.  I kept some of those processes.  Then I talked with BB about some of his ideas and I wanted to try those too.  I like them and the resulting beers.

[coolman26]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe BrewBama is brewing with RO water and thus holding his dark grains is in fact a way to not have them “futz” with the mash.  For my moderately bicarbonated water, the dark grains are a blessing for the full mash (as far as pH goes). My using the roasted barley, chocolate malt etc. in the mash allows me to leave the acid on the shelf.
Maybe it’s to be understood that everyone uses RO water (I have no idea), but I just think a distinction needs to be made.
Cheers.

I feel like it all comes out the same way regardless.  BB does use RO water so his strategy to get his water to a pH of 5.5 prior to mashing is one way.  I have 138ppm of bicarb (the rest of my water numbers are very modest) so I need 2.75ml of lactic acid in five gallons of my filtered source water (which has a pH out of the tap of 7.9) to reach a pH of 5.5.  BrewBama does the same (ish) thing on every batch and so do I.  Simplification.  I could adjust the acid on each batch based on the amount of dark grains but this way I don't have to.  It's not for everyone.  Denny mentioned that he likes the character he gets from having his dark grains in the mash the entire time so this is not for him.  Is it cookie-cutter?  Maybe.  Is it cheating and getting around doing the proper work that's required to make a great batch of beer?  Maybe.  But I am really liking the way the beers are coming out.  I was open-minded enough to try some LO stuff because I wanted to know what it was like.  I kept some of those processes.  Then I talked with BB about some of his ideas and I wanted to try those too.  I like them and the resulting beers.

I’ve never thought of something like this. Interesting practice no doubt. I do all RO because my water is hard. Sometimes I blend it and full go on darks. Thanks for the information, easy is what I’m after.

[denny]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe BrewBama is brewing with RO water and thus holding his dark grains is in fact a way to not have them “futz” with the mash.  For my moderately bicarbonated water, the dark grains are a blessing for the full mash (as far as pH goes). My using the roasted barley, chocolate malt etc. in the mash allows me to leave the acid on the shelf.
Maybe it’s to be understood that everyone uses RO water (I have no idea), but I just think a distinction needs to be made.
Cheers.

I feel like it all comes out the same way regardless.  BB does use RO water so his strategy to get his water to a pH of 5.5 prior to mashing is one way.  I have 138ppm of bicarb (the rest of my water numbers are very modest) so I need 2.75ml of lactic acid in five gallons of my filtered source water (which has a pH out of the tap of 7.9) to reach a pH of 5.5.  BrewBama does the same (ish) thing on every batch and so do I.  Simplification.  I could adjust the acid on each batch based on the amount of dark grains but this way I don't have to.  It's not for everyone.  Denny mentioned that he likes the character he gets from having his dark grains in the mash the entire time so this is not for him.  Is it cookie-cutter?  Maybe.  Is it cheating and getting around doing the proper work that's required to make a great batch of beer?  Maybe.  But I am really liking the way the beers are coming out.  I was open-minded enough to try some LO stuff because I wanted to know what it was like.  I kept some of those processes.  Then I talked with BB about some of his ideas and I wanted to try those too.  I like them and the resulting beers.

If you mean whether you add dark malts to the mash or sparge, my experience is that it makes a huge difference in taste.

[Village Taphouse]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe BrewBama is brewing with RO water and thus holding his dark grains is in fact a way to not have them “futz” with the mash.  For my moderately bicarbonated water, the dark grains are a blessing for the full mash (as far as pH goes). My using the roasted barley, chocolate malt etc. in the mash allows me to leave the acid on the shelf.
Maybe it’s to be understood that everyone uses RO water (I have no idea), but I just think a distinction needs to be made.
Cheers.

I feel like it all comes out the same way regardless.  BB does use RO water so his strategy to get his water to a pH of 5.5 prior to mashing is one way.  I have 138ppm of bicarb (the rest of my water numbers are very modest) so I need 2.75ml of lactic acid in five gallons of my filtered source water (which has a pH out of the tap of 7.9) to reach a pH of 5.5.  BrewBama does the same (ish) thing on every batch and so do I.  Simplification.  I could adjust the acid on each batch based on the amount of dark grains but this way I don't have to.  It's not for everyone.  Denny mentioned that he likes the character he gets from having his dark grains in the mash the entire time so this is not for him.  Is it cookie-cutter?  Maybe.  Is it cheating and getting around doing the proper work that's required to make a great batch of beer?  Maybe.  But I am really liking the way the beers are coming out.  I was open-minded enough to try some LO stuff because I wanted to know what it was like.  I kept some of those processes.  Then I talked with BB about some of his ideas and I wanted to try those too.  I like them and the resulting beers.

If you mean whether you add dark malts to the mash or sparge, my experience is that it makes a huge difference in taste.

We touched on this in another thread (and maybe on another board) and you mentioned that you liked the character you got from darker malts when they were in the mash the entire time and I get it.  I'm sure the roasty character is deeper.  I'm not necessarily a fan of overly roasty character and carafa and midnight wheat are pretty low on it to begin with.  This whole concept comes down to where to draw the line too... 4 ounces of special b... in the mash or at the end?  8 ounces of crystal 40... in the mash or at the end?  An English bitter with 8 ounces of a dark crystal malt?  In the mash or at the end?  I tend to add all crystal malts to the mash and save the "at the end" malts to things like MW and carafa.  I don't think the smaller amount of crystal malts are going to push the pH lower than the desired range. 

[denny]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe BrewBama is brewing with RO water and thus holding his dark grains is in fact a way to not have them “futz” with the mash.  For my moderately bicarbonated water, the dark grains are a blessing for the full mash (as far as pH goes). My using the roasted barley, chocolate malt etc. in the mash allows me to leave the acid on the shelf.
Maybe it’s to be understood that everyone uses RO water (I have no idea), but I just think a distinction needs to be made.
Cheers.

I feel like it all comes out the same way regardless.  BB does use RO water so his strategy to get his water to a pH of 5.5 prior to mashing is one way.  I have 138ppm of bicarb (the rest of my water numbers are very modest) so I need 2.75ml of lactic acid in five gallons of my filtered source water (which has a pH out of the tap of 7.9) to reach a pH of 5.5.  BrewBama does the same (ish) thing on every batch and so do I.  Simplification.  I could adjust the acid on each batch based on the amount of dark grains but this way I don't have to.  It's not for everyone.  Denny mentioned that he likes the character he gets from having his dark grains in the mash the entire time so this is not for him.  Is it cookie-cutter?  Maybe.  Is it cheating and getting around doing the proper work that's required to make a great batch of beer?  Maybe.  But I am really liking the way the beers are coming out.  I was open-minded enough to try some LO stuff because I wanted to know what it was like.  I kept some of those processes.  Then I talked with BB about some of his ideas and I wanted to try those too.  I like them and the resulting beers.

If you mean whether you add dark malts to the mash or sparge, my experience is that it makes a huge difference in taste.

We touched on this in another thread (and maybe on another board) and you mentioned that you liked the character you got from darker malts when they were in the mash the entire time and I get it.  I'm sure the roasty character is deeper.  I'm not necessarily a fan of overly roasty character and carafa and midnight wheat are pretty low on it to begin with.  This whole concept comes down to where to draw the line too... 4 ounces of special b... in the mash or at the end?  8 ounces of crystal 40... in the mash or at the end?  An English bitter with 8 ounces of a dark crystal malt?  In the mash or at the end?  I tend to add all crystal malts to the mash and save the "at the end" malts to things like MW and carafa.  I don't think the smaller amount of crystal malts are going to push the pH lower than the desired range.

I don't necessarily always do it one way or the other.  It depends on the character I want in the beer.  For a porter or stout, it's dark grains in the mash. For something like a schwarz or dunkel, it's during sparge. That's why I say there's a difference. I don't worry about pH at all.  Just do what Brunwater tells me to do.

[BrewBama]

Opening Night at the local ballfield. I didn’t brew it but thought I’d share along with a foul ball, peanuts, and cracker jacks.

[Village Taphouse]

Opening Night at the local ballfield. I didn’t brew it but thought I’d share along with a foul ball, peanuts, and cracker jacks.

Very nice.  Go sports! 

[Village Taphouse]

I failed to mention something in that "simplification" post on the last page.  There was also some talk about pH with regard to mashing, boiling, clarification and pitching.  It turns out that the same pH is not necessarily beneficial for all those processes and I can't remember where I saw that.  So your standard 5.2 to 5.4 (at mash temp) is good for mashing and the boil likes that pH as well.  But clarifiers like Whirfloc seem to work better and be more efficient at a lower pH and the yeast apparently likes the pH slightly lower as well.  I use Whirfloc in the boil with about 7 minutes left so with 10 minutes left I add 1ml of lactic acid to the boil.  I have tried 1.5ml and I believe 2ml and the goal was to try to get the pH of the wort close to 5.0 by the time you're transferring to the fermenter.  My acid additions to the boil did not seem to get me to 5.0 and I'm not sure why.  So I settled on 1ml of lactic acid with 10 minutes left in the boil and my clarity seemed to improve and the flavor of the beer has been as good as it's been.  For those who would like to point to some scientific application that is either in favor of all of this or suggests that it's nonsense, please post and shed some light on it.  This process was adopted after reading A LOT of content regarding the proper pH levels throughout the process. 

[Big_Eight]

Another pic of my attempt at a 71' Bodds Recipe.

 I have an attempt at a 1910 Fullers X Dark Mild I'll be posting soon once it's carbed initial samples tasted pretty nice.

[purduekenn]

100% Rahr North Star pils malt, 35 IBU's with Galena, fermented with bootleg biology saison parfait yeast blend OG 1.048, FG 1.002. It had good foam until I started drinking it after eating potato chips
https://imgur.com/a/D5hqEM8

Nice looking beer. How was the Rahr North Star Pils malt?

[BrewBama]

Pub Ale

78% Golden Promise, 12% Golden Naked Oats, 5% Dbl Roasted Crystal, 5% Dem Sugar, 27 IBUs Loral (for me 1 oz at 20, 5, 0)) Bry-97 .

A nice Sessionable Pint.

[dannyjed]

Dunkel that was a little too hoppy a few weeks ago and perfect now.


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[beerphilmcd]

Pub Ale

78% Golden Promise, 12% Golden Naked Oats, 5% Dbl Roasted Crystal, 5% Dem Sugar, 27 IBUs Loral (for me 1 oz at 20, 5, 0)) Bry-97 .

A nice Sessionable Pint.

Looks and sounds great!


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[beerphilmcd]

Dunkel that was a little too hoppy a few weeks ago and perfect now.


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Yummy! I just kegged a British Brown ale that lagered for a month while it waited for an available keg. I can only hope it looks as good as this.

A side note, it was made with Thames Valley and so far I love the fruit flavors I get from it but it is very powdery and very slow to flocculate. I added gelatin at kegging so that should help.


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[purduekenn]

Cream Ale brewed with Sugar Creek 2-Row (75%) and Amanda white malted corn (25%) at 5.4%. Used Lallemand BRY-97 yeast. Cleared with 15ml of biofine clear added to keg. Beer was kegged on April 19 and clear on April 26. First time that I used biofine clear.