acidifying sparge water...how?

oliver

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I want to acidify my sparge water a bit now.

I sparge with Deionized water, which has a pH of 7, but now I'd like to experiment with keeping my sparge water the same pH as my mash water, between 5.3 and 5.4.

I tried playing with the water calculator and it kept telling me "you need to add 0.00ml of acidification to sparge water." well. Thanks calculator.

Anyone know of a good calculator I can use. Or, knows the calculations?

(I sparge between 3 and 4 quarts of deionized water, and I use Lactic Acid)
 
I use phosphoric acid (80%) for my brewing water. You need a digital PH meter. Test your water at 20c/68f. Add 1 drop at a time mixing well until you reach your desired PH.
 
I see this when I use the calculator...isn't it something like that you want? I don't seem to be able to change to another pH of the sparge water though, only the mash water.
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Either lactic or phosphoric acid. You can use strong mineral acids but no need, really.
 
I see this when I use the calculator...isn't it something like that you want? I don't seem to be able to change to another pH of the sparge water though, only the mash water.
View attachment 2211

I see that too, but mine says 0.0ml for some reason.

you need to add the starting water report or its useless

I do add my starting water profile, I even checked the box that said different sources of mash and sparge water, and then chose deionized again for sparge, still told me 0.0ml acid needed in sparge water.

any other help?
 
first are you in the editor of a recipe when clicking on the link to go to the water calculator or where are you at on this
also show me here your starting water profile then add a link here to one you've created and Ill mess with it
 
I go from my recipe, click on water calculations at the bottom. Open up the saved thing. I messed with everything, still tells me add 0.00...

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My source water is DeIonized, zeros across the board, and a pH of 7.

but I'm on to something. The calculator won't give me a number because I brew on a small scale, and 1 gallon of sparge water isn't enough to show a reading in ml... So, idk. I'm guessing it's less than a gram of lactic acid needed to bring 1 gallon of DeIonized water at a pH of 7 down to a pH of 5.35
 
well, apparently I'm confused about what DeIonized water. It's H20 with no ions in it. It has to have some pH, which I believed was 7.
 
My 2c is you'd need less than Half a ml to bring that down to 5.4 there won't be much buffering power in that dionized water I'd recon a drop or two and you'll be into the mash range. Half a ml and you'll be down below 5 for sure! Plenty times I've over acidified my sparge water it's usually 5 LT and I just put the syringe into the lactic 88% bottle and then swirl it through my sparge water and that's enough to drop it down below 6ph.
 
a lot of misinformation on the web about this issue, many articles aren't related to beer brewing this is one I read

pH electrodes will NOT give accurate pH values in distilled or deionized water. This is because distilled and deionized water do not have enough ions present for the electrode to function properly. The readings will drift and be essentially meaningless.

The pH of pure, distilled water in a vacuum is 7; it is neither acidic nor alkaline. Immediately after distillation, however, water begins absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and it forms carbonic acid -- a weak acid. This absorption continues until the carbon dioxide concentration in the water is the same as it is in the atmosphere. At this point, the pH of the distilled water is around 5.8.
 
a lot of misinformation on the web about this issue, many articles aren't related to beer brewing this is one I read

pH electrodes will NOT give accurate pH values in distilled or deionized water. This is because distilled and deionized water do not have enough ions present for the electrode to function properly. The readings will drift and be essentially meaningless.

The pH of pure, distilled water in a vacuum is 7; it is neither acidic nor alkaline. Immediately after distillation, however, water begins absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and it forms carbonic acid -- a weak acid. This absorption continues until the carbon dioxide concentration in the water is the same as it is in the atmosphere. At this point, the pH of the distilled water is around 5.8.
So therefore no need to acidity as it's pretty much at a great sparging ph then?
 
a lot of misinformation on the web about this issue, many articles aren't related to beer brewing this is one I read

pH electrodes will NOT give accurate pH values in distilled or deionized water. This is because distilled and deionized water do not have enough ions present for the electrode to function properly. The readings will drift and be essentially meaningless.

The pH of pure, distilled water in a vacuum is 7; it is neither acidic nor alkaline. Immediately after distillation, however, water begins absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and it forms carbonic acid -- a weak acid. This absorption continues until the carbon dioxide concentration in the water is the same as it is in the atmosphere. At this point, the pH of the distilled water is around 5.8.
I read another article claiming the same thing about CO2 absorption, however they said it only drops the pH down a few points, nothing drastic. I've never acidified my sparge water in the past, just something I wanted to experiment with. This sounds like good information though.
 
one thing you don't want to do is lower your ph too much it can cause bad flavors
 

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