Good stuff guys. I wish there was a paper or text that described the levels at the beginning and end of the mash, beginning and end of the boil, and beginning and end of fermentation so we could see the results.
Do the research and publish the results yourself. ;) You’re a good brewer… I would read that paper. :D This is an interesting topic and I have some pale gold lagers planned in the next few weeks so they’re ready when the warmer weather comes. I will be looking into it further. Cheers Beerheads.
Mine usually come out in the 5.0-5.1 range after the boil with no adjustment. So I don’t bother with kettle acidification
I generally do not take the measurement at that point in the process but I was wondering where my pH was near the end of the boil. I will not find out anytime soon because all brewing activities have been put on hold until the VOLAR PORTEX has gone back to Canada. 
I’m updating a thread from February. I have been looking into this and you would think that with the amount I brew I would have a better feel for it already but not really. Yesterday I made a gold lager with an SRM of about 4. My room-temp mash pH was 5.38. I have been using about 25% distilled water lately to lower my bicarb and I have been able to add less acid as a result. I took a quick check of my sparge pH and it was also 5.38. With about 10 minutes left in [my 30-minute] boil, the pH was 5.35. I added about 1.5ml of 88% lactic acid to the kettle (this was after a few batches where 1ml seemed to do very little) and the final wort pH as it was going into the fermenter was 5.27. Clearly I won’t know what flavor or clarity impact will come from this until I sample the beer but should I be looking to go lower? I will say that my wort was very, very clear and I got 100% clear wort into the fermenter so I look forward to the beer being clear. But what flavor impact will come from a 1.5ml addition of acid with 10 minutes left in the boil?
Resurrecting an older thread. I had a pale lager on tap (my sister, one of my sons and his girlfriend were here putting a dent in my supply) and of the glasses I had of it, I noticed a crisper finish. That keg went down last night and I replaced it with another beer (my Cabana Lager). I gave it a sip and noticed the same thing… a dry and crisp finish. Both beers were made with Omega 113 Mexican Lager which is new to me and I thought it was just attenuating well. Turns out that the first beer had 1ml of acid added around midway through the boil. The second one had 1.5ml added. This was in an attempt to get the final wort pH closer to 5.0 (which btw DID NOT lower it that much). So this drier, crisper character is coming from the acid addition, IMO. The character is NOT a bad one but I don’t think I want to continue doing this. I see that there is another gold lager where I added 2ml midboil (I kept upping the amount trying to get the pH closer to 5.0 - 5.1) and that’s the last beer I tried it on. I plan to use some amylase enzyme in ONE batch just to compare the dry/crisp character of that. The acid addition is supposed to help kettle finings knock out more schputz and produce a clearer beer. The first of these was VERY clear. This second one is also clear so that part might be working as it should.
On second thought, I might have to rethink this. It’s a beautiful day here, grill is started and I just tapped one of these Cabana Lagers. This might be the thing to do afterall. Wait until about 15 minutes into the 30 minute boil, add about 1.5ml of lactic, use the whirfloc or Kick Carageenan at it’s normal time, etc. It’s got a very nice snap to it and the finish is nice and dry.
Keep in mind your yeast plays a huge role in finish pH. Each yeast will produce different levels of excreted acids. Some strains produce more than others. If the pH of your wort is too high, the yeast cannot lower the finish pH as much. If the pH is too low (5.0 or lower) the yeast will not produce as much acid, the finish beer pH usually doesn’t drop as much as one would expect. Finish pH on lagers should be around 4.2-4.4. Pitching at 5.0-5.2 makes it more likely to hit the proper pH range for a lager. A higher finish pH can lead to a flabby, undefined finish and bitterness tends to be harsher. The mistake brewers often make is that they miss the target pH so much because of poor water modifications or really hard water, that they try to compensate by adding too much acid. It’s better to get the pH in the correct range with water and water salts, then do fine adjustments with acid so the boil and pitch pH are between 5.0-5.2. This will reduce the likelihood of tasting your acid additions in the beer.
Understood and thank you. To make this a decent test, I actually brewed the exact same beer two weeks apart with the same yeast. Batch 1 had 1.5ml of acid added to the kettle at the midway point in the boil. Batch 2 did not. Batch 1 is on tap right now and at first I detected something that I thought might not be right. But I believe I got that impression because I went from one beer to another on that first taste. Yesterday I started with this “batch 1” beer and concluded that the results of the acid addition are quite good. When batch 2 goes on tap I will try to come to a conclusion on this. I made THREE total batches with the boil addition and then I stopped because I wasn’t sure what the result would be. Cheers & thanks.
Ken,
You’re doing 30 minute boils exclusively? Sounds like you’re having positive results. I know that when I started adding an acid addition at the end of the boil for my lighter lagers I noticed a positive effect in the finished beer; it was just crisper, brighter, and better tasting.
I am mashing and boiling at a pH in the mid-5s which is working nicely all the way around but the original concept of the pH addition in the kettle was to help fining agents like Whirfloc operate in conditions that are better suited for them. I also think that the late addition of acid (I have been doing it with 10-minutes left in the boil… 3 minutes prior to Whirfloc) is doing something positive for the beer flavor. If I mash and boil at a pH of 5.5-ish, I feel like the beer could be ‘flabby’ without an adjustment. Also, I know the thread title is “flameout pH adjustment” but it’s really an adjustment just prior to adding finings.
More: Do the expert members of the panel think this is something that should only be done on pale beers? Last Saturday I brewed a dark lager. I milled the dark grains (3 ounces of MW) separately and added them at the end of the mashed and then began to recirc and run off. With 10 minutes left in the boil I dropped 1ml of acid into the kettle to get the pH a little lower. It appeared to help the whirfloc do its thing (wort was very nice and clear) and I assume it will have a positive impact on flavor as well. Thoughts?
I personally only do it on lighter beers and not before adding fining. Maybe I should rethink that. I always add the whirlfloc at about 15 minutes from the end of the boil and the acid addition around maybe 5 minutes left. Maybe I should flip those additions around.
I use whirfloc for 7-8 minutes so an acid addition at 10 minutes allows the majority of the boil to take place at the suggested pH (mid-5s) and then the acid addition lowers it a bit which helps the whirfloc. On the topic of light v. dark wort acid addition, I’ll see how this dark lager comes out. I have an amber-colored lager on tap now where I did not make a boil acid addition and it’s a little flat-tasting… a bit flabby. I’m tempted to hit that keg with 1ml of acid… anyone ever done that before? It would be a first for me, I believe.
How much sodium is in your water? I think a lot of people forget about the flavor enhancing nature of sodium in brewing. That’s the first thing I think about when a beer is “flabby”. If you ever forgot to put the salt when making a loaf of bread you know the importance of that tiny amount of salt. You could sprinkle a little salt in your pint and see if it perks it up.
Somewhere around 12-13 ppm. It’s on the low side but this has never been an issue before. I have some beers that boiled at a lower overall pH and those beers had a good final flavor. My goal here was to boil at what is considered the ‘proper pH’ (if that’s an acceptable term) which is higher than what I have been doing. I feel like the lack of acid/lower pH is causing an issue in some of these recent beers so my plan is to mash and boil in the mid-5s and make this late boil addition of acid to help finings and potentially flavor.
It appears that this switch to boiling at a pH of about 5.5 and also getting the wort pH lower before using something like whirfloc is helping with my clarity. It’s either that the whirfloc is working better at that lower pH or else boiling the wort at the lower pH (which I was doing before) is causing haze. I had a house full of people here yesterday and everyone was drinking my beer. I saw clear glasses of beer everywhere except for one amber lager that I made prior to this switch… it was very hazy. Any thoughts on the clarity impact of this?
I almost always boil at 5.1-5.2 and my beers have a polished clarity. I don’t think boil pH has much, if anything, to do with clarity, except maybe in theory. Boiling at a higher pH will definitely cause the wort get darkened more than at a lower pH. I think you entered a rabbit hole.
Edit: It is common for pH to drop during the boil by .05-.1.
Some of this was a simplification of my processes and I am liking the changes and liking the results too. I don’t know if it’s a rabbit hole or not but I generally want to know the “hows” and “whys” of things. If my results are satisfactory and I don’t know the reasons why things changed then I’m okay with that but when things so south (poor clarity, poor head retention, off-flavors) I want to know why so I have a better understanding. All of the recent beers have been clearing very well and have had excellent flavor, head retention, etc. so I am going to try to ride these new processes for awhile. Cheers.
EDIT: I also wondered if mashing at too low of a pH could cause haze issues. When I first used BNW and punched in all my water information, it showed that I needed 4ml of 88% lactic acid to get my mash into the proper range. I am now just getting my source water to a pH of 5.5 prior to mashing and to get to that point I need about 2.75ml of lactic acid. I add the acid, heat the water and take the pH of the mash which is usually around 5.4 which translates to 5.2 at mash temp which I consider to be good. I’m going to continue this way and see how the beers come out. Mash at this pH, boil in the mid-5s, add 1ml lactic acid with about 10 mins left in the boil, add whirfloc.
Do you typically reference mash ph at mash temp or room temp? Mash ph is referenced as a standard at room temp. So whatever you read from your sample at room temp is what to reference unless I am understanding you wrong.
Maybe I am wrong. I thought I heard a number of people say that it’s referenced at mash temp. Is our mash pH supposed to be 5.2 at mash temp or room temp? I thought the 5.4 at room temp = 5.2 at mash temp was correct. Maybe someone else will set me straight.