Id like to get some phosphoric acid to lower the pH of my water for brewing. Does anyone have a recommendation on where to get it? I found 85% food grade Phosophic acid on Amazon but was wondering if there was a better option. I am currently using 88% lactic acid but the amounts i need to brew 1bbl make it rather expensive and the chance for an off flavor is less then appealing.
I work at my LHBS, sadly we dont have access to this acid, and dont order from CMG. Looking for a secondary source with a higher concentration. 10% concentrations would still be rather expensive to use because of how much you would end up using.
How so? A 10% phosphoric acid addition of ~6 mL can bring my water (alkalinity=13, pH=8.5, 10gal) to pH=6. At $4 a bottle from NB, it’d take me most of the year to run through that.
my water ph seems to have a base of 8.7( needs more testing) and im treating ~60g a brew. we used 20ML of lactic last brew session. Thats 7.5 brews per bottle.
Agreed, but im trying to brew professionally eventually, and since everything adds to the cost of the beer, learning to use the correct chemicals(lactic acid adds taste to beer in large quantities, phosphoric doesnt) in the correct amounts and sourcing larger quantities for cheaper becomes paramount.
I know a few breweries that use lactic to acidify their water without harm.
Didn’t Kai’s experiments show that it takes about 5ml in 5 gallons to notice the flavor? You are using close to that at 20ml for a 1bbl. Most I have used is about 2ml in 5 gallons.
I understand pinching pennies. Looking at your last grain bill (Kolsch from the Software Eff Thread), you must of had $60 invested in malt alone for that beer. $0.50 is less than 1%. At least 10% of my costs go to water with an additional 15% to propane. I’m not sweating a $0.05-0.10 for lactic acid.
Edit - not looking to troll. Just saying, don’t sweat the small stuff.
I had checked Dudadiesel’s site, and almost went with it, and should have. I found a hyproponics pharmaceutical grade 85% phosphoric acid solution product by Advance Nutrients LLC (Canadian) named “PH Down” I purchased at a local hydroponics store. Over the phone they quoted me a lower price than the $20 I ended up paying to get one liter of this specific brand, which is basically equivalent to the Dudadiesel product shipped except what I bought might include added dye, even though a previous check on the MSDS only listed phosphoric acid. I haven’t opened it yet. Funny thing is that I can no longer find a link to the MSDS.
I think it’s around 1.2ish ml/g is suppose to be the flavor threshold of 88% lactic acid. I use lactic acid for all my german style beers. Even if you’re above that threshold it doesn’t nessisarily mean the beer will be ‘sour’ tasting.
Lactic Acid:
Typical Concentrations in Beer:
0.2-1.5 mg/L
Perception Threshold (in neutral solution):
0.04 mg/L
So, 0.2-1.5 ppm would be what is normal in beer anyway - perception would depend on the base beer. For comparison, I dosed Coors Light at a rate of 1.5 mg/L lactic acid in an off flavors presentation I did and about 50% of our club members picked it out correctly.
As Amanda points out, the perception of these off-flavors is not exact. Differing tasters have different taste thresholds for these compounds. Don’t be surprised if someone says that they can taste it at X and someone says, Y.