Not hitting target pH

[Eric]

Thanks Eric. Quite a post.

I have just lost all of my long reply. Dam... I hate web browsers. I will try and remember some of what I typed.

I take on board all that you have said.

I ruled out infection on the grounds that one out of nine going bad would be odd given that I followed the same cleaning procedures and also that there were no visible signs or wrong smells.

So far I have brewed mostly porters and one mild (which I hope to take to the Morley competition later this month) all of which would have necessitated that climb onto the roof. But the one disaster was Adnams Broadside, a strong bitter.

At this stage I'd simplify the recipe and process. Use CRS to get the alkalinity down to about 300 ppm CaCO3 and ....

Do you mean 30ppm?

Yes, damn it, I did mean 30ppm. I'll alter the original if you don't mind lest someone takes it as being right.
Good luck.

[Dave S]

I blame too many lunch time beers

[Soay4699]

The RiggWelter has been in the bottle for 25 days and last night was the first BBQ of the season and so the right time to taste. It was Wonderful even if I do say so myself. SWMBH thought it better than the original in draught form. I tried to explain to her the differences because of the different carbonation methods which would have changed the mouth feel etc. But I could not argue the fact that it was stonkingly good. It had fermented out to give 5.6% in the bottle but I would say a strong 5.6.

I am now in the middle of brewing my next batch which is a Snecklifter. Did all my normal water treatment as per the calculators and again the pH was not what was predicted. This time at 10 mins and 20 mins into the mash the pH at 20degC was 5.6. What is going wrong? Nobody else is reporting that these calculators are not predicting their mash pH correctly.

Rob.

[Dave S]

What are you using for pH measurement?

[Soay4699]

What are you using for pH measurement?

A cheap pH meter I bought off ebay. And yes I calibrated to 7 and 4 before taking the readings.

I have had a bit more of a play around with the calculator on BrewersFriend. I entered the grist info with only the lovibond values for all the non base malts. And I entered 14.9% for the acid strength of the CRS. This value I have always left at 100% before. All the values for the salts and the amount of CRS were as per the actual amounts and what do you know? The predicted mash pH was 5.59.

So if I have used the BF calc correctly and the outcome of mash was 5.6 then I now have a way of working going forward. I will be doing another brew in a month's time, Everards Old Original from GW book.

Rob.
PS. The SG for todays brew was 1056, 4 points higher than in Beersmith and an overall efficiency of 84%.

[AnthonyUK]

I use 75% for CRS which appears to work for me.

[Soay4699]

I use 75% for CRS which appears to work for me.

Do you enter in the Colour (Lovibond) figures for the base malts in order to get your correct predicted mash pH?

Rob.

[Jocky]

What Eric said. Your pH is fine. People talk about an ideal range, but being outside of that doesn't matter much and won't ruin your beer or make it go from average to magical. Mash pH and water profiles just put the cherry on top so to speak.

Usually a vinegar flavour = acetic acid = acetobacter infection.