Acidulated Malt

[AlexBrew]

I was fiddling with bru'n water and looking at the effects of ph vs grainbill .. and it seems one need to add approx 2% acidulated malt to take you from 5.6 to 5.2-3 as a thumbsuck value. I know it depends of a variety of conditions.
I googled the subject but got too much info.
Does 2% seem fine?

[JIGSAW]

I don't think we can go on X percentage.

I use between 200-300g ... sometimes it ±4% and other times ±6%

i must also add that with my last brew on Thursday the water PH from the tap was 9.4

[AlexBrew]

I had 45 litres punched in on bru'n water spreadsheet - and 200g seemed like the number to use according my water profile and calcs to 1.9% - hence the question..

Also I see on that spreadsheet is a bunch of water profile presets based on the colour of the beer. Are these any good ?, coz as it seems there are a lot of conflicting data out there - but then I guess, with this - there are so many variants.

[JIGSAW]

Most of the times when I don't add Acid malt, my mash pH comes in at ±5.7

They say for every 0.1 point you want to drop the pH, you must add 1%
(I dont add, I replace some of the base malt with acid malt ... not sure if that is what you're suppose to do ?)

... so, since i want to drop to about 5.2-5.3 I therefor add|replace ±4 % which in most cases is about 200g of the base malt that I then replace with acid malt.

I don't add ANY salts to my water (YET)

[jakeslouw]

They say for every 0.1 point you want to drop the pH, you must add 1%
(I dont add, I replace some of the base malt with acid malt ... not sure if that is what you're suppose to do ?)

... so, since i want to drop to about 5.2-5.3 I therefor add|replace ±4 % which in most cases is about 200g of the base malt that I then replace with acid malt.

basically what we do as well

[AlexBrew]

Perfect.
Adding salts also have an effect on raising/lowering the ph.
Gypsum, Epsom Salts, Table Salt, Calcium Chloride lower ph
Chalk & Baking Soda raises ph.
Adding acidulated malt as part of the base malt makes sense to me.
I think only add it to light medium colour beer. Roasted malt lowers the ph anyway - then again darker beer want a higher carbonate level, which raises ph.

[groenspookasem]

tldr, mind the ph gap if kveiking - it drops pretty harsh
. +1 to acidulated but i have used calcium chloride/carbonate/others with success

[JIGSAW]

Perfect.
Adding salts also have an effect on raising/lowering the ph.
Gypsum, Epsom Salts, Table Salt, Calcium Chloride lower ph
Chalk & Baking Soda raises ph.
Adding acidulated malt as part of the base malt makes sense to me.
I think only add it to light medium colour beer. Roasted malt lowers the ph anyway - then again darker beer want a higher carbonate level, which raises ph.

Since Im using Beersmith, I dug up this video where Brad explains it nicely how to work out exactly how much acid to add to adjust you pH from x to y



So in my last recipe to drop from an unadjusted 5,69 to a required 5,4 ... it calculates I need to add 290g of Acidmalt

Screenshot_23.png

I added 300g and then subtracted 300g from my base malt.

[Jitters]

quick question, does anyone have experience using 80% lactic acid instead of acid malt? any negatives of skipping the malt and just using the acid?

[Toxxyc]

Breweries do the lactic acid thing. It works just fine.