Water PH Level

[Geoff82]

How do you lower pH in the brew water and what is the recommended PH level?

[Norris!]

Have a read of these articles and it should help explain most things. I use acidulated malt to lower my PH in the mash and currently I do not adjust the sparge PH, but you can by adding calcium carbonate or sulfate to the sparge water to hit the desired PH, which they say is between 5.2 and 5.5. The different levels accentuate different elements of the ingredients.

Brewing salts is the words to Google.

I am not an expert or even consider myself competent with water adjustments, I just use a calculator/brew software and make adjustments based off taste and experience. For example, brewfather says my mash PH will be 5.4, but I know that because I don't adjust the sparge water it will be higher, so I add slightly more acid malt and after a few trials and errors I have figured out the sweet spot for my malt amounts to hit my post sparge PH numbers for 21l batches. I have noticed that the hops are popping a little more but there are so many other variables that have affected the outcome, like recipe formulation and timings that I cannot hang my hat on the PH as the reason, but I feel fairly confident it isn't hurting it. I would read the second link first, I thought it was better.

https://byo.com/article/the-power-of-ph/

https://www.midwestsupplies.com/blogs/beer-making/how-can-the-ph-of-the-mash-be-adjusted

[Geoff82]

Wow, you put in a great effort to put this info up for me, Thank You.