Acidifying sparge water.

[Crusader-Rob]

hi All, I posed this question in the local chch group, but figured I'd open it up to the greater Kiwi H/Brewers.

I've been playing around with Salt additions and Acid malts etc.

but I've done nothing with the Sparge water used.

What do people do to theirs, if anything?

for example - American Pale Coming up, using 3-4% Acid Malt for Ph, and then addingsome salts once sparge is complete.

so the pH of the mash is on the money, and some salts to enhance the minerals/flavours of the hops accordingly.

My thought are to adjust the sparge water with around 2ml of lactic (88%) to bringthe Ph ofthwater itself down a bit to start, or am I just over complicating things?

[Norrii]

Gordon Strong, Brewing Better Beer (p50) says Phosphoric Acid is the best option with lactic a distant second. He adds his to RO water.

[Sam DT]

There's a two fold benefit in my mind, the first is to avoid extracting tannins, a low pH and sparge below 77? Should keep you safe - this is the main reason I started acidifying. Apparently it's the go commercially.
The second is to avoid raising the pH of the boil as you're effectively diluting the existing acid contributions if you go in with plain water.
I think I even read something about boil acidification additions somewhere, with the aim of reducing infection risk, increasing break and improving finished bottle stability but that one's in the too much effort basket for me.

[Crusader-Rob]

Nice Sam, cheers.

the way I normally do things, is

Acidify the mash as normal with acid malt, then add my salts prior to the boil. after the sparge.

I think I'll start small, in the sparge. maybe 1-2ml in the aprge, and add salts as normal fro mthere.

[Sam DT]

No worries, from memory the ez spreadsheet has a sparge calculator as well, I've never used it tho as I don't have lactic.