Brewing Mash Experiment: pH & Temperature Impacts on Gravity
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- Опубліковано 19 лип 2024
- This week, we show off a brewing mash experiment as we explore some empirical data around mash pH extremes and the effect it has on Starting Gravity, Starch Conversion, and Taste.
WARNING: This video is significantly longer that our normal format. You can follow the time stamps to jump ahead each step of the way of the experiment if you start getting bored. If you don't want all the insights from Mike, just jump ahead to the results for each part of the experiment.
Mike ran a series of small mason jar size mashes where he manipulated the pH and the temperatures of the individual mashes. The point of this experiment was to see for ourselves what happens to the gravity when the mash pH is really off the mark and to see what sort of wort you actually create at those conditions.
We hope you get something out of this. We enjoyed the discussion even though it's a little long.
Cheers!
Chapters:
0:00 Intro - Mash pH
01:25 Experimental Premise and Design
03:25 Setting Up the Mini-Mashes
04:28 pH Strips for Measurement
05:15 Adding Temperature Extremes to the Setup
06:15 Gravity of the Ideal Mash Condition
09:00 pH 4 Results
10:00 pH 8 Results
11:10 Measuring Dissolved Solids, not Sugar Alone
13:50 Low Temperature Gravity Results
16:02 High Temperature Gravity Results
18:48 Iodine Starch conversion Test Results
20:28 When to Worry
23:48 Final Take Away about Water Chemistry
#MashExperiment #HomebrewingBeerExperiments #MashpH
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www.brew-dudes.com/mash-ph-te...
What I gather from this is that as long as you are close to standard brewing practices it is kind of hard to screw up beer!!! Thanks Mike for putting in the time to educate us novices!!! Also shout out to John for answering my comment last month so quickly!!! BREW ON DUDES!!!
YES!!! Great beer is easy to get too without too much worry. Cheers! -Mike
Really enjoyed nerding out on this one a bit. Keep up the great videos!
Sweet! Cheers! -Mike
Lads, I absolutely adore this because stuff like this is right up my street and I feel like there's a collective spreading the load of mad questions people are willing to waste beer on. I do loads of stupid stuff and people ask my _why?_ and I'm like "Because i need to know!" And they're like "but why??" urghhhh.
So glad to know there are other becauseINeedToKnow's out there.
Stay Groovy. You're the best.
"Need to know is a curse really". One that I share with you. Glad you got something from it. Cheers! -Mike
Thanks Mike and John. Great experiment! I really appreciate you taking the time to test these variables. Very helpful. Brew on! Cheers!
Thanks for watching and thanks for the support! Cheers! -Mike
Thanks for doing the deep dive! It took 3 attempts to listen/watch. But man. I really appreciate the content, experiments, and the genuine friendship you guys share. Love it. Keep it up!
Thanks for hanging in there. We knew it was a bit out of the normal content length for us but it was fun to execute and discuss. Cheers! -Mike
My goodness. I love you guys. This one was over my head!
More to come. We'll try and get the whole class caught up. email me if you have questions. Brew-dudes.com contact page. Cheers! -Mike
That was a two day watcher for sure. Thanks for putting in that work so I don’t have to. I’ve been brewing for a number of years now and just did my first batch with treated water yesterday. You guys inspired me to do it after the lamotte brewlab kit video. You hit it square on, get a process down, like really down, and then start seasoning your water. Cheers from Uxbridge dude!
Yeah man! Cheers! -Mike
As always a great video! I love the experiments!
Thanks man! Cheers! -Mike
I don't know how I missed this video. Good thing I scrolled down to check. I guess I shouldn't mash in the fridge, good advice!
Ha - yes.
I was that guy earlier today stirring like crazy to get my mash temp down. I was too frantic to think to just add cold water. I almost watched your video before I started to brew too. Oh well next time I'll know better! As always, great vid! Thanks Guys! Cheers!
Yeah I used to worry about hitting tight numbers but once you realize the flavor perception later on isn't as tight as the numbers are you begin to realize you can ease up on the worry. Not a reason to not strive for reproducibility in process! Cheers! -Mike
Great vlog! Things i often think about but made no progress into changing the way i manage pH in my mash. Learned a lot
Thanks for the support. Cheers! -Mike
Mike, thanks for the experiment and sharing your findings.
Thanks for the comment. Cheers! -Mike
Woodland Brewing Research made a post about mash temperature in 2013 where they basically laid out exactly the same observations and theory as to what's actually happening chemistry wise.
A warmer mash will convert most starch to unfermentable sugars but have trouble making those fermentable because the temperature doesn't favor B-Amylase, much like your anecdote about a high gravity wort that didn't give much alcohol.
A cooler mash will instead cause a-Amylase to slow down so B-Amylase ends up converting all unfermentable, which means more starch will be left behind (maybe something for head retention when making dry pilsners with only base malts).
I'd say it's worth exploring if it means home brewers can get more out of a really basic grain bill (single malt for example).
Interesting thoughts, thanks. Cheers! -Mike
Outstanding content. Thanks guys.
Cheers! -Mike
Great video -- cool to see the extremes especially when the home brewing community puts so much emphasis on small differences (mashing at 152 vs 155 for example). Mike, you had a previous video where you mentioned "scorching" the enzymes in the bottom of your direct fire system, back when you were combating FG troubles and that was the same issue I had when I first started and similarly had FG problems (thanks for tip!). I've recently been trying to get more residual sweetness post fermentation on some styles (English brown/porter/stout for example) as I now seem to consistently produce too dry of beers for these styles (FG around 1.010-1.012). I've explored playing with higher mash temperatures, but didn't find the residual sweetness to increase (as you mention also in this video) and have now resorted to increasing light/caramel malts (which does the trick, but differs from most amounts typically recommended). During my tests, I haven't noticed a significant increase in OG with increasing temperature (though I haven't pushed the temperature as far as you did here). I'm wondering, did you correct for the evaporative losses for the higher temperature measurement or is that contributing to the higher OG as well?
I did not correct for the potential evaporative loss in this experiment. Maybe it contributed to a few points in shift but the recovered volumes of wort in al the samples would suggest what may have been lost was not significant. As for my direct fire issues and FG, I know actually really think that was a bit of a combo two things: water chemistry leading to poor mash efficiency/conversion and second an underestimate to the amount of heat being lost because I recirced the whole mash time. I have now been mashing in my stained kettle and once the temp is where I want it I stop the pump, put the lid on and let it go. Amazingly, the mash holds target temp easily for at least 30 minutes even when the garage is 30F! I'll discuss with John having a discussion about this as a seperate video. Lastly, sorry to hear about you're struggles with wanting more residual sweetness. I'd suggest mashing above 155 at least! I need to do the experiments myself so stay tuned. Cheers! -Mike
Bloody brilliant I agree totally love IT!
Cheers! -Mike
Brilliant video guys, really interesting thanks!
Thanks for watching. Cheers! -Mike
the condescension in the intro was sorta well-poison-y... this is incredible, small scale data collection. i read about this recently. as i understand, its a relatively new & proven method of experimenting within brewing. there've been studies suggesting brewing can be significantly scaled down for experimental purposes
I am not aware of studies, but to me chemistry and chemistry and whether the mash is 200mL or 200 bbls it should be the same despite some of the old homebrewing tomes stating otherwise. Doing small batches like this is essentially how the ASBC has been testing malt for extract yield for a very long time. Thanks for watching! Cheers! -Mike
Super interesting experiment! Looking forward for the scaled-up fermentation experiment!
Thank you!
This was a nice dive into the more scientific side of things. I think you should leverage your experience and dig more into these sort of things. I really enjoy your smash beer videos but it’s hard to get a feel for hops if you can’t taste or smell them yourself. Digging more into topics like this could make for some good content. Cheers guys!
I'll try and bring more of this to the table. Thanks for you're comments. Cheers! -Mike
Very informative video. I look forward to the follow up with fermentation data ;-)
Yeah me too. I need to figure out the easiest way for me to scale this up to a fermentable quantity. Cheers! -Mike
Had a temp gauge fail on my mash tun, good thing I double checked with a digital thermometer at the start, had to put in a tray of ice to cool it down. I'm in the habit now of double checking. Could be why a couple of brews seemed to have a higher gravity. Thanks for the fun experiment! Cheers
Very interesting. Cheers! -Mike
This was great answers all of my questions when I am brewing. Not to worry so much about PH at this point and I need to lower my mashed temperature I am way off if the greens convert that quickly. I am the guy thinking that my mash efficiency is phenomenal know I am just mashing way too high thanks for the video
Cheers! -Mike
Awesome video, and supports what I find in practice. I have super hard water that gives a basic mash unless using super dark/ toasty malts. Great for stout but lousy for lager. When I make lager i need to use 100% Bought soft water. For darker beers mix tap and bought soft.
Awesome, sounds like you've figured out how to work with what you have and when to change things up. Cheers! -Mike
This makes me think about the effects of ph on fermentation, as you eluded to. I use the same yeast consistently, and get consistent results. Those results are consistent with my brewing history. Others using the same yeast seem to ferment quicker. It could be any variable, but my thinking led to ph. What do I know though. I am really just a consumer and not a scientist. Great Video Dudes. Cheers.
An interesting experiment then would be to mash out of pH range, then spit that wort in two and correct the pH in one sample and ferment the two. That way one is being fermented at "optimal" pH and the other at the same poor pH of the mash. Good things to think about. Cheers! -Mike
I appreciated your mash pH experiment but the one little caveat I would like to add is that while your extraction is done or conversion is done in 20-25 minutes the actual color extraction if you’re doing a light colored beer like I do a very sessionable Lager and I have to go just about to 60 minutes to get full color extraction from the Carahell and you can easily see that when you first mentioned the first 15-20 minutes it starts getting darker and darker and darker and by the end you actually have a concentrated version before you start Lauter. Much darker color and potential flavor in packs than you would get if you just mashed for 25 minutes and started the process from there.
Good point on color extraction. I wonder how much it matters in a system like mine where I can recirculate in the mash the whole time too. Thanks for the comment. Cheers! -Mike
That's interesting to get a scientist's perspective in this hobby, thanks for that Mike! Also interesting on the PH strips, I've never used them and often wondered why not? " Close enough", especially for homebrew, makes sense to me. I have a PH meter and all of the water adjustment additives, which facinate's my inner scientist, but agreed some of my better beers were brewed in ignorance to water chemestry. Now I want look into PH strips for funsies however🤔. Cheers guys & keep up the good work & stay safe 🍻
I think I need to record the pH over my next 20 brews using strips and a pH meter then put this one to rest! Cheers! -Mike
@@BrewDudes It would be interesting to know 👍
You think one reason is the much more highly modified grains we use these days is much better and uniformly much better than grains from the late 1800s, early 1900s? The rules came from a time when grain was much less "tinkered with". Great video and detailed method.
100% couldn't agree more. Malt has been completely optimized for extract efficiency and all the old techniques do very little to get away from that. Cheers! -Mike
Another great video, thanks guys. I use filtered water and use Beersmith to get an approximate calculation using acidulated malt to get close to the magic 5.2 After watching your vid I think I will error on the acidic side of 5.2 when I can't get it right on.
I've had a tough time with Beersmith and pH estimates. It always seems to really overestimate the amount of pure acid I need to add. I need to do more testing. Cheers! -Mike
good stuff!
Imo it's useful to measure post boil as well as final beer pH as it's the final beer that we are drinking and pH affects flavour - it's a useful reference for future batches. Post boil is useful to know as different yeasts drop the pH by different amounts ( for example some english ale or hefeweizen yeasts drop pH by 1+, lager generally less I think). So if you are desiring a certain pH for final beer, it's handy to know (from past experience/measurements) roughly how much a certain yeast will lower the pH. It was expensive to get a decent pH meter where I am so I figure I might as well use it to get as much info as possible
Some great points! Thanks. Cheers! -Mike
Very interesting!
Glad you enjoyed it. Cheers! -Mike
I do absolutely nothing with water chemistry in my brewing (I just use gallon jugs of store brand spring water to avoid chlorine), but I found this very interesting and entertaining!
Thanks much! Cheers! -Mike
Thanks men. Great work! Mike can you recommend some pH strips for brewers?
I have the most experience using strips for the J.T. Baker manufacturer. I would look to purchase strips primarily from lab base sources like a VWR or Fischer Scientific distributors. I am sure homebrew shops carry high quality lab grade ones if you look around. Cheers! -Mike
It almost sounds like I should have my water temp lower, add my grains, then bring it up to temp. I use a sous vide to keep temp and BIAB.
Mix of meteic and imperial... I hear you. I'm Canadian too lol.
Great, great, video. Thank you from a guy who suffers from neutral water..
Cheers. Its would be great to just have neutral water at times. Cheers! -Mike
Don't know if I missed it but what was the ph of your brewing water before anything? And when you made the control 5.2 ph, did you just use the grain to bring it down or some lactic acid and how long after you Doughed in did you check the ph. Im talking about the control only. Im lost on when to check the ph if your suppose to wait 15 minutes but your almost done by then. I know it's the roast on the grain that makes darker more acidic to your mash. I stir my mash in 15 minute intervals for an hour and after 15 minutes it's close to the sg and definitely by the 2nd. If I'm close I stop there sometimes
Very interesting science lesson! But 2 dudes drinking a stout at 7:30am made me thirsty.....but I have work to do.
Cheers! -Mike
ha, for a long time I've been wondering if I'm doing something wrong because the iodine test showed "all yellow, you're good to go" way before 60mins ... do you know if there are other reasons for going for 60mins for the main mash? Or can I stop as soon as the iodine tells me?
I think 60 minutes is the rule of thumb duration. If you want to save time, you can stop mashing once the iodine tells you conversion is complete.
What about step mashing, how will that affect "conversion" or pH? Also, like the idea of also doing this with fermentation with US04. Also, does hop acidity affect fermentation?
I'll be hopelessly controversial here. I think that once the malt is in the 135F to 160F range starch conversion starts happening. Reason I feel this way is that modern day malt is solely focused on delivering fast and easy to convert starch in to sugar. All the knowledge and history around step mashing 100% is true, but it comes from a time when malt was less modified. Like significantly less modified. Modern malt is supercharged hyped up focused solely on going from starch to sugar. I'd be surprised if all the other enzymes discussed for step mashing (lipoxygenase, phytases etc etc) even get a chance to work before the sugar converts and you're done. I think the only application of a step mash is to get super dry finishes. A rest at the beta-amylase range and then one at the alpha-amylase range will probably just rip up all the complex sugars into a very fermentable wort. Just my assumptions and 2 cents. Cheers! -Mike
Quite interesting tests. About the cold brew version, would you think that to leave it in cold water for like 24 hours would result in a better extraction? I think about cold brewed coffee where they let it sit overnight. One hour is very short time to obtain a result in cold temp.
Cold brew coffee however isn't an enzymatic process trying to liberate trapped carbohydrates in to soluble sugars. In theory though the enzymes aren't dead in a cold mash, just really slow. It might be worth giving it a go, I am intrigued now. Cheers! -Mike
@@BrewDudes Thanks for answering. Indeed, the processes - and wanted results differ. Not sure I would brew my coffee at 150F for one hour. Although... Hum...
Great video,im trying to find out why I'm getting 62% brewhouse efficiency all the time no mater what I do.I have great measuring regime,I grind my own grains,and yet,in beersmith I can't go over 62-64 if il lucky!
Honestly, Beersmith is probably your problem. Message us directly and I'll see if I can help you out. Go to the blog page and click contacts. Cheers! -Mike
@@BrewDudes will do ,thank you
Right next to the milk lmao!
IT was a relatively full fridge when I did the experiment. I had no other place to go with it. Cheers! -Mike
Where can I find the definitions for the different mash and sparge methods?? I let my grains sit in cooler with no recirc- then batch sparge. Wondering what the next step for improved efficiency??? Ideas???
Well you should be able to pull of 70+% efficiency with traditional batch sparging as you are doing (it seems). If you feel the need to increase efficiency at this point in your game I'd offer the following tips that have worked for me in the past with batch sparging. Crush a little finer or crush twice, this tends to eek out a few extra points of gravity. You may find you need to add some rice hulls to help with flow though. Second, whenever possible I found that if the volume of water I am adding in the sparge is larger than the volume I used in the mash I tend to get better efficiency. This 1) flies in the face of the old addage of making the two sets of runnings be equal in volume 2) is difficult to do when shooting for bigger beers 1.065+ in gravity. Lastly, get a pitch and do some recirc work at least before draining the second run with the sparge water. To me this seems to have improved a few more gravity points of the weaker second runnings. Making those runnings as homogenous as possible before you run off means that the wort trapped in the grain and in the sparge "phase" is as maxed as possible. Meaning there isn't any small pockets of higher gravity wort in the grain. As for definitions, direct message us and we can talk about it if you want more info. Cheers! -Mike
@@BrewDudes didn’t understand details of 2nd running? Vorlauf 1 gal pitcher ? A few things I’m trying : > 10% extra 2 row > 1/2 gal short on volume > longer cook time > I chase flavor and ABV. Usually hit flavor but if I hit both, I’m in fat city!
Yes- I target 7-8%ABV on almost every batch.
what if you go real hot then bring back to the right temp and put enzyme in there
I'd venture to guess there is no reason to suspect that you can't get your saccharification that way. Cheers! -Mike
I know this isn't really on the same subject as the video, but how would one figure out remaining carbs in a brew post fermentation? I've seen a bunch of calculators that can be used online, but these seem to not be very accurate, especially for a brew that ferments down to a 1.0., or even less.(beer, wine, etc) Wouldn't these potential carbs show gravity points? How would one accurately differentiate between remaining carbs from other remaining dissolved solids like minerals? Is it all just a guessing game?
I would make a mock water sample with the same water and mineral addition as was in the beer. Check that gravity and then assume it would be safe to assume a difference between that and the carb levels in FG. That said though gravity alone isn't really just a measure of carbs? Depending on what you're really after the only way to know is to do some biochemical testing on whats really in as residual dissolves carbs/sugars. Cheers! -Mike
@@BrewDudes I've been doing the keto diet for the last few months, and I'm really missing my beer and brewing lol. Basically I'm trying to find a more accurate way of finding carb totals. I know it's dependent on remaining gravity points, but grain contributes more than just sugars. Just stands to reason that a beer fermented to 1.0, should have next to no remaining sugar, at least worth worrying about. Appreciate your time and response though, cheers.
Where is your lab coats with pocket protectors. Lol
My lab coat was busy back at the lab! I'll have to get John a lab coat. Cheers! -Mike
Absurdity
This experiment was invalidated because only one mini-mash was in proximity to milk. Next time put a quart of milk next to every mash, please.
In all seriousness... Would be fascinating to know what the impact of reasonable mash parameters (low/high end of health temp and pH ranges) is on FG.
Thanks for the comment. I am just as curious about that too. I'm going to try and find the time to squeeze that one in. Cheers! -Mike
@@BrewDudes definitely a ton of work! We already appreciate this one.
Grams and ml is just the way to go u r still living in a stone age people time to change
I agree. I just think better in metric. What's 10% of 1L, 100ml. What's 10% of 1 gallon... IDK? Cheers. -Mike