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Changing pH of wash


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Hitting 140f for 45-60 minutes will kill most but not all bacteria. It's how the sous vide guys can safely cook food for long periods at lower temps. Most of us mash for at least an hour at that temp,  Hitting 145 reduces the time down to 30-45 minutes. 

http://www.foodhandler.com/cooking-pasteurizing-safer-foods/

MDH - I didn't know malic acid would encourage lactic acid production. Thanks very much for that.

 

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Oh I gotcha, I think this is the classic car of pasteurized v sterilized.  

Follow up question, given lactic acids positive contribution to mouthfeel, do you foresee distilleries intentionally bringing in a malo-lactic ferment into the program? (Idk enough about wine to know how long that step normally takes)...or am I completely off base?

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We use malic acid to acidify high pH fruit mashes and also whiskey mash when we don't have backset. In wine and cider, MLF is typically started at the end of primary fermentation when brix readings near zero. With the general instability of most whiskey and non-grape fruit mashes, I think you would have other problems if you were waiting for bacteria to convert the malic acid you added into lactic. It would make more sense to add the lactic acid yourself at the acidifying stage. I couldn't say for whiskey, but MLF is thought to have an impact on brandy distillate quality (something my experience with distilling wine and cider generally supports).

58f3fc87d4b91_MLFindistilling.png.305daaf1ff7f10d8fc6c363bdb1e505e.png

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  • 1 month later...

We use exclusively citric acid. 

To a 500lt mash I'll add 250gm before mashing in, this brings it down to 5.0 for the addition of Sebstar HTL and Sebamyl GL. 

Before pitching the yeast I add calcium carbonate, but this is only as a buffer and does not immediately reduce the ph. The ph must drop to around 3 for the calcium to be used up and commence buffering. 

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  • 6 months later...

@JustAndy Do you have the name of the book and does it go into more detail about other chemical reactions of other things?  Seems like an interesting book.  Malolactic fermentation was frowned upon by someone who told me most of what I know about distillation.  He said it can take the fruityness out of the distillilate.  Now I definitely know why! 

Great reference, thanks!

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  • 1 month later...

Newbie question regarding PH adjustment (down) with citric:

Last weekend I did my first bourbon mash (150 gallons - 200 lbs of corn flour / 50 lbs rye / 5 lbs malt).  Using enzymes from BSG (hitempase and Amylo 300) I was using citric to drop the PH from in the mid 6 range down to the 4.0 range for Amylo.  I don't have my notes in front of me, but I'm pretty sure it took about a cup (or more) of citric to drop the PH.

Does this seem right?  I don't know what I was expecting, but it seemed like a large amount of citric and I started to worry that maybe I needed to let the mash rest longer before rechecking PH after adding citric.  I was probably only waiting 5 minutes or so.  I have no basis for comparison at this point, so just thought I would ask some of you with more experience if this seems right, or if I'm way off.

Any feedback is appreciated. 

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I have the same result if only adjusting water without grain. 2 tablespoons will drop PH by about 1.5 (100 gallons). However, once grain is added and adjusting, then it was taking about a cup or more of citric. 

I am adjusting PH prior to each enzyme with grain in so that’s why so much citric was required as far as I can tell. 

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