5.2 5.2 Mash Stabilizer

[Bruce G]

Funny that it works with strips but not a pH meter. Guess I'll start using strips!

Hi AJ - I have heard good things about the plastic Colorphast pH strips

http://morebeer.com/view_product/6620/102225/pH_Strips_-_colorpHast_-_4.0_-_7.0

I understand that you use a pH meter, but do you have an opinion on these strips? They are supposedly more accurate than the cheaper paper strips. I use a pH meter at work but buying and maintaining one at home seems like overkill if these strips are pretty close.

Bruce

[ajdelange]

I prefer to learn things first hand rather than rely on what others may say.

Estimable. So why don't you spring the $60 -$80 for a pH meter and take some measurements? As I said in an earlier post no one who has done so has ever reported in any forum I'm aware of that the stuff works. There may be some set of conditions under which it actually does do what it's supposed to do. No one has found it yet but you could be the one that does.

[ajdelange]

I understand that you use a pH meter, but do you have an opinion on these strips? They are supposedly more accurate than the cheaper paper strips.

Alas I can be of no help here. One of the reason I use a meter is that I am color blind (the other being that I am an incurable gadget freak). The strips, even if they are accurate, would be of little use to me. When I ding the strips I'm relying on Kai Troester's findings with respect to a bias in the commonly used ones. I don't know which ones he tested but he found they read 0.3 low. I'd also think it hard to interpolate between color patches as the "resolution" of the strips you are asking about is 0.3. I proposed a scheme to Kai in which they strips are scanned or photographed and photo analysis software used to interpolate. It worked but the bias was still there (IIRC).

As you have access to a meter perhaps you could gin up some buffers and do some comparisons.

I use a pH meter at work but buying and maintaining one at home seems like overkill if these strips are pretty close.

The cheapie meters are much better than they were even a few years ago. For under $90 you can get a decent instrument that reads to 0.01 pH. The electrodes are getting amazing too. The one I bought most recently held its cal for over a month! So it's (IMO) not that big a deal to care for and feed a pH meter.

[Cliff]

I have heard good things about the plastic Colorphast pH strips

I bought those strips for $18.00
Pulse Instruments
www.pulseinstruments.net
EM9590-3X pH Strip
Pack (100 strips)
Part#: EM-9590-31
(Qty: 1 x $18.81)
Shipping was $7.05

[Bruce G]

I have heard good things about the plastic Colorphast pH strips

I bought those strips for $18.00
Pulse Instruments
http://www.pulseinstruments.net
EM9590-3X pH Strip
Pack (100 strips)
Part#: EM-9590-31
(Qty: 1 x $18.81)
Shipping was $7.05

The pH strips Morebeer carries are narrow range (4-7). I would guess they might be more accurate than the 0-14 range strips. Pulseinstruments doesn't look to carry the 4-7. Haven't compared them, just guessing.

Testing the pH strips against my work meter is an idea I had. My work meter is a big dollar multifunction meter that I only use in water. Keeping all the components on the sensor head working well is a bit of a chore, I don't think dunking it in wort would make my life better. AJ, which of the handheld meters have you had such good luck with?

[ajdelange]

The only "pen" type meter I have checked out at all is the Hanna unit and I really haven't put it through extensive paces. In my brewing I use a handheld meter (Hach) but it is a pretty fancy one compared to the Hanna unit. Occasioanlly I will try the Hanna unit and compare it to the Hach one and the agreement has been, so far, quite good: a couple of hundredths. At the price, I'm impressed. I'm curious as to how long the electrode will last. I'm getting more than 2 years with the Hach electrodes.

As for the comparison I wasn't thinking of comparing in wort - though that would be the unltimate test since I suspect that wort color may have something to do with the reported difficulties in reading strips accurately. I had in mind something like puttung up a phosphate buffer and checking with meter and strips. Ad the usual 7 buffer is, I think, a phosphate buffer, your employer's high $ meter should not be effected by it. Adding bits of monobasic phosphate or even phosphoric acid to 7 buffer should allow you to check a series of pH's from 7 on down to, say, 5 - really no need to go loweer.

[andy77]

I use 5.2. I bought a package of Ph strips and tested my mash for about half the package of strips and found that all my beers were in the 5.2-5.3 range using half the recommended amount of 5.2 for my mash water, and none for my sparge water. Works great for my light, dark, high gravity and low gravity beers.

Funny that it works with strips but not a pH meter. Guess I'll start using strips!

Good one AJ.

Note that I posted that before travisty posted your comments and the link. I'm utterly convinced by your analysis. I did this pH strip testing when I first started all grain brewing years ago to satisfy myself that 5.2 worked. I went back and looked at my very incomplete notes from back then and it looks like my range was more like 5.2-5.7, maybe even more. Probably seemed like "good 'nuff" back then. I plan to buy another pack of strips (and probably some phosphoric acid), and work on this some more. Thanks for the help, AJ.

I do wave a chicken bone over the mash tun every time I brew, maybe that's the reason why my beer turns out so well.

[Nyakavt]

FYI on the strips, sanitationtools.com has them for $20 w/free shipping. I do find they are affected by the color of the wort (darker wort makes them appear darker), so I usually dab them with a paper tower before reading. I'm not colorblind but they are quite difficult to read accurately, I'm often debating with myself if it is closer to 5 or 5.3. The color sort of varies across the strip in some cases, so you have to back up and take an overall impression. Kai did a forum experiment on this last year and had a bunch of people interpret his photos of the strips, there was some scatter. You can at least get 'in the ballpark' if you take into account the systematic error (as was stated 0.3 low, so 5 on the strips is 5.3), and also make sure to read in sunlight or tungsten light. The one bright side to these strips is that they tend to read the same at room temp or at mash temp (according to Kai's observations). But if you want to get into making your mash pH 5.3 instead of 5.5, you need a meter.