Westco wrote:I am giving you Mash PH, I have never taken a TG finished beer PH. I have always suspected that those PH strips I have are BS. Using John Palmers spreadsheet it shows that I have zero RA. It doesn't seem to matter what beer I brew or what salts I add or don't add the strip always reads the same which is in the high 4. something. This is kinda frustrating beings I can't really tell what amount of salts I need to add to make really dark beers. One thing I do know is that the water around here is really soft. Single digit soft, and if my RA comes out around zero then i know that using darker malts will drop my PH below the desired amount. Maybe I should just do away with the trips and get a meter. Not unless anyone else has a better way?.
The strips are definitely leading you astray. For a pale beer with very soft water mash pH will be 5.7 to 5.8. A pH meter is definitely (IMO) the way to go but they present their own set of pitfalls. Many a beginning brewer has spent the afternoon chasing, with acid in one hand and bicarbonate in the other, the drifiting of an errant pH electrode. They must be calibrated at least at the beginning of every day of use and preferrably more frequently than that. I thought everyone understood that but was surprised at some things said in this regard by people in my brewing club at a get together this weekend. IOW there is a learning curve.
At $90 pH meters are relatively cheap now and the electrodes last 2 years or more rather than a year but they still have to be replaced every couple of years. In an $89 pH meter the replacement electrode is usually around $80.
If you use dark malts with distilled water and the pH goes too low you have probably used way too much dark malt