I'm looking for advice for a few scenarios for a Russian Imperial Stout. I live in San Diego and have fairly hard water with high residual alkalinity. I'm looking to reduce astringency.
Scenario 1: Cold Steep Dark Grains and Add to Fermenter or Late in Boil
Cold steep all dark grains over night in the fridge (doubling the dark grain bill as is often recommended with cold steeping). Add these cold-steeped grains either to the kettle at flame-out or to the fermenter once the kettle wort is cooled. When brewing a typical 6 gallon base-malt batch I'll usually add 5 ml lactic acid to get the appropriate ph. Not sure what happens to the fermenter ph when I combine this acid-treated base-malt mash with the cold-steeped grains.
Scenario 2: Steep Grains at End of Mash
I always mash base malts for 90 minutes before doing a BIAB mashout at 168 for 20 mins (since I'm not sparging, just squeeze the hot bag and get all of the liquor). I could add the dark grains at 80 mins and then pull them with the rest of the grains after the mashout. I am not sure how to balance the base-malt pH (which would have to be treated with lactic acid) with the pH lowering properties of the dark grains when added 80 mins into the mash. The idea would be to reduce the amount of time exposing the dark grains to high temperatures. But how does one balance pH?
Of course I could always just mash the dark grains along with the base malts for the entire 90 minutes and probably wouldn't have to add any lactic acid at all. But again I'm trying to reduce astringency. I get the importance of mash pH, but I don't have an understanding of boil pH and fermenter pH.
As a follow up question, does pH need to be checked when cold-steeping? I.E. do I need to treat the water that goes into the fridge with the dark grains (and can I use diluted water here)?
How do I handle Mash pH when cold-steeping dark grains?
Post #1 made 12 years ago
Last edited by CheeseMoney on 01 Nov 2013, 07:38, edited 2 times in total.
It is possible the astringency is coming from too high a pH because the dark grains have been added too late.
