Five Star 5.2 pH Stabilizer (sic)

[An Ankoù]

A quick question. I usually correct my mash pH with acidulated malt, but thought I'd give this buffer a try and I don't understand the instructions.
"Use approx. 8g per 10 litres of brewing water. Calculate the amount of water based on the total volume in the kettle. Add 5.2 pH Stabilizer during mashing in."
Why do I not simply add 8g per 10 litres of mash water and leave the sparge water untreated? If there's a good reason for this then do I add the whole amount to the mash tun or do I treat the sparge water separately. Note. when I used acid malt, I was only really concerned with what went on in the mash tun.
If anyone can shed any light on this I'd be grateful. My tap water is very soft and has a pH around 7.
Thanks in advance.

 

[JockyBrewer]

I can only suggest that it's to stop the pH rising too much while sparging or something like that.

What I will say is that if you care enough about your beer to start doing stuff with mash pH then I'd be wary of adding this stuff. It adds a load of sodium, which can affect beer flavour.

 

[scrap iron]

The 5.2 ph stabilizer was made for a specific brewery because they didn't want to adjust their water. That's the story I heard anyway. I've read this thread from a well known water guru and after using it once long ago and never again. I think you are better off knowing your tap water reports and sticking with salts and acid or acid malt to get a good ph. You didn't say how you check ph but use a ph meter if possible.
pH-5.2 is a buffer not a water treatment salt | Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

 

[MrRook]

The 5.2 ph stabilizer was made for a specific brewery because they didn't want to adjust their water. That's the story I heard anyway. I've read this thread from a well known water guru and after using it once long ago and never again. I think you are better off knowing your tap water reports and sticking with salts and acid or acid malt to get a good ph. You didn't say how you check ph but use a ph meter if possible.
pH-5.2 is a buffer not a water treatment salt | Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

I've read several places that it's pretty much worthless.

 

[An Ankoù]

Thanks for the replies, all. I'm glad I only got the smallest one I could find. I'll try it once- with the acid malt- hoping it'll buffer the acidity. If it makes no difference I'll repackage it as a miracle cure for erectile disfunction and flog it on e-bay. I should have known better than to trust anything from Five-Star Chemicals.

 

[The Baron]

And how may I ask does it Buffer Erectile Disfunction, does it keep it constant

 

[LeeH]

I tried it when I first went AG. Didn’t work for me. Next step was the Murphys water report that helped massively to hit pH targets.

Now use RO and Brewfarther to build profiles.

 

[An Ankoù]

Right. The message is coming through loud and clear. It's snake oil.

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

Right. The message is coming through loud and clear. It's snake oil.

It’s a phosphate buffer solution, but it’s so far from its normal pH range that it has only a very weak buffering effect. So whilst it can be said to work, you’d have to use an awful lot of it to make any difference.

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

Martin Brungard, who knows a thing or two about water chemistry even if not everyone agrees with his views on what makes good brewing water, had this to say about it:

​

You are correct that adding the stabilizer to water and testing that result does not work. However, adding that stabilized water to malt was used to determine that the product does not work as advertised. It buffers wort closer to a room temperature pH of around 5.8. That is not good enough for producing great beer. The room temp pH really does need to be 3 or 4 tenths lower than that for most brewing. The other drawback with the product is that it adds a lot of sodium to the wort. ​

​

Another drawback to those with high alkalinity tap water, is that the product does not reduce alkalinity and it does not provide the brewer with low alkalinity sparging water. That leads to a higher potential of tannin and silicate leaching from the grain bed. ​

I really like 5-Star's other products, but this is one that should be removed from store shelves. It appears to be a fraud.​

​

The key idea with a buffer is that it reduces the amount by which the pH of a solution changes, when a certain amount of acid (or, less commonly, base) is added. The key word here is reduces - not prevents. Also the buffer has a certain limited capacity to achieve this effect - so it can only cope with a certain amount of added acid (or base) after which it no longer works.

 

[Mash Monster]

I totally agree I got a tub used it once never again !!

 

[crescent city Mike]

For those who wonder why it is always advised to treat both mash and sparge water . . .

As the sugars are being rinsed from the mash, so are the buffers which keep the pH down in the 5.1 to 5.5 range. As the sparge water, almost always with a higher pH, rinses these buffers out, the pH of the grain bed starts to rise. Once the grain bed rises to about pH 5.9, the tannins (polyphenols) start to leach out of the hulls. The pH of the mash will continue to rise and eventually would match the pH of your sparge water, if you were to lauter that long.

I use either phosphoric or lactic acid to get the pH right. Aciduated malt is good for tiny adjustments.