So I’m at the brew shop and dude is recommending 5.2 pH stabilizer over lactic acid…good idea?
From what I’ve read here, it’s worthless. I like the idea though, it would be great to just add a teaspoon to you mash and be done with it. The buffer 5.2 stuff is about 4 times the price, probably why they recommend it.
There are two big gripes you see floating around here about buffer 5.2. The first being that it doesn’t really control the pH in the proper range as well as it says, and the second that it can leave a salty taste or contribute to other off flavors.
Now personally I brewed many a batch with the stuff, and I thought they were pretty good. But maybe I was just lucky, given my particular water profile.
Recently I have started using the excellent Bru’n Water spreadsheet to adjust my water properly, and I was surprised by how easy it is. I have so far brewed two batches with the help of the spreadsheet, and neither is done yet so I can’t comment on flavor, but on both I was very close to my target pH. Check it out if you haven’t.
Ok, I forewent the stabilizer…not the kind of ringing endorsement necessary to support an impulse buy 
Good call on the NAY. I used that stuff for a couple years, and it was not helping my brewing.
Download Bru’n Water, read the intro, and get busy with building water. RO is the only way I go, since my water is so hard.
Yeah doesn’t work.
Nay.
See the end of section 2.1 here: https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/water-knowledge
I guess no one wants the full jar that I’ve had for a few years.
I say nay. It would be great if a couple of scoops could transform any water, didn’t work for me.
I should add that I’ve got a friend who uses it religiously and I’ve enjoyed most of the beer he’s made.
I recommend just using Bru’n Water to get your pH into the right neighborhood.
I also have about 90% of a container of it and have had it for years. The biggest issue I had with it was that my wife said the beers made with it had a ‘soapy’ flavor. Sure enough, I went back and checked my notes and every beer she said had that flavor had 5.2 used in the mash. My wife drinks my beer with enthusiasm and keeping her a part of this hobby is important. Later I found a number of people who were strongly against it and said to find the proper way(s) to get your pH correct without using a gimmicky product.
I’m familiar with tools available for calculating water additions, I was just curious if this was a viable way to handle the pH aspect of water chemistry.
Thanks again for all the feedback!
Great…brewed or years and never used it and decided to order some last week and THEN I saw this thread. Live and learn. 
Great…brewed or years and never used it and decided to order some last week and THEN I saw this thread. Live and learn. [/quote]
Now that you will have it, there’s no reason not to at least try it. I, personally, did not taste the ‘soapy’ flavor from the 5.2 but quite a few other brewers said they noticed it. I probably picked it up originally because the idea of a no-effort, magical substance that somehow gets your mash to a pH of 5.2 sounded great to me (“I don’t have to learn anything! Just drop this stuff in the mash and go!”) because I would rather not get my hands dirty. But I now like to know what’s going on and what is in my beer so I abandoned it. YMMV.
Great…brewed or years and never used it and decided to order some last week and THEN I saw this thread. Live and learn. [/quote]
Now that you will have it, there’s no reason not to at least try it. I, personally, did not taste the ‘soapy’ flavor from the 5.2 but quite a few other brewers said they noticed it. I probably picked it up originally because the idea of a no-effort, magical substance that somehow gets your mash to a pH of 5.2 sounded great to me (“I don’t have to learn anything! Just drop this stuff in the mash and go!”) because I would rather not get my hands dirty. But I now like to know what’s going on and what is in my beer so I abandoned it. YMMV.[/quote]
Count me in the never noticed any off flavors camp. I used the stuff for years, and never made what I would call a “bad” batch. In my oh so humble opinion (usually corroborated by my friends and my wife, who is my harshest critic) my beers have typically ranged in quality from “ok” to “great”. I’ve done more than a few recipe experiments that didn’t turn out like I hoped, but that’s another issue entirely.
Now, don’t get me wrong, now that I’ve discovered the wonders of Bru’n water, I doubt I will ever go back. But in my experience at least, using buffer 5.2 didn’t cause me any major problems.
Boy, you’re lucky then! It not only didn’t adjust my pH, it gave the beers I used it on a strangely malty character compared to the same beers without it.
Yeah, I wonder if my particular water profile is part of why I was lucky. Meanwhile my first two batches without the 5.2 (adjusted using Bru’n water recommendations instead) are lagering right now, I’m really curious how they turn out. If nothing else, I know that I was at my target pH (as near as I can tell with the colorphast strips anyway), my efficiency was good (actually a few points higher than was previously typical) and the wort tasted great. We shall see.
Right, same here. I kept getting a strange cloying sweetness that was hard to describe but definitely not good. I was using 5.2 and RO water, that’s it. I’ve noticed a HUGE improvement in my beer since I started building water with salts.
