A proprietary blend of food-grade phosphate buffers to lock in mash pH levels
Takes the guesswork out of using brewing salts and acids to adjust your pH
Reduces scaling in heat exchangers, fermenters, and kegs
Optimize the enzymatic activity of malt, help clarify wort, and often raises the starting gravity
Never worry about pH again! One tablespoon of 5.2 per 5 gallon batch and your water is instantly adjusted to the perfect pH of 5.2, no matter what your starting pH was. It will not add any flavors to your mash water whatsoever. 5.2 optimizes the enzymatic activity of your malt, helps to clarify the wort, and may even help to raise your starting gravities. Also, using 5.2 in the boil will give you more consistent hop usage, and will also keep hard water salts in solution, which will result in less scaling in your heat exchangers, fermenters, and kegs. If you are doing all-grain you add it to your mash water - 1 tablespoon per 5 gallon batch regardless of mash water volume. You do not need to add any extra to your Hot-Liquor tank or Boil Kettle.
BEST ANSWER:Add before the grains. I would suggest using lactic acid for the same purpose. I much prefer the lactic acid to drop pH than this stabilizer.
BEST ANSWER:Add before the grains. I would suggest using lactic acid for the same purpose. I much prefer the lactic acid to drop pH than this stabilizer.
I hate to admit it but this is the secret ingredient of the best brewers word wide. Your water is the key to perfection. Add to strike water. 2 Tbs for 9 gal. That's it. Brew away. Cheers my friends
The Description oversells it but it seems to work as a mild pH buffer
I mixed 200g of room temp water and 0.53g of acid blend (malic and tartaric) to a pH of 3.2 -- I added 5x recommended at rate of 1tbsp/1gallon (1.16g of buffer as I measured 1 tbsp as 22 grams so used ~ 22g/3785g water).
This maybe raised the pH by 0.2, I added to 4x that amount (so 20x) and that brought me up to about 4.0... adding 0.4g of sodium bicarbonate got me to 5.2 from there. I think that if you are within a couple of points pH this probably will nudge you in the right direction - but it DOES NOT "instantly adjust(ed) to the perfect pH of 5.2" -- that's just not how chemistry works.
I cannot say if this is good or bad for brewing, I think a small amount probably doesn't hurt anything and will likely nudge you towards 5.2 pH -- but it will not fix a significant pH imbalance. I plan to use it at normal dose for brewing just to give a light buffer effect but will still pre-adjust my pH to be in the ballpark.
Want to take the guess work out? Use this stuff. I believe in using local water to give your beer local flavor, but the ph where I live is terrible. Fixed my problems right now.
Chemical engineer here. It just doesn’t buffer well enough at the dosage recommended. I had a fermentation stall with this product used. The pH was less than 3. My starting pH was 5.8. I will make my own buffer in the future.
I decided I wanted to try out the 5.2 Ph stabilizer as an experiment when I made my next batch of beer. Wow what a difference it made. The yeast went crazy and the airlock looked like a pressure valve on a pressure cooker. Really impressive.
Fantastic product. My well water and water filtration system in my new house has great tasting water, but due to high PH & total alkalinity was impacting the brew house efficiency compared to my previous location. I used this product with 6 brews and increased efficiency by 20%! Easy to use and no impact on taste and hitting my OG as planned!
Or local utility (EBMUD) delivers ~8.3 pH water; which is >30 times more alkaline than should be used for brewing. In turn, I use 5.2pH Stabilizer to manage down that number. Although I need to use 1.25x the suggested amount to get within range, I do usually get down to 5.3 or 5.4 pH.
Is it perfect? No.
Does it effectively work in my situation on Muni-water? Absolutely.
I then add various other items to get the water closer to the intended 'style'; epsom, calcium, gypsum, etc.
This really did work. I have heard that it’s hit or miss but it brought my ph down to 5.2 when I’ve been having a hard time getting below 5.6. 2 TBS in 10 gallons
Don't know if I need this, but the beer tastes great
I've read a bit on fussing with water and haven't made the plunge to do it. I use this as my lazy way of pretending to care about water. My filtered water tastes good and the beer that results is great.
I'm not terribly interested in cloning beers anymore, so matching someone's water profile isn't terribly interesting to me.
Only 4 stars because I don't know if it really works
I started using this years ago and still do it out of habit. Does it work? I'm not really sure. I've brewed good award winning beer with it and without it but when I'm brewing a batch of beer and am not already doing my own water chemistry, I toss it in. I take the attitude that it can't hurt. I've researched the efficacy of this product and there are mixed feelings about it.
I bought this on a Beerdeal but all I have right now are pH strips that aren't super accurate so I am not sure if it actually works or not. I have been using it in IPA's and once in a stout but I don't feel it is necessary in the stouts so I quit using it for stout brews.
this product will do what its says to your water. keep in mind the grain you are using for the most part will do the same thing. you do not need this for brewing beer. Ph is a part of Brewing but this product does not truly do anything. Dark malts have what you need aswell as Acidulated malt for light beers.
I used 5.2ph stabilizer for the first time on an IPA that I have brewed many times. I checked the mash out PH and it was 5.2. I didn't notice a difference in the taste of the IPA. I'll try it a few more times on different beers an see if I taste any difference.
I like to use this since water in my area is really bad I get water from a machine and add this stabilizer and I have never had a problem with a batch of home brew
I use this for my lagers but not for my ales. I tried it in a couple of ales and didn't notice much difference. But in my lager, I think it helps it finish cleaner.
This made a noticeable difference the first time I used it. I don't bother to check it for accuracy everytime anymore, but I make sure I never forget to use it, unless I am brewing a dark heavy beer. I have good water to start with, so this brings it inline.
My water pH is 8.8. I find that the 5.2 stabilizer will bring it down but it will not bring it down to 5.2. So I found that I must use lactic acid and then stabilize it with the 5.2 keep it there.
5.2 is a decent shortcut for newer brewers. Once one is ready to make the investment, buy a pH meter (I have the Milwaukee with temp correction - MT609); spend time reading How to Brew (BK415) or the Water Book (BK508) about residual alkalinity; and find a good spreadsheet to predict your mash pH. Although completely unscientific, the couple of brews I did with it had a salty off-flavor.
Just started all grain (BIAB) brewing and this is much easier than trying to calculate ph, etc. great product for someone just starting out in all grain.
I am a "newer" home brewer. I have purchased many things but my water is still treated tap water (campden tablet). My cdity water is more acidic than I thought, around pH 5. So, I bought this item in order to brew all grain and not worry about my pH falling too low. I just brewed another batch and this product kept my pH from dropping into the high to mid 4s. Good product. With free shipping on orders over $59 a great add on.
This is the only product I have used for PH adjustment since I started all grain brewing 7 years ago. Dissolve in hot water, add to mash tun, dough in and forget about it. Dark beers, light beers, doesn't matter. Efficiency will be optimized per your set up. If you want to consistently repeat your "keeper" recipes, this is a must.
I have verry hard water with too high bicarbonates. I've used it in many batches but is not the solution to my problem. I have to do the maths, test and correct anyway.
For my water it is not a solve all solution like people would like. It might of got it down more then just the use of dark grain and/or lowered my PH of my sparge water a bit, but more testing is needed. It is easier to have some acid malt or lactic acid around for my high alkalinity water in the city. Though I think I need to switch to RO water even.
I don't use it all the time, but it's nice to have around on the occasion that you want to brew something without adjusting your water. I am on a well, and the water is very hard and alkaline. I can brew light color beers with this and no water adjustments. One thing though, is that you do taste the water minerals in the beer if you have a tuned palate, so keep in mind when deciding which beer style to brew as it may or may not be desirable. This stuff with get the pH right, but your water will taste the same.
Loved this product to balance the pH or my mash, my first batch using this my overall efficiency went up 5%. I thought it could have been just a coincidence, but my second batch it went up 6%. It has since stabled and is consistently at 80%+. I would have to say 5.2 stabilizer is probably why. This saves you some money in indigents, so it is well worth it for me.
I figured it was time to check my PH , the PH strips were showing >7. I bought this and it did drop my PH into the 5's, is hard to be that accurate with the strips but it did drop. I did find that it does take a while for the PH to drop, I add before filling the Hot liqur tank, then by the time the water is at temp and in the Mash tun you are good, then be sure you add to your Sparge water also...
My brewing technique is Parti-Gyle brewing: This is a method for making more than one batch of beer from a single all grain mash. Now after using this I did not see a noticeable difference in the first running's but in the 2nd running's the Gravity jumped + .010 - .020, so I have cut my grain bill back 1 lb, so the 5.2 pays for itself
If you are an all-grain brewer you should be cognizant of your water chemistry to begin with. There are many simple water calculators out there on the web. It can "assist" you in getting into the optimum range if you are slightly off though.
Seems farfetched that it can "fix" any water quality to 5.2 pH but I did use it as more of a why-not in smaller 5G batches. I've now found in larger batches that pH is greatly affected by malt bill, where lactic acid or acidified malt was needed to achieve 5.2 pH, thus I've stopped using this product.
This raised my efficiency on my very first batch. I have been brewing for 12 years and have my recipes pretty tuned in. The first time I used this product my O.G skyrocketed. I now have to tune my recipes back or I go way over on the O.G. Only complaint is that it settles to the bottom of my Hot Wort tank and hard to get off, I have to find a way to get it disolved quicker.