Silver_Is_Money
Larry Sayre, Developer of 'Mash Made Easy'
There is much literature which indicates that one defining difference between Ales and Lagers is their general range of "finished beer" pH. Ales generally finish at notably lower pH than do Lagers. This difference is often attributed to and assigned as a characteristic difference between lager yeasts and ale yeasts as to their ability to acidify during fermentation. But there may be an additional, or even perhaps another culprit.
Phosphoric Acid and other mineral acids such as HCl and H2SO4 (and blends such as AMS/CRS) do not contribute much if at all to Wort buffering, but organic acids like Lactic Acid add appreciable buffering to Wort, as can be seen within this linked recent study: Study on the buffering capacity of wort
Since buffering capacity is the measure of resistance to change in pH, increased buffering would naturally hinder yeasts ability to bring down the pH during fermentation. Ales historically have been pH adjusted during and post the mash via the addition of mineral acids, while traditionally, due in great measure to the Reinheitsgebot German beer law, Lagers have been acidified with organic acids such as lactic acid. If (as the linked study indicates) Lactic Acid measurably increases Wort's buffering capacity, while mineral acids do not, then at least part, if not all, of the finished beer pH difference traditionally measured may be due to the difference in regional acidification methods as opposed to differences in regional yeast characteristics.
As intuition quite often proves to lead to "bad science", and what I have presented here is purely my intuition, it would be an interesting experiment to attempt verification of this via the scientific method by making a number of Lagers with mineral acid acidification side by side with Lactic Acid based acidification as the only difference in their manufacture, and then measuring their finished beer pH to seek out an observed pattern thereby.
As an aside, Lagers are long term cold stored, nominally with this presumed to increase flavor characteristics, but recently this presumption has been repeatedly challenged. Might it be instead that Lagers were found to require cold storage whereby to preserve their freshness because their higher finished beer pH results in lessened inherent ability to achieve long term stability?
Phosphoric Acid and other mineral acids such as HCl and H2SO4 (and blends such as AMS/CRS) do not contribute much if at all to Wort buffering, but organic acids like Lactic Acid add appreciable buffering to Wort, as can be seen within this linked recent study: Study on the buffering capacity of wort
Since buffering capacity is the measure of resistance to change in pH, increased buffering would naturally hinder yeasts ability to bring down the pH during fermentation. Ales historically have been pH adjusted during and post the mash via the addition of mineral acids, while traditionally, due in great measure to the Reinheitsgebot German beer law, Lagers have been acidified with organic acids such as lactic acid. If (as the linked study indicates) Lactic Acid measurably increases Wort's buffering capacity, while mineral acids do not, then at least part, if not all, of the finished beer pH difference traditionally measured may be due to the difference in regional acidification methods as opposed to differences in regional yeast characteristics.
As intuition quite often proves to lead to "bad science", and what I have presented here is purely my intuition, it would be an interesting experiment to attempt verification of this via the scientific method by making a number of Lagers with mineral acid acidification side by side with Lactic Acid based acidification as the only difference in their manufacture, and then measuring their finished beer pH to seek out an observed pattern thereby.
As an aside, Lagers are long term cold stored, nominally with this presumed to increase flavor characteristics, but recently this presumption has been repeatedly challenged. Might it be instead that Lagers were found to require cold storage whereby to preserve their freshness because their higher finished beer pH results in lessened inherent ability to achieve long term stability?
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