Ph levels

I need help understanding Ph levels.  I use bottle water currently and bought Ph strips to test. I've ready John Palmer and 3 over books but all do not really explain very clearly.  What are the basics and how do I use these strips?  I did my water and the fridge with filter and both came out above the norm.  Help!!!

I'd say, save the PH strips for wine-making. Relax 8)

Understanding PH helps you understand the entire process of brewing; but you can make awesome beer for years without understanding the chemistry stuff.

If you're doing extracts... relax, don't worry, it is insignificant. If you like the way the water tastes, use it.  Bottled water will never be a problem. Somebody already worried about PH when they made your extract.

If you are talking all grain mash. The mash grains usually levels near the perfect PH of 5.2. Again, if you are using bottled don't worry. With tap water you can always throw in a teaspoon of gypsum. If you've read Palmer, you'll know if any or how much is necessary.

If you are doing a classic beer and are trying to duplicate water from a certain region in the world... understanding the PH will be worth your time. That would be a long answer.

This isn't the first thing that I, personally, would concern myself with.

If you do want to udnerstand this better, here are a few thoughts.

Mash pH is much more complex than just the pH of your water.  It's a combination of the composition of your water + the grains you are using.

John Palmer's discussion of this on Basic Brewing Radio is what helped me to get a better grasp on this.  I listened to this a few times.
http://media.libsyn.com/media/basicbrewing/bbr01-11-07.mp3

Also, working through Palmer's Residual Alkalinity Spreadsheet was helpful-
http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/Palmers_Mash_RA_ver2e.xls

Ziggybrew said:

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If you're doing extracts... relax, don't worry, it is insignificant.

Click to expand...

Largely true, and certainly less important than many other issues; however, sufficient calcium and magnesium in boil and fermenter (for the yeast) is important to hot break, clarity, yeast performance, etc.  Depends on your local water; mine is very low mineral, like single digits for most items.

I was doing Palmer's spreadsheet for a while and hit 5.3 mash pH so often I quit checking.  But somewhere I read about the boil again, and starting adding 50% of the Palmer blend to the boil, and I think that helped with hot break and led to a more-active fermentation at least once. 

Also worth noting is the ability to change the chloride to sulfate ratio when using water salts to adjust pH.

You could make the assumption that the malt extract manufacturer had a good mash pH and the right mineral make up for a good fermentation.  If that is the case then those minerals are condensed down and adding distilled water would bring the wort up to the right levels.  That would just be an assumption, maybe a safe assumption but also possibly wrong.

The thing you have no real control over is the chloride to sulfate ratio.  Of course, you could put something in to change this and it may come out how you want it, but it's really just a guessing game.