Phosporic acid in sparge water - Wow!

Been tinkering with mash water chemistry for a while, but never messed with my 8.5 to 9.0 pH sparge water.

I had the phosphoric acid, so today I put ONE drop in four gallons of sparge water.  Tested it after I found I forgot the HLT still needed emptying. 

Tap water was 8.56 and the sparge water was 6.85, so that one drop moved the pH of four gallons by 1.71 points.  If you have high pH water, this seems easy insurance to avoid tannin-stripping during the lautering.  I was really surprised it moved that much with one drop.

Where can you buy. It?

I put about a Tbsp of pH 5.2 buffer (Its a combination of several phosphate buffers) in the strike water and the sparge water. The ph of your water will hit 5.2 spot on every time. Its available at any homebrew shop or on-line supplier.

Cheers

Home brew supplies shops carry phosphoric and lactic acid and it's cheap. 

5.2 works well to hold the pH, but does not supply the minerals that may be missing from the local water.  And if you have high pH water as I do, "they" recommend acidifying it slightly so it doesn't strip out the minerals as quickly while the sparge water rinses the grain bed.  (My water is almost mineral-free, so I have to add everything and don't want it stripped out.)

Either method helps to maintain the favorable mash pH for good conversion.

Thinks for the heads up, I have some Phosphoric Acid , but aways have always used Latic Acid,
Mine is 7.8 ph
If you make up your water for a blank slate like D.I or R.O then check out Beer Captured page 177 it has a beer style profile that you can use with BS2, to calc PPM to grams for your salts
FYI