On May 7, 5:12 pm, Joe Sallustio > wrote:
> >to me, the ideal way would be
> > to test the acidity as you dilute it and only dilute it till the acidity is
> > where you want it and then NOT add any more acid. Any one see a problem
> > with this?
>
> Sounds good to me but I did that on a mead and screwed it up. It
> turns fermentation of honey converts more acids that fermentation of
> grapes so my pH went from 3.5 to 2.8 post fermentation. That's where I
> learned to listen to my tongue before listening to my electronics...
>
> On the acid reduction comment related to tartaric, those carbonates
> prefer tartaric but eat malic too.
>
> Joe

I feel for you Joe-

The first batch of mead I lowered my pH to 3.8 with Tartaric acid- and
it dropped like a rock. The second one I lowered it to 4.5... and it
STILL dropped to under 3.0. The third was to 5.6, and finally the
last was to 6.5. I started taking pH measurements 2x a day to watch
the acid drop- can't remember if I correlated it with SG or not, but
(without my data) I remember that, regardless, the >5.0 ph starts all
came to align around 3.4- where the yeast really wanted to be.

So I don't mess with pH at all anymore, except to give it just a
little bit of acid in the beginning. I figure it'll all crystallize
out of the bottle anyway.

Jason