How much baking soda?

[JamPie]

Hello Mentors.

I did find a couple of snippets on this in the forum but I'm stil not sure. If there is a thread that I missed please point me in the right direction.

Here is my situation:

I have at the moment 3 x 25 litre buckets of UJSSM 4th generation going for 3 days. Two of my buckets are going VERY slow and the one has just about stalled. They actually never started. I aerated it but that didn’t help. I added more yeast but no joy. Tested the Ph and its 3. Too low. Al I can think is to adjust it. Will one teaspoon of baking soda be enough per bucket to start off with?

If it doesn’t work I don’t know what else to do. Maybe some tomato paste?

Thanks for the help.

[JamPie]

I added 3 tablespoons of baking soda and the Ph is now around 5 - 6.

Do you think that the yeast could have been damaged being in 3 Ph beer for 3 days?

[JamPie]

Hello Ghost
I got it going again luckily and stripped and polished it on the weekend. Got great results in the end.

I added yeast, tomato paste, adjusted the Ph and aerated it and after that, all was fine.

I've learned my lesson though: Checking Ph and aerating on EVERY batch from now on. I'm busy with my 5th generation UJSSM and it's doing VERY well. it's been bubbling well for three days now.

Thanks for the input!

[frozenthunderbolt]

use calcium carbonate (lime) not baking soda (sodium bicarbonate). Yeast DONT like sodium, yeast DO like calcium.

[Lupus]

Thunderbolt,
What about potassium bicarbonate, used to balance pH in wine making?

[frozenthunderbolt]

Thunderbolt,
What about potassium bicarbonate, used to balance pH in wine making?

Yep, this is also all good

[Lupus]

Frozenthunderbolt,
Thanks for the reply. In distillation, it appears that stillers seem to use calcium carbonate and citric acid. Yet winemakers are more likely to use potassium bicarbonate and tartaric acid to balance pH. Is there a reason for the difference in choice of acids and bases? Or is it a matter availability or cost?

I have read that in winemaking citric acid is not used as it introduced unwanted favours to the end product, but no notes the other way.

[Durace11]

I always thought the wine makers used the acid blend of citric, malic and tartaric.

[Lupus]

They do use malic acid as well, but general reading indicated less use of citric, but then again, I am new to all this

[heynonny]

I bought a coffee grinder at a yard/garage sale for turning egg shells into a powder. This source of calcium is (however fine I grind it), is very slow acting, and I add 1/4-1/3 C to new mash (w/ 25 -30% slop) "every" time. If I forget, the ferment usually stalls, & I add it then. Mine always seems to be slightly too acidic. -hey-

(I have another one for grinding spices, I even have one for grinding coffee)