German Brewing

So most German water from what I hear is soft. Do German breweries add lactic acid or acidulated malt to get their ph into range? Or is there some other method that they use to avoid astringency issues?

They are using Saurgut, or acidualated malt. Both have lactic in them.

I had found something that showed Munich's water (untreated) is extremely high in bicarbonate (making it well suited for dark beer). It's a 2013 report.
Ca2+ 82
Mg2+ 20
Na+ 4
Cl- 2
SO42-16
HCO3-320


But after treatment-
Ca2+ 40
Mg2+ 20
Na+ 4
Cl- 75
SO42-52
HCO3-29

(hope the numbers line up correctly) *edited to fix
Just thought I'd share.

Germany has a lot of differing water profiles.
The landscape of Germany varies, quite widely.
You have mountains, low-lands, meadows, farmlands, rivers...
Some water sources are deep wells, some are mountain streams, some are winding rivers...
The water reports & favored beers of different regions reflect those variations.

Some breweries boil their water, prior to brewing...
Some use acidification methods...
Many use more than one method.

Munich may have hard and high alkalinity water but the breweries are NOT using it as is to make beer. Many of the breweries have deep wells which provide very soft water.

You can get away with using water up to 10 dH residual alkalinity in dark beers (light beers should have much lower, even negative RA), but it is not a requirement and it is argued by some that dark beers taste better when brewed with low alkalinity water.

The bottom line is to have a minimum level of Ca in your water (20ppm, many people are getting good results with closer to 50ppm), low sulfates unless you're brewing a north/East German pils, but more importantly hit your pH targets. You can run as high as 5.6 in the mash for a dark beer, 5.5 for a light beer - but you should adjust your boil pH down using either sour wort or lactic acid (the latter is much more practical for home brewers) to the 5.1-5.3 range.

Can any of you speak to the benefits of adjusting cast out wort pH to 5.1-5.2? That's going to be my next brew day adjustment. I don't have a pH meter as I'm a bit leery of purchasing one for the 12 or less beers I'm brewing a year. I do use the brew water spreadsheets that are available and along with an average water report, I feel I have a decent educated guess as to where my water is and the treatments I need. However, the life expectancy and cost/maintenance required for a meter also plays a role into why I don't have one.

Sorry to be blunt about this, but I feel the need to be in regards to this. IMHO, if you don't have a pH meter you should not even consider pH modifications. The downsides of missing your numbers, using WAG's far out-way the positives.

And, don't waste your money on the papers you see in the homebrewing stores.
I know how tempting they are, but save that $ for a meter.
In my experience, they're usually tainted & not worth your cash.
Even the cheap meters are more reliable than those papers.
Just be sure to look at accuracy & capability, before you buy.