Brewing Salts - add to ALL the water?

Hey, I'm imagining if I start messing with brewing salts (gotta go there) I treat all my water, right? I mean, mash, sparge, additional.. etc. So if I am doing a full boil of say 5.25 gal and I start with 6.5ish gal, I should what, fill the brewpot to 6.5, treat all the water, then divide and conquer? Sound right?

Also, should the brewing salts also be responsible for bringing down the mash pH? Or do I need to use something like 5.2?

First partial mash today, nervous and over thinking...

On the way to LHB, anyone need anything?

I use primarily gypsum to treat my water, and I treat it all. I need the calcium and the sulphate, and it helps to keep the pH down. If I don't treat the sparge water, the pH rises to unacceptable levels towards the end of the sparge. (I fly sparge.)
At least, the pH did rise several years ago, when I measured it, but I no longer bother as I get great results for the cost of a small amount of gypsum.

-a.

Yep. Add brewing salts to the HLT (assuming your doing a British Ale) then I add 5.2 to the mash.

If you add salts to plain water in the HLT, it will just fall to the bottom. They should be added to the mash and/or boil kettle.

If I wasn't so tired, I would write a novel. My short answer is yes, treat your entire volume to achieve the desired mineral content. If you know what you are doing, you will hit your mash pH by reason of the mineral content of the water and the character of your grain bill. The factors are calcium, magnesium, alkalinity, and your chloride/sulfate ratio. If you don't know how to utilize these to achieve your desired style, you should take a step back before you start making mineral adjustments.

Download the Excel Spreadsheet.

If you need help, PM me.

If you add salts to plain water in the HLT, it will just fall to the bottom. They should be added to the mash and/or boil kettle.

Click to expand...

Insert foot in mouth....I thought HLT and brew kettle were the same..lol...All I use is the brew kettle to heat my water, move it to mash tun then wort back to brew pot soo I guess in my case HLT and brewpot are the same?? Dunno..

I use reverse osmosis water and add the brewing salts to my boil kettle filled with water and bring up to proper temperature for mash. I think that's called strike but wtf do I know I'm a rookie.

I add 5.2 stabilizer to my mash.

Moose777 said:

Insert foot in mouth....I thought HLT and brew kettle were the same..lol...All I use is the brew kettle to heat my water, move it to mash tun then wort back to brew pot soo I guess in my case HLT and brewpot are the same?? Dunno..

I use reverse osmosis water and add the brewing salts to my boil kettle filled with water and bring up to proper temperature for mash. I think that's called strike but wtf do I know I'm a rookie.

I add 5.2 stabilizer to my mash.

Click to expand...

HLT = Hot Liquor Tank. Whatever you use to heat the water before adding the grain to it.

So for you, your brew kettle starts as an HLT and then later becomes the BK.

Except how do you heat your sparge water? I do batch sparging, so I need three different temperatures reached: mash in, mash out, and sparge. As soon as I mash out, my BK has wort in it and therefore can't use it for sparge water HLT.

Since I started this thread in Nov. I just wanted to chime in again and say that with the help of Bobby_M and TH's spreadsheet my beer has taken a giant step forward. For my water I'm adding salts to the mash only and not the sparge water. TH's spreadsheet lets you do that. I'm getting 73% eff. from my mashes and so far I have brewed from 5 to 28 SRM using these methods. My pH is 8.0 and with slight additions of salts I get my RA where it needs to be and my SO4/CL ratio where it needs to be for the mash. Not that you can't add the salts to the entire brew water but this way you can do something drastic to the mash and when you dilute with the rest of the sparge water all things balance and you end up with way less salt(s) in the final mix. Since I have never used salts throughout the entire process (never after the mash) I can't comment on how that beer would have turned out

I'm sure a dedicated HLT will be in my brewing future but based on how much I've spent on this hobby opver tyhe past year I'll need to make do with what I have for ohhhh say another few weeks, lol..

I haven't bought cigars in a loooong time...(that means, home brewing has replaced cigars)