Salts just in mash water?

Hey all,

I'm getting into using Kai's water calculator for improving my beer by improving the chemistry of the mash, but I have a big question before I brew later today. I've got some guidelines for ranges of the various ions, but, as a single infusion batch sparger, should I target those ranges in only the strike water used for mashing or in the entire water profile. Essentially, in designing recipes I've been targeting the amount of ions for the entire water profile, but since the strike water is usually in the neighborhood of half the entire water used, I'm wondering if I need to cut the salt additions in half so that the ranges are correct just for the mash. Does this question make sense? On Kai's water calculator, I can set it to calculate only the strike water's ion concentrations, but I'm not sure if I should.

Thanks everyone, for all the help, as usual : )

I would think it would depend on if you need all the salts in the mash to help adjust the mash pH. Since I usually need to lower my mash pH, I started adding all the salts (just Calcium Chloride) to my strike water. I base the amount of salts I used on how much ends up in the final volume.

The pH seems to be in a good range either way. I guess another way of asking the question is, if I want to hit certain ion concentrations to accentuate certain styles (i.e. higher sulfates for hoppy beers, higher chloride for malty beers, etc.) should I target specific ranges in just the strike water or those same ranges in the entire water volume?

>>The pH seems to be in a good range either way. I guess another way of asking the question is, if I want to hit certain ion concentrations to accentuate certain styles (i.e. higher sulfates for hoppy beers, higher chloride for malty beers, etc.) should I target specific ranges in just the strike water or those same ranges in the entire water volume?

My goal is taste not Ph adjustment.

While many will say to say "scale up for the entire batch",
I instead adjust for water into the fermentor + water lost to (trub + grain + hops)
So if I need 5 gallons, and lose 1.5 gallons to Trub/Grain/Hops I treat for 6.5 gallons, not the 7.75 gallons I start with.


My thoughts are if water evaporates, the salts become more concentrated. I dont want that. Especially not if I boil for 90 minutes.

krispy3d said:

The pH seems to be in a good range either way. I guess another way of asking the question is, if I want to hit certain ion concentrations to accentuate certain styles (i.e. higher sulfates for hoppy beers, higher chloride for malty beers, etc.) should I target specific ranges in just the strike water or those same ranges in the entire water volume?

Click to expand...

Then I'd say the entire volume.

ArcLight said:

>>The pH seems to be in a good range either way. I guess another way of asking the question is, if I want to hit certain ion concentrations to accentuate certain styles (i.e. higher sulfates for hoppy beers, higher chloride for malty beers, etc.) should I target specific ranges in just the strike water or those same ranges in the entire water volume?

My goal is taste not Ph adjustment.

While many will say to say "scale up for the entire batch",
I instead adjust for water into the fermentor + water lost to (trub + grain + hops)
So if I need 5 gallons, and lose 1.5 gallons to Trub/Grain/Hops I treat for 6.5 gallons, not the 7.75 gallons I start with.


My thoughts are if water evaporates, the salts become more concentrated. I dont want that. Especially not if I boil for 90 minutes.

Click to expand...

I would say that if you are try to hit ratios of chlorides to sulfates for example, and you are starting with tap water, then it should be based on the pre-boil volume. All the ions that come out of the tap will also become more concentrated in the final volume. So to keep the ratios where you want, it would require the salts you add to become proportionally more concentrated.

OTOH, if you are starting with RO water, that might be a different story.

Spartan1979 said:

All the ions that come out of the tap will also become more concentrated in the final volume. So to keep the ratios where you want, it would require the salts you add to become proportionally more concentrated.

Click to expand...

Exactly! Don't worry about concentrating during the boil. Look at the preboil ion concentrations for the water fitting your beer's requirements and forget what concentrations they actually end up in the beer. There are several processes in the mash, boil, and ferment that alter the ionic concentrations in the beer. To worry about the concentrations at the end of boil is no help.

>>I would say that if you are try to hit ratios of chlorides to sulfates for example, and you are starting with tap water, then it should be based on the pre-boil volume. All the ions that come out of the tap will also become more concentrated in the final volume. So to keep the ratios where you want, it would require the salts you add to become proportionally more concentrated.
OTOH, if you are starting with RO water, that might be a different story.

You raise a good point.

I am using New York City tap water which is as close to RO water as you are going to get from a free water source.

Thanks for the responses, everyone. So I went with adding salts just to the mash water. I've been reading up on chemistry, but some of it is not well described even in the beginners' write-ups. The one thing that confuses me is that they're never totally clear with which of the brewing steps the suggested ion concentration ranges apply to. They give a guideline about levels of certain ions, but they don't note that it's just the mash water or the entire volume. I went with just the mash water thinking that it's the concentration of ions during the enzymatic mash process that makes a difference, not the concentration throughout the entire water volume. But, I'm still not sure.

Before adding anything, get a Ward labs water report.

Chlorine you certainly want to remove.
The other salts add in moderation.
Tip - take a glass of the beer you made, add a pinch of either gypsum or Calcium Chloride, and see how you like it.
Be careful not to make it taste to minerally (Alka Seltzer)