Minerals in my Pale Ale???

I'm brewing an all-grain English style pale ale this weekend. I've been doing some reading and a lot of the other recipes out there call for a bit of gypsum or water treatment to make your water harder. Mine is on the soft side. They say it tends to help the finish to be a bit dryer. How important is it? What do I put into my water, when in the process and how much?

Thanks!

Hardening the water to boost calcium is a good idea if your water is soft. Boosting the sulfate level will also help bring out the hop bittering and flavor. Gypsum can be a good idea, but know what is in your water will help you figure out what sort of dosage you might want in your water.

You can learn more with Bru'n Water. There is a Water Knowledge section that helps explain this. You can download it at the link in my signature line.

Welcome to the forum.
I brew a lot of English style pale ales/bitters, and for several years now, I have been following the advice given by Terry Foster in "Pale Ale" with excellent results.
For Bitters (cask conditioned and with very low carbonation levels) he recommends calcium at 50 - 100 ppm, sulfate at 100 - 200 ppm, and chloride 20 ppm.
For pale ales and English IPA's (bottled and more highly carbonated), he recommends calcium 100 - 150 ppm, sulfate 200 - 300 ppm, and chloride 30 ppm.
With my water, which is probably very similar to yours, these profiles can be easily achieved with a very small amount of calcium chloride, and a larger amount of calcium sulfate.

-a.

Hi ajf. Thank you for the advice. When you say "very small amount of calcium chloride and a larger amount of calcium sulfate" what do you mean? I am brewing for a five gallon carboy. Will a teaspoon of calcium chloride and a tablespoon of calcium sulfate suffice?

According to my published water report, my water has (on average)
Ca 16.2 ppm
Mg 3.5 ppm
Na 8.7 ppm
SO4 12.4 ppm
Cl 13.0 ppm
HC03 49.7 ppm
For the bitter I brewed last weekend (a 5g batch using about 9.6 gallons water) I added 9 grams gypsum, and 650 mg Calcium Chloride.
According to How to Brew, that would be a bit more than 2 tsp gypsum, and less than 1/4 tsp of calcium chloride.

I used https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/ez-water-calculator-2-0-a-195940/ to calculate the additions.

-a.