How much Epsom Salts and Gypsum to add?

Hi folks,

I'm about to brew a batch of pale ale (all pale malt - Maris Otter) no other malts.

My well water has 9 ppm Ca, 4 ppm Mg and alkalinity (as CaCO3) of 43.

To achieve the Burton waters, it looks like I need to add Epsom Salts and Gysum - but how much?

I tried the John Palmer nomograph:

http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-3.html

but that merely gave a recommendation for adding CaSO4 and not any MgSO4, which is puzzling to me.

Any recommendations?

Cheers!

That's close to my ppm's and I just use 1 tsp of gypsum per 5 gallon's worth of beer.

Bendbrewer,
Good enough for me but don't you miss out on some of the benefits of Mg?
Cheers!

Your water is close enough to having enough Mg in it for yeast health and performance. You may not really need to add any more and the preferred level is always under 30 ppm. You may want to download Bru'n Water to learn more about how to adjust your water. Download it from the link in my signature.

Martin,

Thanks for the reply and for the link to your excellent spreadsheet - a source of most useful information.

Unfortunately, my Water Analysis is rather limited (eg, does not include any cations).

I've done a rough calculation and found that for my water (and perhaps Bendbrewer's), addition of 1/2 level tsp of Epsom Salts (together with the 1 level tps of Gypsum) may be beneficial, in that it brings up the SO4 , whilst keeping below the 30 ppm Mg threshold that you mention. (I've made the assumption that because my anions are very low, the sulfate would also be very low).

Cheers!

It looks like its time to send a sample off to Ward Labs to close the data gap. You'll be glad you did.

I guess you are right!