? About adding brewing salts

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GreenMonti

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I'm no good at water chemistry at all. I just don't understand it.

When I read "how to brew" section of adding salts. It states that 1 gram of Gypsum added to 1 gallon of water will add 61.5ppm of calcium and 147.4ppm of sulfate. I get that much, however. He then gives an example of a 4 gallon mash in which he states that the gypsum addition of 2.4 grams (I think) will add 353.76ppm sulfate to the mash, which is too much. This is where I get confused.

If we start with a gallon of water with 1 gram of gypsum in it, giving us said gallon with 61.5ppm calcium and 147.4ppm sulfate.......why does the sulfate continue to rise when more identical gallons are added?

I get that the salts continue to build up as more is added but so does the dilution.
Now, if I boiled some of the water for a bit then I can see the salt getting more concentrated. In my reading of palmers example. No brewer would want to add more then a gram of gypsum to their beer for a moderate hopping.
It seems to me, that I should be able to add a gram of gypsum and a gram of calcium chloride for every gallon of brewing liquor to achieve 133.5ppm calcium and 147.4ppm sulfate, plus the chloride.

I'm sure this is straight forward to most brewers, but for me it's like a nuclear physics question. Any help would be great.
Thanks
 
Your understanding sounds right to me. Salt additions are usually calculated in grams per gallon (cause Imperial is an awesome system), and then scaled up to total gallons. Here is an example of how it is displayed in Bru'N'Water, you can see how much calcium and sulfate 1g of gypsum is adding to 1 gal of water and to the right to shows how many grams you'll need to add to 4 gal of water to maintain that level.

My guess is what you read in How to Brew was saying adding 2.4g per gallon will give you that level of sulfate (147.5ppm x 2.4g = 354ppm).

Example1.JPG
 
My guess is what you read in How to Brew was saying adding 2.4g per gallon will give you that level of sulfate (147.5ppm x 2.4g = 354ppm).

I sure did. I went back and re read that section. I overlooked it when I read it. My mistake.
Thank you!!
 
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