Sea Salt vs Canning Salt for Brunwater mash adjustment

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byronyasgur

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When I do the salts calculations for BruNWater it sometimes requires 0.5 g or 1 g or so of NaCL ( Canning Salt). Canning salt ( or Pickling Salt as it's known as here ) is not that easy to get in small quantities here. I can pay €25 for a couple of kilos of it but do I really have to go to those lengths when I can get sea salt for €1 or 2 .... I read a post somewhere before saying that sea salt had natural impurities, and I accept this but surely they'd be negligible. I know btw that sea salt can have heavy metals if you don't know the sea it was harvested from but I mean assuming that part is covered.
 
Any NaCl additions will probably be very small unless you are brewing a Gose so the other trace minerals in sea salt are not likely a big deal. However, if you want to eliminate any doubt and you can't find pickling salt find a brand of Kosher salt that has no additives. In the US the Diamond Crystal brand is very good but some other brands have additives similar to table salt. Make sure you continue to do the additions by weight as Kosher salt, and probably sea salt, have a different density compared to fine grain salts like pickling or table salt.
 
I don't think sodium ions are actually needed in beer. Chloride ions can come from calcium chloride dihydrate.
 
I don't think sodium ions are actually needed in beer. Chloride ions can come from calcium chloride dihydrate.

you might be right but I'm just going by brunwater which calls for NACL - I don't really want to get into doing it manually
 
Any NaCl additions will probably be very small unless you are brewing a Gose so the other trace minerals in sea salt are not likely a big deal. However, if you want to eliminate any doubt and you can't find pickling salt find a brand of Kosher salt that has no additives. In the US the Diamond Crystal brand is very good but some other brands have additives similar to table salt. Make sure you continue to do the additions by weight as Kosher salt, and probably sea salt, have a different density compared to fine grain salts like pickling or table salt.

I'll keep an eye out but most Kosher salts I find here are not pure in fact they market themselves as having all these extra minerals in them.
I think you've got to be right about the trace minerals in sea salt not being a big deal. I'm new to brewing anyway I have a ton of other things to get right before I start worrying about this I just thought I'd put it out there in case I got 20 replies saying "stop you're going the wrong way" :)
 
you might be right but I'm just going by brunwater which calls for NACL - I don't really want to get into doing it manually

Ignore the sodium and pay attention to the chloride. Get it from CaCl2-2H2O

No one should ever need to add salt to mash water or sparge water.
 
Ignore the sodium and pay attention to the chloride. Get it from CaCl2-2H2O

No one should ever need to add salt to mash water or sparge water.

Hmm. For my next brew for example I'm going to try the pale ale profile starting with RO water. AFAIK there's no way to get it without using NaCL or baking soda. I don't want to use baking soda if possible because I'll use the same water for sparging, so back to NaCL. That's if I want to use that profile. You could well be correct but I'm not at the stage where I'd make up my own profile yet. I'd prefer to use the commonly used ones from the program for now until I know what I'm doing. All of the profiles in brunwater have some sodium so I'm not sure about leaving it out altogether since I use 100% RO water.
 
Ignore the sodium and pay attention to the chloride. Get it from CaCl2-2H2O

No one should ever need to add salt to mash water or sparge water.

I'm pretty much with you on this one. Sodium is not really necessary plus if you make a mistake and add too much that can be a problem. As long as the base water is low in Na a small addition won't cause any harm but unless there is an unusual reason or style I'd stick with Calcium salts.
 
Hmm. For my next brew for example I'm going to try the pale ale profile starting with RO water. AFAIK there's no way to get it without using NaCL or baking soda. I don't want to use baking soda if possible because I'll use the same water for sparging, so back to NaCL. That's if I want to use that profile. You could well be correct but I'm not at the stage where I'd make up my own profile yet. I'd prefer to use the commonly used ones from the program for now until I know what I'm doing. All of the profiles in brunwater have some sodium so I'm not sure about leaving it out altogether since I use 100% RO water.

Tell you what.

If you can tell us what the sodium will bring to your beer, and what you're hoping to achieve with the addition, then I'd say DO IT!

If the answer is "it's in the profile of XXX's water, so I think it should be there", that is not acceptable. :D

If the answer is "The sour, salty taste of sodium accentuates beer's flavor when present at modest concentration and I want that for my beer!", then I say, YES, USE IT. But make sure you know how much a "modest concentration" is to give you the roundness to the beer flavor you desire. Certainly you will want less than about 60 ppm, and at that concentration I would make a bet with you that it will not be discernible.

In other words, it is NOT necessary, and can be sour and salty in more than modest amounts.
 
Calcium, chloride and sulfate matter. The fact that other things appear in EVERY water profile does not mean that they matter. Sodium, bicarb and magnesium only matter if you find a way to use too much of them. Use none of them? No matter.
 
Na is used to promote roundness and fullness of a beer. I just made a milk stout with 100ppm Na
 
Just because the local cities water supply in a location where a famous brewery resides is terrible does not mean said brewery is actually brewing with terrible water. Breweries have been altering their water to make it more suitable for a couple hundred years.

Some of the most highly prominent modern day "experts" in home brewing have done far more damage to home brewers water mentality than you could possibly imagine. Yet home brewers worship and support them as if they are beer gods.

Listening to a true expert like AJ deLange right here on this forum will serve you far better.
 
Na is used to promote roundness and fullness of a beer. I just made a milk stout with 100ppm Na

Did you brew an identical batch with no sodium ions to prove this in a side by side controlled test, or did you read it in a book, or see it online?
 
Tell you what.

If you can tell us what the sodium will bring to your beer, and what you're hoping to achieve with the addition, then I'd say DO IT!

If the answer is "it's in the profile of XXX's water, so I think it should be there", that is not acceptable. :D

If the answer is "The sour, salty taste of sodium accentuates beer's flavor when present at modest concentration and I want that for my beer!", then I say, YES, USE IT. But make sure you know how much a "modest concentration" is to give you the roundness to the beer flavor you desire. Certainly you will want less than about 60 ppm, and at that concentration I would make a bet with you that it will not be discernible.

In other words, it is NOT necessary, and can be sour and salty in more than modest amounts.

thanks so much for your helpful info about the effects of soduium and I'll take that as something I can just leave out but you see the whole point is ( or was ) that I didn't know what it does ( and more importantly what effect leaving it out would have ) so I just wanted to use a profile AS IS without mucking around with it, literally because I didn't know what I was doing. Really I'm trying to avoid anything fancy with water chemistry and just use the profiles that come with brunwater ( hopefully picking something not too fancy or aggressive - pale ale profile for my mainly IPA's at this point ) - I wouldn't really have the confidence at this point to play with them because I don't yet have the time to study water chemistry properly yet - I mean I'm still building my first fermentation fridge so that sort of aces that.

but thanks again and I can see from your succinct and very helpful one liner that I can just leave it out for now - so that's one fifth of water chemistry studied ;)

:mug::mug::mug:
 
thanks so much for your helpful info about the effects of soduium and I'll take that as something I can just leave out but you see the whole point is ( or was ) that I didn't know what it does ( and more importantly what effect leaving it out would have ) so I just wanted to use a profile AS IS without mucking around with it, literally because I didn't know what I was doing. Really I'm trying to avoid anything fancy with water chemistry and just use the profiles that come with brunwater ( hopefully picking something not too fancy or aggressive - pale ale profile for my mainly IPA's at this point ) - I wouldn't really have the confidence at this point to play with them because I don't yet have the time to study water chemistry properly yet - I mean I'm still building my first fermentation fridge so that sort of aces that.

but thanks again and I can see from your succinct and very helpful one liner that I can just leave it out for now - so that's one fifth of water chemistry studied ;)

:mug::mug::mug:

I love brunwater, and I use it myself. I find that maybe the best way to use it may not to be to hit a target, until you know why you want to hit that target; I know that's the exact opposite of why you want to use it! I suggest reading the "water knowledge" page (first page of brun'water) over and over until it really clicks. And it will, I promise!

At first, I almost gave up because I couldn't understand the spreadsheet and how to use the targets, and make sense of the additions. If I can understand it and get a working knowledge of water in brewing, anybody can. It may take some perseverance but with Martin Brungard here on the forum, and AJ deLange, and other helpful folks, it will be become clearer!
 
I suggest reading the "water knowledge" page (first page of brun'water) over and over until it really clicks. And it will, I promise!

no doubt ... and I did have a quick flick through it and I'm certain if I read it 10 times I'd get it but it's really just that I'm newish to brewing and I have a list of things to study and do that will keep me busy for the next 3 years!!! Homebrew should carry a warning ... "careful - leads to geek like obsessive study and can cause unhealthy exposure to electronics and plumbing" :D
 
Did you brew an identical batch with no sodium ions to prove this in a side by side controlled test, or did you read it in a book, or see it online?

I did not do a side by side.

I read it online from a few sources and I sure I have read it a few books too.

The mad alchemist recommends 150 ppm Na for a milk stout

Also I see martin b recommending increased Na for a milk stout too on the homebrew association forum.

It also makes perfect sense to me in so much as we are making cooking analogies' that you put a pinch of salt in cake recipes (especially chocolate cake) to enhance their flavor, balance the sweetness and making them not seem flat.


In Water a comprehensive guide for brewers by John Palmer and Colin Kaminski page 149 its reads

"at low concentration sodium said to sweeten the malt character"

"when sodium is associated with chlorides sodium gives a salty taste above 150ppm"

"<150ppm it acts to improve mouthfeel and fullness in pale beers"
 
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