BeerSmith Water Profile Volume--Should I use mash water volume only?

[johnwpowell]

I'm using BeerSmith water profile tool and I've created custom water profiles with additions saved to them based on my water.

On previous brews, I've been adding the salts only to the water in the mash tun. So for a 5 gallon batch, that's about 3 gallons.

I noticed that when you add the custom water to your recipe, it adjusts the salts based on the total water volume. Based on my equipment, that is 9.5 gallons.

So that makes me wonder, should I be calculating my salts on my initial mash water volume (e.g. 3 gallons) or on the entire volume?

Logically, it seems like the mash water is what needs to be treated only, but I'm not sure of the BeerSmith algorithm

 

[snowboardin58]

I am not 100% sure on this as well. It can be confusing because the brew steps you print out mention mash next to each salt.

How I see it is it matters how much water you put into the recipe. If I'm brewing a 10 gallon batch, I simply use 15 or 20 gallons for the recipe. That way, BeerSmith gives me enough salt to treat that much water, and my mash water and sparge water all have equal concentrations of the ions I've added.

If you only wish to treat mash water, and you need 3 gallons in the mash, just calculate the salt additions for 3 gallons. But, personally, I like to overshoot my water needed volume and treat it all at once. I use my boil kettle for my HLT and fill my mash tun from that. Once I am mashing, I use the HLT/boil kettle to heat my sparge water further. All water has the same ion concentrations. I then sparge into buckets and when done, drain the HLT/mash tun, make sure there aren't any excess salts on the bottom, and fill with wort. I don't usually have any problems with excess salt since I have a recirculating pump running, and occasionally scrape the bottom and stir.

 

[johnwpowell]

Thanks for the reply. I came to the logical conclusion that when creating my recipe I should only add the mash water amount. It will then add the appropriate amounts for that. I will ask brad in person at the home brewer conference.

Do you think it's worth treating all the water or are the salts really just for the mash?