First time building up water, take a look?

[Hellosluggo]

This will be the first time I've tried to build up my water from RO, so I've run my IPA recipe and additions through Beersmith, Brewer's Friend and EZ Water Calculator. Of course, I'm getting a range of results... Was wondering if someone might take a peek and let me know if this looks reasonable enough as a starting point. Be gentle.

https://beersmithrecipes.com/viewrecipe/2675647

https://brewersfriend.com/mash-chemistry-and-brewing-water-calculator/?id=C0L6H0G

EZ Water screenshot:

 

[Yooper]

That's more sulfate than I tend to use but less than some who make very bitter west coast IPAs that are very dry. Your recipe is a nice recipe, with some sweet malt and caramel malt, so I wonder about the 210 ppm of sulfate.
If it was me, I'd go with 150 ppm of sulfate at a max for this time. If you drop the epsom salts (no need for it here), then it might be just right. Mash pH is perfect.

 

[Hellosluggo]

Thanks for the quick reply! I'd actually like it to be bitter but not quite as dry as a straight west coast IPA, so maybe we're on the same page? Dropping the epsom salts and sticking with 9g gypsum and 4g calcium chloride gives me a sulfate/chloride ratio of 2.6 and leaves sulfate a hair over 160.

 

[Yooper]

Thanks for the quick reply! I'd actually like it to be bitter but not quite as dry as a straight west coast IPA, so maybe we're on the same page? Dropping the epsom salts and sticking with 9g gypsum and 4g calcium chloride gives me a sulfate/chloride ratio of 2.6 and leaves sulfate a hair over 160.

Ignore the sulfate/chloride ratio. That's meaningless. What is important is the actual amounts.

Here's why. Say you're making spaghetti sauce and use 5 tsps of salt. Adding 5 tsps of pepper (a 1:1 ratio) won't erase too much salt.

The same is true of sulfate/chloride. If you have 2 ppm sulfate and 1 ppm chloride, it's no where near the same as 200 ppm sulfate and 100 ppm chloride although the ratio is identical.

So, if you want go go with 160 ppm of sulfate, that's fine. Sort of like salt in food- too little is fine, but too much is terrible. So I always err on the side of caution if I"m not sure.

 

[Hellosluggo]

One last question — should I be treating my entire water volume (mash AND sparge), or just the mash water? I realize I could get many different replies... I remember reading somewhere that if I’m sparging with straight RO, salt additions weren’t necessary and I should just be concerned with pH. Your thoughts?

Updated recipe: https://beersmithrecipes.com/viewrecipe/2694564

 

[Dustin_J]

One last question — should I be treating my entire water volume (mash AND sparge), or just the mash water? I realize I could get many different replies... I remember reading somewhere that if I’m sparging with straight RO, salt additions weren’t necessary and I should just be concerned with pH. Your thoughts?

Updated recipe: https://beersmithrecipes.com/viewrecipe/2694564

Given that you don't appear to be adding anything basic/alkaline to the water anyway, for sparging/tannin extraction purposes I don't think it'll make much of a difference if you treat the sparge water or not. But, if you sparge with RO water your "finished"/overall water profile for the beer will be somewhat diluted compared with water profile you're targeting - which will only apply to the mash. That's not a problem for mash pH purposes, but it will influence the beer flavor a bit. There's no right or wrong here, it's just more about what you want to target.

One other thing to consider is that, given you're targeting a moderate mash pH of ~5.5, which is a good target IMO, you might want to bring the wort/boil pH down a bit (5.2 is often suggested). That should get you a little less color pickup, fluffier/larger hot break, and a little more pleasant/clean hop bitterness (although you lose a touch of hop utilization). By not treating the sparge water, you won't have any additional calcium to help bring the wort pH down. If you care about this, you could either a) treat the sparge water, or b) figure out what your additions would be for the sparge water amount you plan on using and just add them directly to the boil kettle. Acid additions would work too, but that's a separate consideration. I'd probably add the sparge additions directly the kettle, as I fly sparge and don't want to treat my entire HLT (12 + gal) if I'm only going to use 3 gal. If you batch sparge, either would probably be fine.