So I've been doing a ton of researching and reading, and been playing with the various water calculators and I believe I have a good handle on how to go about utilizing RO water, salts, and acid malt for brewing.
One question that eludes me though.
If I'm using say 8 gallons of strike water and 8 gallons of sparge water (batch sparging) can I simply add all my salts to the strike water so that I can use less acid malt to hit target ph range? Then of course the final concentrations will get lowered since I'm batch sparging with straight RO water.
For example:
Target final water profile: cal 77, mag 6, sodium 0, chloride 56, sulfate 136
Mash water 7.75 gal sparge 8.25 gal
Adding 12 g gypsum, 7 g calcium chloride and 4 g Epsom to ONLY my strike water gets me cal 158, mag 13, sodium 0, chloride 115, sulfate 281 with a mash ph of 5.33 (with 8oz acid malt )
Once I batch sparge with the 8.25 gallons of straight RO and combine the runnings a I then get my target numbers listed as listed above ( cal 77, mag 6, sodium 0, chloride 56, sulfate 136 )
Is it ok to do it this way or should I split the salts equally between the strike and sparge waters? I'd rather just add it to the mash out of laziness but if there's a good reason to split it that's fine too????
One question that eludes me though.
If I'm using say 8 gallons of strike water and 8 gallons of sparge water (batch sparging) can I simply add all my salts to the strike water so that I can use less acid malt to hit target ph range? Then of course the final concentrations will get lowered since I'm batch sparging with straight RO water.
For example:
Target final water profile: cal 77, mag 6, sodium 0, chloride 56, sulfate 136
Mash water 7.75 gal sparge 8.25 gal
Adding 12 g gypsum, 7 g calcium chloride and 4 g Epsom to ONLY my strike water gets me cal 158, mag 13, sodium 0, chloride 115, sulfate 281 with a mash ph of 5.33 (with 8oz acid malt )
Once I batch sparge with the 8.25 gallons of straight RO and combine the runnings a I then get my target numbers listed as listed above ( cal 77, mag 6, sodium 0, chloride 56, sulfate 136 )
Is it ok to do it this way or should I split the salts equally between the strike and sparge waters? I'd rather just add it to the mash out of laziness but if there's a good reason to split it that's fine too????