Adding Gypsum to partial mash IPA

[BrettV]

I've been brewing for about 3 years now, mostly extract and partial mashes, and I have never messed with water chemistry. I was thinking for my most recent brew to perhaps delve SLIGHTLY into new territory. I've read the primer sticky, I've checked out the Bru'n Water chart, I've read my local water report: it all makes my head hurt. I live in NYC, which has softer water (Alkalinity [CaCo3] 14.8 mg/L, Sulfate 4.8 mg/L, Chloride 9 mg/L, Sodium 7 mg/L, Calcium 5.5 mg/L, Magnesium 1.2 mg/L, pH 7.2 source: 2012 NYC water report.) I'm brewing a BIAB partial mash IPA with a grain bill that looks like this:

2 lbs American 2-row
1.25 lbs CARAHELL
1 lb Cara-Pils
0.5 lbs CaraVienne
(4.75 lbs total grain)

Will mash with 2 gallons of water for an hour at 148 and tea-bag sparge in 2 gallons of water for 10 minutes

The rest of the fermentables will be made up by 5 lbs of Pilsen DME. Now, in the most basic sense, as I understand, for a hoppy beer you want a little more mineral content to help make the hops "pop." I have a tsp of Gypsum that came with a beer kit that I never used. Without getting too complicated, would it be alright to add that tsp of Gypsum to my water to increase the hardness? If so, is it OK to add the full tsp to the mash water or should I add half to the mash water/half to the sparge water?

At the end of the day, I just want to KISS.

 

[ajdelange]

Since most of your sugars are coming from extract water treatment isn't so important from that point of view. Sulfate and chloride have effects on beer flavors and that is a separate matter. You may want to augment the sulfate in your beers in order to realize their reaction with hops. I would suggest that you experiment by adding sulfate to a beer brewed without much of it (i.e. add pinches of gypsum to a glass of this low sulfate beer). This will give you an idea as to what to expect from sulfate added in the brewing process.