All Grain RO/DI water question - Help

[ChappysBrewing]

Hello all. So I have been building a new badass little system and have those mechanics down pretty well as far as brewing. I have been using just normal tap water and have not really cared about doing extra measuring as far as PH really worrying about the water as all of the beers have turned out quite well. But now I am taking the next steps and this is the area i really want to focus on and try to understand better.

I recently purchased a RO/DI system with a separate holding tank so I can have my brew water ready and set aside and just pump it into my HLT right into the MASH (when ready). Now I have downloaded the Bru'n Water template and even got the advanced version as I needed the RO calculations. I really am just struggling as far as what I need to add to my water to get it ready for brewing. I know each beer can take a different profile to make that beer better and the range of PH is between 5.2-5.4. I just dont know what type of additions to add. I have purchased calcium chloride and gypsum as those seem to be the items most people add. Gypsum helps with magnesium which helps the hops. I am planning on doing a hefeweizen base beer to where hops are not a main aspect to the beer so felt like I should just pass on that addition but dont know how many grams to add to my pre mash water as far as calcium chloride to get my water in a good range.

Grain Bill:

Tangerine Hefeweizen
14.25lb German Wheat
7lb German Pilsner
2lb German Munich
1lb Carafoam
1lb Rice Hulls
4oz acidication malt
irish moss (last 15 min)
1oz (maybe 2oz) tangerine peel
1oz coriander (maybe .5oz)
.5oz bitter orange peel (havent decided)

2oz of HALLERTAU MITTLEFRUH

1addition at 60 min
1 addition 15 min
90min boil

Shooting for around 12.5 gallons which ill split between 2 carboys and 1 yeast starter for each. Then may make a small batch with the excess wort I can get from squeezing the grains in the bag and wort under my false bottom. More than likely will just use dry yeast package to see the differences from this batch.

Will be using White Labs Hefeweizen yeast IV 2 packages with 2 starters.

My plan is to fill my HLT with pure RO/DI water (4ppm measurement I took yesterday, ph 7.5) and would like to make some additions to get the water right to fill into my Mash. After I get my water ready in the HLT I push it to my Mash Tun and then dough in my grains. I will be adding back water into the HLT (could use tap or more RO/DI water) to get the water high enough to cover the 50' ss coils I have in my HLT as well as will be using this water for sparging as I am moving my wort from the mash tun to the boil kettle.

My biggest concern is just getting my mash water right and also having my sparging water within a range that wort push my mash water our of whack when sparging. Any help would be huge.

As far as bru'n water my biggest hold up so far seems to be on the 2nd page "Sparge Acidification" where it talks about "First Acid Type" and dont know what to put down here for it to make my water accurate. After I add in all of the grains and items and go to the "water adjustment" and trying to understand what I should add if anything just doesnt make much sense to me. Any help would be hugely appreciated as I plan on trying this sucker out tomorrow!

 

[Jeremy9991]

Definitely depends on how serious you want to get. The Bru'n water sheets are great, but I tend to prefer the brewcipher water calculations. It is certainly a simplified, and it allows me to easily add different salt quantities, it factors in my grain bill and water volumes, and then spits out mash PH. With my PH meter, every time I've down my recipes in there I've come within .02-0.03 on my mash PH. For sparge water, I select my desired sparge water ph and it tells me exactly how much lactic or phosphoric acid to add. Usually less than a ml so a very fine dropper works well.

 

[ChappysBrewing]

Oh very cool! So I went and downloaded that sheet from a website and this is what I am getting. When I try to add back minerals it doesnt seem to drop the mash very much regardless of how high I go. Just wanting to get it down within range but dont wanna use too many minerals or what not if I can help it.

 

[ajdelange]

Starting out you don't need (and probably should not get entangled in) spreadsheets or calculators. Just add 2.5 grams of CaCl2 to each 5 gallons of mash water. Also use 2% saueremalz (about twice what you have).

As you are using RO water (don't waste your DI cartridge on preparing to make beer) you don't have appreciable alkalinity and there is no need to acidify the sparge water.

 

[ChappysBrewing]

Alright so more or less add 5-7 grams of CaCl2 to the mash water and go buy another 4oz of sauermalz and just let it ride.

Yeah the RO/DI system I bought is a 5 stage system and just came with all aspects. The water it makes is pretty darn good and is 4ppm so was pleased it got most everything out. As for the sparge water, I will just add back tap water on top of the RO water or even just more RO water on top and let it ride and hope for the best as far as getting my PH in the right levels. Do you normally add Gypsum or only when doing beers where you want the Hops to come out more?

 

[ajdelange]

As I don't really like what sulfate does to the hop varieties I use in most of my beers, hefes, lagers, it is a rare event when I add sulfate. But that is me. Most do want some sulfate in their, especially UK derived, beers and when brewing those take their advice.