beer smith salt addition question

[bailey mountain brewer]

I use beer smith for all my brewing calculations and am just getting into water profile and salt additions. i brew 15 gal batches, i use my well water and got a ward labs analysis. i brew with a herms 3v system. my hlt i fill to about 22gal to cover my coil plus some so i have extra hot water for cleaning up. i dont have exact numbers here with me but ill try to give as much info as possible. ballpark my next batch calls for 12gal water in the mash and sparge is 14gal. when setting my water addition should i set it to 12gal and add all my salts to the mash, do i set it 26 gal and add all my salts to the mash or split it with my mash and hlt, and if i split it should i then set my water addition to 36gal? trying to get my calculations nailed down so i know how much acid malt to add and this will be my first batch making salt additions and dont want to screw up 15gal of beer (that is already good without the salts). any suggestions and input will be appreciated.

 

[kevin58]

I'm pretty sure this has been covered in the Beersmith.com forum. Check there and if you don't find anything send a PM to @Oginme as I believe he is the one who answered it.

 

[bailey mountain brewer]

Will do, I was looking for it but could not find. Dont think I checked there though. Thanks for the direction.

 

[codysorgenfrey]

Adding salts to mash only or mash and sparge seems to be a personal preference and depends on your source water profile and sparging process. I personally only add salts to the mash for the profile and pH.

fwiw I also prefer using brewers friend’s water calculators over BeerSmith. It’s a lot less confusing.

 

[kevin58]

Beersmith is much easier to use with the introduction of version 3. Enter your home water supply and then select a target and your done. Plus, I believe what the OP was asking is how to calculate water additions when the vessel containing his sparge water has more water in it than he plans to use for the sparge.

 

[bailey mountain brewer]

that is correct, i am gonna do a simple porter and use one of the profiles already set in beersmith for that style as kind of a simple first go at it. but i really want to take my neipa to the next level and seems the next step is nailing down the water profile, guys are hitting 250-300 ppm Cl : 80ppm so4 ..... which is a rather large salt addition and if i enter it for the entire volume of water its putting my mash ph up to 5.7 to 5.8 so the acid addition is significant. i am leaning toward staring with just treating the mash water and slowly dip my toes into this end of the brewing pool rather then doing a cannonball.

 

[codysorgenfrey]

slowly dip my toes into this end of the brewing pool rather then doing a cannonball.

Well said