SerenityNexus
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Hi All,
I have been brewing since 2009 (some commercial, years ago, mostly at home). A long time reader of this forum but my first time logging in and posting anything. I couldn't find a thread that addressed these questions, but if you know of one please link it in your reply. Here goes.
I'll be asking about water mineral additions (specifically gyspum), so here's a quick look at my water profile as it comes out of the tap. I have a report from Ward that was tested straight from the faucet at home, so if you think other data from that is useful, please ask:
Calcium - 19
Magnesium - 5
Sulfate - 5
Chloride - 92
Alkalinity as CaCO3 - 68
It can be easier to use an example so let's deal with a Rye IPA (New England style, more or less, so we don't mind the high chloride) I recently brewed. The grain bill looks like this:
6 lbs, 6 oz US Pale Malt
2 lbs, 6 oz US Rye Malt
1 lb Flaked Rye
10 oz Vienna Malt
10 oz Munich 10
5 oz Acidulated Malt
8 oz Rice Hulls, to keep things moving
I mashed and sparged (batch sparge with a complete drain of the first runnings before adding sparge water) with 4.5 gal each, treated with a very small amount of Potassium Metabisulfite (<1/32 tsp) to remove chlorine, which I know is there from talking to my municipality.
Now, I have, as you may notice, an annoyingly high amount of chloride in my tap water, compared to almost no sulfate. Therefore, I keep plenty of gypsum around the house. Even a balanced beer or lager is getting some gypsum. This works fine as my Calcium starts rather low as well. For this beer, I'd like for my calcium content to be between 60-75 units and the sulfate to be around 125-150. I don't want to push the sulfate higher as I don't want to tread into minerally territory, but I'd like it this high to achieve at least a great than 1:1 Sulfate:Chloride ratio. This gets me to about 1.5:1.
That's the background, now for my question. I added 3.6 g (4/5 g / gallon, or around 49 units of Ca and around 118 units of Sulfate) straight into the mash tun (where the calcium is useful). Now, that takes care of my strike water. Once I've vorlaufed and drained out my first runnings completely, I add in the 4.5 gal of sparge water, mix, and rest a few minutes before vorlaufing and draining that as well.
(1) I normally add some more gypsum to the pre boil kettle, so that there is also a sufficient calcium ion concentration in the actual fermentation. I do this in ratio to the sparge water I used to rinse (i.e. another 3.6 g or 4/5 g / gallon for those 4.5 gallons sparge water). Am I ending up with more sulfate than I bargained for, since I'm boiling down a gallon?
(2) Should I be adding that extra gypsum to the sparge rest instead?
(3) Should I not be bothering with a second gypsum addition at all, and just calculate a full amount to add all into the mash?
I am interested both in the theory behind this and in any practical experience folks have. Examples and calculations appreciated.
Thanks in advance for any help folks can offer, I'm excited to finally be posting on here instead of just reading.
Cheers, be well!
I have been brewing since 2009 (some commercial, years ago, mostly at home). A long time reader of this forum but my first time logging in and posting anything. I couldn't find a thread that addressed these questions, but if you know of one please link it in your reply. Here goes.
I'll be asking about water mineral additions (specifically gyspum), so here's a quick look at my water profile as it comes out of the tap. I have a report from Ward that was tested straight from the faucet at home, so if you think other data from that is useful, please ask:
Calcium - 19
Magnesium - 5
Sulfate - 5
Chloride - 92
Alkalinity as CaCO3 - 68
It can be easier to use an example so let's deal with a Rye IPA (New England style, more or less, so we don't mind the high chloride) I recently brewed. The grain bill looks like this:
6 lbs, 6 oz US Pale Malt
2 lbs, 6 oz US Rye Malt
1 lb Flaked Rye
10 oz Vienna Malt
10 oz Munich 10
5 oz Acidulated Malt
8 oz Rice Hulls, to keep things moving
I mashed and sparged (batch sparge with a complete drain of the first runnings before adding sparge water) with 4.5 gal each, treated with a very small amount of Potassium Metabisulfite (<1/32 tsp) to remove chlorine, which I know is there from talking to my municipality.
Now, I have, as you may notice, an annoyingly high amount of chloride in my tap water, compared to almost no sulfate. Therefore, I keep plenty of gypsum around the house. Even a balanced beer or lager is getting some gypsum. This works fine as my Calcium starts rather low as well. For this beer, I'd like for my calcium content to be between 60-75 units and the sulfate to be around 125-150. I don't want to push the sulfate higher as I don't want to tread into minerally territory, but I'd like it this high to achieve at least a great than 1:1 Sulfate:Chloride ratio. This gets me to about 1.5:1.
That's the background, now for my question. I added 3.6 g (4/5 g / gallon, or around 49 units of Ca and around 118 units of Sulfate) straight into the mash tun (where the calcium is useful). Now, that takes care of my strike water. Once I've vorlaufed and drained out my first runnings completely, I add in the 4.5 gal of sparge water, mix, and rest a few minutes before vorlaufing and draining that as well.
(1) I normally add some more gypsum to the pre boil kettle, so that there is also a sufficient calcium ion concentration in the actual fermentation. I do this in ratio to the sparge water I used to rinse (i.e. another 3.6 g or 4/5 g / gallon for those 4.5 gallons sparge water). Am I ending up with more sulfate than I bargained for, since I'm boiling down a gallon?
(2) Should I be adding that extra gypsum to the sparge rest instead?
(3) Should I not be bothering with a second gypsum addition at all, and just calculate a full amount to add all into the mash?
I am interested both in the theory behind this and in any practical experience folks have. Examples and calculations appreciated.
Thanks in advance for any help folks can offer, I'm excited to finally be posting on here instead of just reading.
Cheers, be well!
