Salt additions and boil off

[watermelon83]

It seems that salt additions are made to aid in an effort to adjust the final taste of the beer, if I am thinking correctly. My question is, if one adds salts to a mash/sparge water combo with a volume of 8 gallons, at the end of the boil (with a final volume of say 5 gallons) does the total quantity of salts added remain in the final beer?

 

[ajdelange]

Some calcium precipitates with malt phosphates and proteins. This is true to a lesser extent with magnesium. Everything else remains.

 

[merline]

So, as a build to the original post's question... this would mean the salt component levels are more concentrated. Is this bad? Or good? or little effect on flavor?

 

[ajdelange]

Yes, the minerals will be more concentrated. Whether that is good or not depends on what you want. If you are shooting for a particular sulfate level in your beer and don't take into account dilution of what you add to the mash water because you sparge with RO water and concentration caused by the boil you are likely to be disappointed. This is, to me, one of the arguments for treating the entire volume of water to be used during the brew day the same way. Concentration in the boil is all you need to concern yourself with and if you do everything the same way each time you brew the concentration factor will be the same each time. I guess you could argue the same way if your sparging is always done the same way. In any case it is something to be aware of.

 

[watermelon83]

Exactly the information I was after, thank you both!