Water treatment amounts

[faustmeister]

Some books (e.g., Beer Captured) and articles have suggested amounts of salts for various beers & types of water. These are always suggested "for 5 gallons." Does that mean (a) the total amounts for all water used for a 5-gallon batch, or (b) the amounts per 5 gallons used. E.g., if 5 grams of gypsum is recommended "for 5 gallons", then after mash & sparging should I start the boil with a total of (a) 5 grams in the boill, or (b) 8 grams in the boill?

 

[Lil' Sparky]

Unfortunately, it's WAY more complicated than that. I wouldn't willy nilly add anything to your water unless you know you need to. Before you do anything, you have to know:
- what your target water profile is
- what the makeup of your starting water is

From there, you can begin calculating how much of each mineral you need to add. The easiest way to do this is 1) find your local water report or send a sample to Ward Labs for analysis 2) use software to help you decide what/how much minerals to add to get you where you want to be. Beersmith has this built in or you can use something like this spreadsheet or this spreadsheet.

That said, are you brewing all grain? If not, I wouldn't worry about any of this. If you are, the EASY way to not worry about any of this to just use a 5.2 pH buffer for your mash. That's what all these minerals really do anyway. They provide the mash water with the necessary residual alkalinity so that when the grains are added, the pH stabilizes at a point where the enzymes in the mash can do their job. Here's some good reading if you're interested. http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-3.html