Water treatments for sparge and mash water

[cacm2226]

Hello to all,

Planning on a brew session and will be treating my water. My question or dilemma is, I EHERMs brew with a 20 gallon HLT. The brew recipe has me treating the mash and sparge waters separately which is fine, except when it comes to fly sparging I will be drawing water from the HLT which the water volume will be much greater than the amount of water to be treated for the fly sparge. I use brewfather to figure my water treatment additions, however, I dont see a way to figure out how to treat the entire 20 gallons of water in the HLT which would be used for the mash water and fly sparge. Treating the mash water is simple after transferring the strike water to the mash tun I can treat the water separately, but the fly water is coming from the HLT. Hope this makes sense.

Chris

 

[Bobby_M]

I guess one way to do it is to note how much of each salt it wants for the exact sparge amount it expects and then just extrapolate that out to the actual volume in the HLT. If it wants 5 grams of X for 10 gallons, add 10 grams to 20 gallons.

 

[philm63]

The method I use is to calculate the salts for the total water that actually goes into the beer (mash and sparge volumes added together), and I just add those salts to the MLT. I, too, use an eHERMS (smaller system, though) and I add the prescribed strike volume to the MLT and fill the HLT to just over the HERMS coil the night before, add the total salts to the MLT and put the lids on for the night. Next day I heat both simultaneously while circulating first thing in the morning and the water is already treated and ready to go.

 

[cacm2226]

The method I use is to calculate the salts for the total water that actually goes into the beer (mash and sparge volumes added together), and I just add those salts to the MLT. I, too, use an eHERMS (smaller system, though) and I add the prescribed strike volume to the MLT and fill the HLT to just over the HERMS coil the night before, add the total salts to the MLT and put the lids on for the night. Next day I heat both simultaneously while circulating first thing in the morning and the water is already treated and ready to go.

If Im adding all required salts and gypsum to the MLT strike water, what is to happen with the fly sparge water that will be coming in from the HLT which is untreated? Will adding the total amounts of salt and gypsum (mash and sparge) to just the the strike water in the MLT throw anything off?

 

[cacm2226]

I guess one way to do it is to note how much of each salt it wants for the exact sparge amount it expects and then just extrapolate that out to the actual volume in the HLT. If it wants 5 grams of X for 10 gallons, add 10 grams to 20 gallons.

That makes sense. Thank you.

 

[philm63]

If Im adding all required salts and gypsum to the MLT strike water, what is to happen with the fly sparge water that will be coming in from the HLT which is untreated? Will adding the total amounts of salt and gypsum (mash and sparge) to just the the strike water in the MLT throw anything off?

As long as a reliable calculator was used for water adjustments, there should be a feature enabling you to select the option of adding all salts to the mash. While it would look as though you're adding too much for the volume of strike water, remember; the salts are being calculated for the full volume required to make the beer.

I brew 5-gallon batches and use Brun'n Water to calculate my salt additions, and my total volume for which I calculate my salts is usually between 10-11 gallons). I intentionally overshoot by a small amount the actual volume of water that makes it into my beer (to account for system losses and such) and most often I leave some water behind in the HLT after the fly sparge (very little if I forget to shut that water down when I'm nearing the end of the sparge - I almost always forget, too!)

Normally I'm shooting for between 7 and 8.5 gallons in the BK depending on what I'm brewing, and some of the water is absorbed by the grain, so if I am adding enough minerals to the MLT, I'm sure to hit my desired water profile at some point but I don't sweat that; I don't think about it as "hitting my desired water profile" at any particular point because I use the water calculator to establish my desired mash pH, flavor to some degree, and the mouthfeel effects from the various ratios of my salts (full, medium body, dry, etc.)

A good calculator will be able to estimate your mash pH to within a small degree knowing your grain bill and what salt additions you're making, and what your base water looks like. Knowing what each addition does and how they work in various combinations tells you what flavor impact they should have and also what effect on mouthfeel they will have. Some reserve a bit of the salts for the BK. Me? I just put 'em all in the MLT. So long as you calculate your additions for the total volume of water that actually goes into the beer, you'll be OK.

Now if your talking about adding acid to the brewing water to hit a specific pH going in, that's a whole different topic. One I'd rather leave for other more experienced folks on this forum.

 

[day_trippr]

fwiw, I run a 3v2p herms, heat my strike water in my bk prior to underletting the mlt, and heat my sparge water in the hlt. My typical 10 gallon batches call for roughly 16 gallons of water total, usually a 7/9 split, but as my hlt requires at least 11 gallons to fully immerse the 50' 1/2" hex, when I go into Bru'n Water to set my salt and acid additions I tell it to consider 11 gallons of sparge liquor while maintaining the actual batch size into the fermentors at 11 gallons.

It's all rather easy to do after you've been there and done that once...

Cheers!