Novice question: When brewers are talking about adding calcium chloride to brew waters are they just grinding up rock salt that they'd otherwise use to salt a driveway?
They are using food grade CaCl2, buy at the LHBS. You can buy either halide NaCl or CaCl2 (and other salts) to melt ice. The Halide I have for my driveway looks nasty, grey and blackish. I would want food grade for my beer. Edit - I have seen questions about using drywall for the gypsum. The answer is don't do that for your beer!
I would encourage you to read Modern Homebrew Recipes by Gordon Strong and pay attention to what he says about water additions. Keeps it incredibly simple, adds either CaCl2 or CaSO4 or both depending on the style to RO water. I love the way this 3 time Ninkasi winner keeps it simple.
No corners cut. I'll pay $3 an oz. Sounds exactly like what he says in Brewing Better Beer. I'll probably check it out anyway. Thanks.
A pound is only 5 bucks here, gypsum is even less. That's a lot of batches. https://www.morebeer.com/products/calcium-chloride-1-lb.html
