Batch sparge question regarding water adjustments

I'm not fully understanding, but I add salts into my HLT which holds my sparge water...so I think answer b

 

My take on this (not having the benefit of the water book, which I'm told ships soon) is that your adjustments to the mash are primarily about optimizing pH and enzymatic conversion. Adjustments to the sparge water are about preventing pH from rising to extract tannins. Your exposure to this is greatest if you fly sparge, because you are continuously diluting the hydrogen ion activity in the mash tun. Towards the end of a fly sparge, the water running through the lauter tun may be only marginally influenced by the mash chemistry. Batch sparging reduces this effect substantially because the dilution is not continuous. If you have high pH water to begin with, acidfying the sparge water (e.g., with lacto) could become more important in a double batch sparge scenario. This may be even more of a concern when mashing paler malts exclusively, I think. So you really shouldn't need to adjust your sparge water if batch sparging unless these two things apply, and your adjustments really only need to be pH.

The other reasons to make water chem adjustments are yeast health and sensory perceptions (chloride/sulfate ratio, for example). Any adjustments made for these purposes could be done in the boil, perhaps even in the fermenter. You may find it convenient to just make these adjustments to the sparge water, and as long as they don't raise the pH, that should be fine (adding carbonates and bicarbonates to the sparge is not a good idea).

These ideas are my gut instincts. They reflect the way I brew, which hasn't led me astray. Despite a real-life career requiring extensive chemistry background, I have not rigorously and meticulously pursued the chemistry of the hobby. I'm open to corrections and alternate advise.

 

Check out my thread from last week, it might help. My rule of thumb now is add minerals in the mash to get the pH to where you want it, and add the rest to the boil.

http://beeradvocate.com/community/threads/mineral-additions-to-mash-and-boil.117369/

 

I will begin by stating that I do not mash my dark and crystal grains, just my base malts (including Munich, Aromatics, etc), and add the steepable character malts/grains to the mash after conversion before vorlauf. I add chloride and sulfate to the mash for flavor mostly, and not for pH (my water is perfect for paler beers). I don't adjust my sparge water since I batch sparge and pH is not an issue here like it is with fly (see pweis909 above). I am going to start adding LA more for getting the pH down in the kettle. My standard process is to add my flavor salts to the kettle before I even start running off so that it gets mixed in.

 

The flavor additions should be mostly for flavor not pH. The LA is for pH in the sparge, but if you are batch sparging you shouldn't need to to worry about pH unless you are sparging to get enough beer for a 4+ hour boil.