water adjustments

Yes for minerals. Partially to outright "no" (as in, it depends) for acid.

 

Adding minerals to the mash is to optimize pH for conversion. Adding to the boil would be for flavor enhancement. Generally speaking, you should not add minerals that would raise the pH of the sparge, to avoid tannin extraction.

 

Yes, you can add salts to the sparge water rather than the kettle. I don't believe there will be a huge difference in the ion makeup in the wort, because either way those salts will mainly (I think) be interacting with ions in the wort. I suppose that the salts could also directly interact with the grains in the mash (and thus perhaps be removed from the liquid wort. Perhaps someone with more chemistry knowledge than I have can shed some light on this question. Cheers!

 

Because sparging displaces the liquid that is present in the mash, it diminishes natural buffering present in the mash. If the salts present in the sparge are carbonate, bicarbonate, or hydroxide salts, the pH will gradually rise with the sparge. Rising sparge pH can cause tannin extraction, something generally to be avoided. The BruN'Water spreadsheet advises against using those salts in the sparge. Gypsum and calcium chloride, on the other, should be fine.

 

Good points! But (in agreement with your first post) I'd also add that I cannot think of any reason to ever add any salts containing carbonate, bicarbonate, or hydroxide to the sparge water. Of course these ions might be in the brewer's tap water, in which case acid should be added in order to eliminate the alkalinity asociated with thse ions. Cheers!

 

My groundwater lacks alkalinity, so I add alkaline ions to raise the pH of the mash of dark beers, as the dark roasted malts and crystals may lower the pH below the desired mash range. I imagine some folks are tempted to adjust the chemistry of all water, all at once, i.e., mash and sparge together, and that could lead to the problem I described..

 

The reason to add salts to the kettle is to actually more efficiently get them into the fermenter, especially Ca. You lose a ton of Ca throughout the mash and even the boil depending on your starting alkalinity.

You will precipitate Ca ions in the mash when they react with bicarbonate. You will also leave 50-60% of your Ca ions in the mash with the spent grains.

There are a lot of professional breweries that don’t have the ability to efficiently adjust their sparge water beyond inline acid additions to adjust sparge pH to a certain value. I’d be willing to bet most breweries making really great beer are doing decent Ca additions towards the end of the boil.

I use RO and add a bit of Ca salts to the sparge but take most of those salts and add them to the kettle.

 

This makes sense to me, if you have reason to be concerned that your wort is deficient in calcium or other yeast nutrient.

 

My answers are yeast health, flacculation, and to minimize beerstone formation.

 

I was lumping flocculation into yeast health, which is a very brewer-centric perspective. But beerstone never entered into my thoughts. In fact, I thought calcium contributed to beerstone rather than minimized it. I never thought to much about it though. I googled a bit and feel like this link supports my understanding, but like I said, never really thought deeply about it.

 

That depends on what your goals are. Here's one approach (starting with distilled or RO water), C&P'd from a presentation I gave last year:
----------------

1) Start with Distilled (or RO) Water and Grain Bill

2) Decide how much Chloride and/or Sulfate is wanted for flavor, and add Calcium Chloride and/or Calcium Sulfate to reach

3) Check if Calcium Level is adequate.
------• If yes, skip to 4
------• If no, and if mash pH prediction so far is…
--------------• too high: add more Calcium Chloride and/or Calcium Sulfate to reach desired calcium
--------------• too low: add Calcium Hydroxide to reach desired calcium
--------------• right on: add more Calcium Chloride and/or Calcium Sulfate to the kettle only to reach desired calcium

4) If the pH prediction so far is…
------• too high: add acid malt, lactic acid, or phosphoric acid to decrease
------• too low: add Sodium Bicarbonate or Calcium Hydroxide to increase

-------------------------------------
You may be wondering how to make the decisions (goals) needed before doing the above. That's a big topic. Let me know if you want a link to the whole powerpoint presentation. And read the Bru'nWater water knowledge pages.

 

"3) Check if Calcium Level is adequate."
What does that actually mean? Hits the pH goal? Hits a water profile goal? Yeast requirement?

 

All of those. Typically 50 ppm is the lower limit. Some say lager yeast may be OK down to 30 ppm. Some say they like 100 ppm Ca for their hoppy beers, but that might be a byproduct of getting hight SO4.

 

In the context of the steps quoted, it means enough for good yeast flocculation. There's no hard and fast rule there, but a reasonable rule of thumb might be 50 ppm for ale yeasts. That's a "nominal" 50 ppm, as some of that isn't going to make it out of the mash as Ca++.

There's lots more context in the presentation.

 

Highvoltage,

1) Get the Bru'N water spreadsheet. Enter your grain bill in whatever tab that is, and go to the tab where you select your water profile, I.E. yellow-balanced, IPA
2) I'd purchase RO water or distilled. You can ask for a water report from the city you live in. If you have well water, you can send it to a 3rd party.
3) Mash water: add phosphoric acid (10%), Soldium Chloride, and gypsum. see report generated in Bru'N Water
4) Sparge water: add sodium chloride, gypsum and phos acid. see report generated in Bru'N Water. Do not add calcium carbonate or something else that is alkaline!

Hopefully this simplifies things for you. I highly recommend practicing, and maybe looking at youtube vids about Bru'N water. Pay attention to your thresholds provided in your water profile/chemical additions tab. Remember, If red shows up, that is not good! I don't claim to be an expert, but this is what I do and I've had a lot of success.

 

Can you provide that link, VikeMan? I would be very interested. Thank you.

 

Intro to Brewing Water Treatment (.pdf format)

 

Yes, you can. I would recommend Brewfather (ttps://web.brewfather.app). They have a cloud app (browser) and at least an iOS app.
You can plan your whole brew and amount over things it will do the water calculations for you. It also has a free mode with likely some limited capability, that may not matter to you.
Otherwise, the Bru'n water spreadsheet works but it is a bit more complicated.