So i just recently started to get the confidence to adjust my water chemistry! Im extremely excited to see the difference in the quality in my beer, however ive noticed that in beersmith that it tells me to do certain adjustments in my strike and my mash. What difference would it make if i would just put all my salts into my total strike water rather than doing separate additions? just a curious question, thanks!
Do you mean that some salts are added to the strike water, and others to the kettle? The short answer is that calcium and, to a lesser extent, magnesium tend to react with phosphate in the malt to reduce the pH of the mash. That's not necessarily desirable, and so sometimes it makes sense to hold a calcium salt back and add it after the mash is complete.
You should add salts where it makes sense to do so. Personally, I start with RO water and then add the salts I want to achieve an overall mineral profile. How I split the salts between the mash and sparge water (I fly sparge) depends upon the effect the salts have upon the pH of the mash. For example, If I'm making a pale ale with a large CaSO4 addition, I'll likely add most (if not all of the CaSO4 to my mash water, as the Ca helps bring the pH of the mash down (into the 5.4 range). If I need more acidity to further bring down the pH, then I use acidulated malt.
Like said above it all has to with PH. The only real need I've heard for treating sparge water is to avoid tannin extraction which can happen if the PH gets above 5.8 during the sparge. This is very rare for a homebrewer to have happen unless you are sparging a lot of water. I add to both to help achieve the ion and PH content of the beer I want in the boil since there really is no downside to this. I know plenty of other brewers will just add any necessary salts to the boil and that works too. Also if you are adding all the salts that Beersmith is telling you to add to mash & sparge it could lead to issues with the PH of the mash. So I'd be sure the numbers check out before just throwing it all into the mash.
Q to OP: have you had a test performed on your brewing water? If so, what's flowing out of your tap? Knowing your water profile is the first step to making the right decisions on what salts to use, and how much to obtain a profile that best suits a particular beer style. I'd also recommend the purchasing (and learning how to properly use) a pH meter. FWIW I use BruinWater when working out the water adjustments needed to suit a specific brew I'll be doing. There's more info plus a free version available here: https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/home
@VikeMan will most likely chime in soon. He is very knowledgeable when it comes to water chemistry among other things.
Okay, no pressure ... Just to add to what's already been said, the following basically amounts to what is my approach for probably 95% of my batches, C&Pd from my water presentation: 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 and lower mash pH --too low: add Calcium Hydroxide to reach desired calcium and raise mash pH --right on: add more Calcium Chloride and/or Calcium Sulfate to the kettle only to reach desired calcium 4) If the mash 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
