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When to add water salts

 
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sirmellor




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PostLink    Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 3:21 pm    Post subject: When to add water salts Reply with quote


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When I fill my HLT with the 20 gallons of water I treat the whole 20 gallons of water with my brewing salts at that time, rather than adding them separately to the mash and boil kettle. Is there any reasons not to do it this way?

Thanks, Richard
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kal
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PostLink    Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 8:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Some reasons off the top of my head:

- Not all salts dissolve in water

- Salts are added for 2 reasons: (1) flavour, and to (2) hit the right mash pH. In some cases you may not want all the salts in the water to hit your mash pH. In those cases you would simply add the remaining to the boil so that you still get the flavour compound.

Kal

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dp Brewing Company




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PostLink    Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 4:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've never used salts before, mainly because my local water profile was close to perfect for Brown Ales and that is what I brew most. When I brewed a lighter color beer I use bottled water. I've bought all the salts and plan to use EZ Water for my next brew but I've got one question.

I realize we add the salts to the mash to help with the Ph but does the Ph of the boil kettle not matter?

When I use the EZ Water calculator it has me adding a lot more salts to the boil kettle than the mash. Just curious, don't want to ruin a batch of beer because I didn't ask a question.

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David_H




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PostLink    Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 6:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My process is to calculate the Mash Water Volume
Grain Bill x Mash Thickness + Water outside the Mash Tun
. . 20 lb . x . . . 1.33 qt/lb + 3 qt = 30 qt = 7.5 gallons
Grain Absorption = .13 qt / lb * 20 lb = 2.6 qt = 0.6 gal
Sparge Water = Boil Size - (Mash Water - Grain Absorption)
. . . . . . . . . . .= . . 14.0 - ( 7.5 - 0.6 ) = 7.1 gallons

Based on this example, I add 7.5 gallons worth of salts to the Mash and 7.1 gallons worth of salts to the Boil.

This ratio only changes based on the Mash Thickness.

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kal
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PostLink    Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 6:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

shadowpaige64507 wrote:
I've bought all the salts and plan to use EZ Water for my next brew but I've got one question.

I realize we add the salts to the mash to help with the Ph but does the Ph of the boil kettle not matter?

EZ splits the additions in two: One for the mash to adjust pH, one for the boil for flavour.

Kal

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dp Brewing Company




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PostLink    Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 6:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

On the recipe I'm using I will be adding 4 grams of Gypsum and 3.4 grams of CaCl2 to the mash and it has me adding 7 grams of Gypsum and 6 grams of CaCl2 to the Boil Kettle. Does that seem normal?

(I'm brewing a clone of Saison Dupont, using 60% bottled water)

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kal
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PostLink    Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 6:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Post the entire spreadsheet so that we can see what's up (starting salts, end salts, batch size, etc). Otherwise it's just guessing.

Kal

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David_H




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PostLink    Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 7:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

One of the inputs on EZ Water is the Mash Water Volume and the Sparge Water Volume
The amount of salts is based on this ratio. This is in Step 1 B. Volume. These numbers should be approximately equal and sum up to the Boil Volume plus ~ 1 gallon.

What are those two numbers on your EZ worksheet?

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dp Brewing Company




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PostLink    Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 7:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've attached the file. I tried copy and paste and it did work so I just attached the file


EZ Water.xlsx
 Description:
Saison Dupont

Download
 Filename:  EZ Water.xlsx
 Filesize:  199.36 KB
 Downloaded:  596 Time(s)

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dp Brewing Company




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PostLink    Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 7:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Again, any help in this department is great. I'm like a fish out of water with water salts.
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David_H




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PostLink    Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 7:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

So you have 6 gallons for the Mash. With a 19 lb grain bill that works out to be about 1.10 qt/lb. The Mash Water Volume does seem a bit low, I think it should be a little close to 7 gallons (19.25 x 1.25 + 3 qt = 6.8 gallons). The Sparge water is 10.5 gallons. That seems a bit high. This would result in about 16 gallons in the Boil Kettle. The ratio of Mash Salts to Sparge Salts is the same ratio of Mash Water to Sparge Water. Based on this, the salt additions don't look wrong and the final profile is not out of line.

Verify your Mash Water Volume and Sparge Water Volume first, then calculate your salts.

Are you adding the Sparge Salts to the HLT before sparging or the BK after sparging? (preferred)
What is your Target Water Profile?

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dp Brewing Company




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PostLink    Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 8:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I use the app called Sparge Pal. I enter in the basic info and it tells me the amount of Mash water and Sparge water. I just re-entered the info and used 1.25 as the mash thickness and it still gave me my original numbers (I thought for sure I had used 1.25 originally). With that said, I never thought to do the math manually and double check the app. I just assumed it was correct. I've used that app ever for years and never seemed to have a problem.

I would be adding the flavor salts to the BK after sparging.

My target was to stay within the recommendations from Palmer.

Suggested Range for Style
Calcium (ppm) 50-150
Magnesium (ppm) 0-30
Alkalinity as CaCO3
Sulfate (ppm) 40-120
Chloride (ppm) 100-400
Sodium (ppm) 0-100
Residual Alkalinity <100 (-)30-30
(ppm)



David H,
Thanks for the feedback. Very helpful!
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dp Brewing Company




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PostLink    Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 8:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

David_H wrote:
So you have 6 gallons for the Mash. With a 19 lb grain bill that works out to be about 1.10 qt/lb. The Mash Water Volume does seem a bit low, I think it should be a little close to 7 gallons (19.25 x 1.25 + 3 qt = 6.8 gallons).


Just re-read this. Wouldn't it be (19.25 x 1.25) / 4 = 6.02 gallons? Where is the 3 qts you added coming from.
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David_H




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PostLink    Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 8:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The extra 3 quarts is water outside of the actual Mash, such as in the HERMS Coil, Hoses and below the Mash Screen. In my system I use 3 quarts. There is some debate on whether to consider this volume or not. The Sparge Water is based on 14 gallons in the BK, so Sparge is 14 gallons minus the Mash Water plus make-up for water trapped in the grain through absorption (.13qt/lb).
So 14 gallons - 6 gallons + (19.25*.13/4) = 8.6 gallons

Now have said all of this, this is not really an exacting science and your salt additions are certainly in the ballpark.

Your Sparge App might be basing the Sparge Water on the assumption that approximately 2 gallons are left in the Mash Tun. That would be a fair assumption and in our system we probably have that and more that never make it to the BK, but since we are adding the salts only to the Sparge Water that makes it to the BK, the salt additions should be based on that number and not the total water prepared for the Sparge. This would result in a slight reduction of your Sparge Salts. But as stated previously, it probably wouldn't make much difference anyway. Its mostly just about understanding what you've done.

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dp Brewing Company




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PostLink    Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 8:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for the explanation. Some very valid points. I normally start the boil at about 12.5 gallons and boil off two gallons in the 90 mins. There is always a lot of water left the mash tun with using the amount of sparge water from the app.
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David_H




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PostLink    Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2016 2:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Shadow, I made a mistake above on my calculation of water absorption
Quote:
The Sparge Water is based on 14 gallons in the BK, so Sparge is 14 gallons minus the Mash Water plus make-up for water trapped in the grain through absorption (.13qt/lb)
So 14 gallons - 6 gallons + (19.25*.13/4) = 8.6 gallons


The water absorption in the grain is 0.13 GAL/lb of grain.
This will increase the Sparge Water up to 10.50 gallons which matches your numbers much better.

My bad ... Embarassed

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