I have been all grain brewing for about a year now and have enjoyed it alot!! My question is pretty cut and dry. I know how to treat my water but my question is how many gallons do i treat for? If my batch is 9 gallons total but my post boil is 6 gallons do i treat ppm as 9 or 6 gallons? Salt takes 1300 degrees to dissipate. We boil at 212. So if i treat for 9 gallons it doesnt make sense. The water goes away and leaves the salts. Any info would be great. Thanks in advance.
I’m following this thread just to see if anyone else recognizes the issue you describe. Also to discover which salt it is that, “takes 1300 degrees to dissipate”.
If you are treating water to achieve mash pH and sparge water acidification, then the salts you use for that are based on the amount of water you actually use. If you are talking about salts for flavor then that is more based on the amount of wort at the end of the boil. Cs1cda55, I think you’re boil rate may be high.
I agree, it doesn’t make sense to me to add salts based on pre boil volume, volume in fermenter, or volume in package, either.
I usually figure the total salts for the profile I am trying to achieve based on post boil volume in the kettle.
I then designate all salts for the boil kettle except the qty of CaCl or gypsum (or a combination) for the Calcium I need to hit 5.2 pH in the mash tun and help the enzymes (~1 tsp).
FWIW, for a typical 5 gal batch packaged, I start with 9 gal, mash with 5 gal, batch sparge with 4 gal, resulting in 7.5 gal pre boil for 6.5 gal post boil (where I target water profile). I transfer 5.5 gal to the fermenter and package 5 gal. Again, these are generalizations, but in the neighborhood.
Yes, your salts will be more concentrated by however much your boiloff percentage is. If your boiloff rate is high, then you might want to factor that in. That said, I doubt that a 20% increase would be detectable for most salt additions. I just set my values for preboil so I can calculate my pH and let it ride.
Although that is a very good method, I do something slightly different. So take it for what it is worth. I figure out my mash liquor volume (I shoot for 1.5 quarts/lb of grain and calculate the salts needed for the specific water profile (from Bru’n Water) and add those salts to the MT while heating the mash liquor. I do not use chalk since it is really hard to dissolve in water and instead use pickling lime.
I then calculate the flavoring salts for the difference between the mash liquor volume and the full kettle volume and add that amount to the BK. These calculations are based on the total batch volume entered in Bru’n Water.
I do not treat my sparge liquor with any salts. I just adjust its pH with phosphoric acid to a value close to the mash pH.
It works for me and is another way for treating water. Like I said, you can take it or leave it. If you have something that works better, by all means use it.
I always boil at 1300F