Forgot

General Homebrew Discussion
1

Was talking with a buddy while brewing last night (dortmunder) and forgot to add my salts (gypsum and cacl) to the sparge so I chucked them into the boil.  I brew with RO.  Any idea as to what the repercussions might be?

2

I thought the purpose of them was to adjust PH during the sparge. If you got the efficiency you wanted then you didn’t need them as I understand it. I don’t think they would do anything in the boil other than give you salty beer. But I could be wrong, have been before, probably will be again.

3

Probably little to none.

4

I frequently add flavor salts to the kettle.  As long as you hit our efficiency, you’re fine.

5

Thanks all.

I’m assuming the pH was okay since my mash pH was fine and it was RO water.

6

I batch sparge so I never bother adding the salts to my sparge water.  I just add them to the kettle.  I’d be more concerned about adding them if I fly sparged to make sure the ph didn’t rise too much over the 45-60 minutes of the sparge.

7

Yeah, that is one thing I am concerned about.

8

Those salts don’t drop the pH of the water. The RO has 0 or very small alkalinity. You should be fine.

9

I think your question had been answered.

You are fine.

10

They’re both calcium salts, so they should reduce pH. I agree that with RO water there isn’t any need to acidify the sparge liquor though.

11

They will drop the pH in the mash, as the Ca combines with phytin from the malt to produce a H+ ion! which drops the mash pH. In RO water, no. Paul forgot to add to the sparge water, so the point was about that.

12

Oops, I missed “of the water”. That’s true. They will drop the pH of the wort during the sparge.

13

How much phytin is left after a long mash? I don’t know, just wondering about that.

I should check pH during the sparge, but I go by gravity, and taste. If I pick up astringency towards the end, time to stop.

14

Good question; I suspect there’s no straightforward answer. Anecdotally, there must be some or people wouldn’t be able to adjust sparge pH using salts.

I don’t bother checking pH during the sparge anymore. It might make sense if you have hard water, but I never saw any significant deviation from the mash rest pH.

15

to keep the flavor profile of the water  and thus the wort/beer the same?