New to Brewing - Poland Spring Water Question

I will be using Poland Spring to brew my next beer - The Bolting Shire English Dark Mild, (Extract). Just the Facts, Ma’am: ABV 4%, Color 19 SRM, IBU 23, Original Gravity 1.042, Final Gravity 1.011. I plan to use a starter with White Labs WLP002 English Liquid Ale Yeast Homebrew PurePitch, canned wort, and distilled water. (starter only)

I will be using Poland Spring water for the wort. I’ve learned from other forums that used older brewing books that Poland Spring is generally “soft” and calls for .33 tsp Gypsum, .5 tsp non-iodized table salt for my English/Brown Ale style. I am brewing a traditional 5 gallons.

My questions are: How much gypsum and non-iodized table salt do I add for my five gallon wort (the forum never mentioned how much the .33 tsp and .5 tsp per amount of water)? I will be adding Poland Spring water to the wort until it reaches the five gallon mark in my fermentor (or differently if that is what is needed to make sure I add the right amount of gypsum and non-iodized table salt).

When do I add these treatments to the wort water ? Should it be done before hand and mixed at all in a special way?

I understand this is a complex topic, but I’m just looking for quick answers so I can focus on not screwing up the rest of my recipe. This is all very overwhelming for beginners trying their hardest to do better than last time.

  1. Welcome to the forum.

  2. Since it’s an extract batch, I’d suggest just using RO or distilled water and not using the minerals. The extract will carry the minerals from the producer. But if you’re set on using Poland Spring and the mineral additions, I would just add them at the beginning.

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Welcome aboard.

Looking at Table 8.2 in How to Brew, the contribution of 1 gram gypsum (calcium sulfate) will result in 61.5 ppm of calcium and 147 ppm sulfate in 1 gallon of water. Note: gypsum dissolves better in cold water. Stir vigorously.

Likewise, 1 gram of sodium chloride (non iodized table salt) will result in 103 ppm sodium and 160 ppm chloride in 1 gallon water.

However, I believe you shouldn’t concern yourself with salt additions just yet. Get a few brews under your belt using the extract, hops, yeast, and water. You’ll make very good beer.

Then, when you can control large levers such as volumes, temperatures, etc., start fine tuning with the small dials of water chemistry. Just my opinion. It’s your beer. Add the salts if you prefer.

…but don’t read too many forums. Get a how-to brewing book (I recommend How to Brew) and read it, highlight it, earmark it, etc.

Cheers! :beers:

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Agree with Drew and Brewbama. Get a few brews under your belt before diving into water chemistry. Use RO (or distilled) water for the beer. The extract will have everything it needs to make the desired profile for the beer.

When you have perfected your process, I would suggest you get Martin Brungard’s Bru’n Water software and read the water chemistry part. Also Palmer’s “How To Brew” book is very helpful for a relatively new brewer. I have been brewing for a number of years and still refer to it as reference material on occasion.

Good luck and welcome aboard the forum!

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Thank you all for the contributions. I do have Palmer’s How to Brew and its’ first few chapters are marked up and highlighted. I’ve heard of the Bru’N’Water software and I will check that out (hopefully it opens in google sheets).

Should I bypass using the extract to eliminate the minerals it carries?

I mostly want to avoid the mineral taste I got on my first batch. I know it could come from water, but did not even think about the extract causing this. Thanks again.

Edited: all the brick and mortar beer supply stores have closed in Connecticut

Since you listed the recipe kit as “The Bolting Shire English Dark Mild, (Extract)”, I was assuming the kit used malt extract for its fermentable sugars.

If you really want to nerd out on minerals, you’ll probably need to switch to all-grain brewing and build your mineral profile from scratch using purified water.

I missed this nuance, too, when I first started brewing with malt extract. Since the malt extract is just wort with some or all¹ the water removed, it will still carry the mineral profile from the water used by its producer (Briess, Muntons, whoever). So if you add additional minerals to that, you’re double dosing on minerals. And if you add minerals on top of spring water which also already has minerals in it, you’re triple dosing :grimacing:… It’s like adding salt to soup you when don’t know how much is in there already.


1 - Technically dry malt extract still has some water content, but in the colloquial sense, it’s a fully dried powder.

Rows 140-143 on the “0. Instructions” tab has the core information one needs to add ‘flavor’ salts to extract.

I find that the profile is meaningfully different between Briess DME and Muntons DME. Some of the other brands seem to be similar (Muntons DME, Williams LME, MoreBeer’s Flash Brewing DME).

So when I add ‘flavor’ salts to my DME recipes, I add different amounts depending on the brand of DME (Briess, Muntons, etc).

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Were you able to find documented profiles for the different extracts, or did you just find additions that work based on experience?

To know what is in the water, alone, I would explore the Poland Springs Website, but as others have said, the mineral content imbedded in the DME is probably a wild guess… I have RO that I use for this reason (All Grain batches). Even that can fluctuate over time from a source. Like others have stated, stay away from adding too much minerality.

edit: I was hoping that just a link to a topic here would be sufficient. It’s not. Click on “Water profiles” to get to my reply (in a Mar 2024 topic) that in turn links to ppm number for a couple of brands of extract. I still won’t claim the values are correct, but they remain helpful.

also: In Jan 25 a classic web search of “mineral content in briess dme” will return a short of list of topics (don’t scroll beyond page 1) in various forums. IMO, the numbers are ‘consistent enough’ to be helpful - and by trying adding mineral solutions in a glass of beer, one can dial in some reasonable numbers without risking over-mineralizing a batch.

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All brewing books are TLDR for me. Sorry authors.

Ask questions here. We’re your friends. Your hobby is our hobby! :beers:

For the most part I agree, but I also find that message boards are often the Penrose Stairs of knowledge. You can climb all day and never get anywhere. :laughing:

At least with a book, if you trust the author, you can get from point A to point B without any dissenting opinions to consider.

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I bought the kit and have the extract, so I think I’m sticking with it. But, my next brew will definitely be my first all grain brew with my used Mash Tun Gatorade bucket and HLT. Hopefully I get my water dialed in for that one.

Thank you very much for the helpful info on adding to extracts. I will look at each post and examine it closely.

I guess I should buy distilled water instead of Poland Spring. I do NOT have the money right now for a RO filtration system. I do NOT have the DIY skills to build one on my own (hell, I bought a used Mash Tun and HLT and those look easy to DIY).

Thanks again! I’ll be kegging for the first time, so I’ll find out sooner if I missed the mark two times in a row.

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You can buy an awful lot of purified drinking water at the grocery store before you come close to justifying the expense of a home RO system.

You can, assuming you’re in the US, also get the EPA-mandated water quality report from your municipal water company. (They should be sending it to you every year.) That will usually include the concentrations of the minerals relevant to brewing in your tap water.

I do a mix of the two. My local water doesn’t do well with dark beers; so I build those from store-bought purified water.

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Our water is not great for some brewing purposes (lots of carbonate, high-ish sodium, etc.) and I enjoy my light lagers, so I briefly thought about buying or building an RO system. When I weighed the amount of water I would need for brewing, the cost of maintaining and replacing the various filters over time, the amount of waste water I would generate (in an area where water conservation is a priority), and the ease and price of just filling a jug at my local water supply shop, it was a pretty easy decision to not buy/build an RO system. Other folks may come to a different decision within their circumstances, of course!

Extract is produced by Briess

I found a service provider (Culligans in Windsor, CT) that sells 5 gallon jugs of reverse osmosis water. Has anybody used a water filtration service company like this before?

I’ll be using RO water with my Briess Extract that according to other posts is high is sodium (HCO3 being one of them). What should I do to account for Briess high sodium (I guess using their town in Wisconsin tap water)

If you are brewing the English Dark Mild that was mentioned in your original post, nothing.

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Even though I have an RO system at home, I buy my RO brewing water from water filtration service like Culligan. so I don’t over tax my RO system since we use it for drinking water and for cooking. I can get 5 gallons of RO water for about $2.50 and I then build my water profile for the style I am brewing using Bru’nWater. If I am in a pinch (like I am gonna brew and forgot to go get water) I also have the option of getting water out of my RO. It works well for me and the “water store” is only a couple miles away.

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