I use brewer’s friend because brunwater isn’t tablet friendly. I’ve been clicking the option to add to mash only. Anywho…
For the sake of my understanding, if my water was super low calcium and no SO4 or CaCl, if I wanted to get to 50ppm calcium, does 6g SO4, in the mash only, sound like enough? If my total water was 10 gallons, 5 in mash 5 in sparge? I’ve been pondering water today and it got me wondering if I ought to be adding to both mash and sparge water.
Never mind, I figured it out. I went in to a recipe and when I add another 6g to sparge it shows 99ppm in the total water.
So, should I be adding half to mash and half to sparge? Or all of it in the mash like I have been doing?
Jim do you mean Gypsum? According to my brun’water, that amount would add 37ppm to 10gal.
Have you tried any of the spreadsheet apps that are available for android tablets?
FWIW I used to add to both, but for awhile now I’ve been only adding to strike water. But I don’t add much. I use 100% RO.
That one was CaCl. 6 in mash and 6 in sparge showed 99ppm in the overall report
I then set it for 3 in mash, 3 in sparge and it showed about 50ppm overall report
My well water is 17ppm Ca and 0 SO4, 0 CaCl
I might try dividing it up and see it theres any difference.
everyone does things a little differently here.
first I say do what you need to do to adjust your mash and sparge pH. you may want to be acidifying your sparge either with gypsum/CaCl or acid. if you still “need” more Ca don’t use lactic and use one of the salts instead.
how is your bicarbonate? that is going to be a big factor on determining if you need to drop the pH of your sparge.
Might be about to reveal some of my own ignorance. . .
I don’t think that gypsum or calcium chloride will acidify your sparge water. They lower pH in the mash by reacting with the grist- by the time you sparge that part is over. Acid additions will lower your sparge pH.
YMMV
I could be wrong there but I thought gypsum or CaCl would lower pH in a sparge just like it would in a mash. For a few reasons I don’t really need to worry about my batch sparge pH so I’ve never looked into it to far. Acid I know for sure will help if you need to neutralize bicarb in your sparge water.
eta: if I am wrong on salts adjust pH in the sparge I’m wondering why so many brewing water tools suggest putting anything in the sparge beyond acid.
I use acid to adjust ph and measure it with a meter, this was just about whether or not to split the calcium between mash and sparge
Adding Ca to sparge water does not acidify it. Is there enough phytin left in the mash to create more H+ to neutralize the Alkalinity? I’m not sure.
Nope, the salts added to sparging water do little to alter that water’s alkalinity or pH. You can read about the reasons in the article “WHY Ca and Mg ARE NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR ACID IN SPARGING WATER” that is on the Bru’n Water page on Facebook. The end message: Acidify your sparging water!
We add salts to the sparging water as a convenient way of maintaining the ionic content of the overall water additions. You can also add those minerals directly to the kettle if you prefer, but I feel that adding some ionic content to the sparging water might help reduce the tendency to extract tannins and silicates from the mash…but that is unproven.
Thanks, I’m going to try splitting the calcium between mash and sparge just to see if it makes much difference. My mash is always crystal clear but the sparge seems to take longer than it should and always has a little haze. I’m hoping that moving some calcium to the sparge might help clear that up.
why is that? (on the bolded part)
Because we are adding ionic content to the water that increases the osmotic pressure on the plant cells which might help keep those undesirable components from leaching out of the cells.
If I am reading what you wrote correctly, the way that you are describing the process is the inverse of osmotic pressure. Osmotic pressure is caused by having different solute levels on the opposite sides of a semi-permeable membrane. Water is drawn to the side of the membrane that has the highest solute content. We increase the solute content of our mash and sparge liquor when we add salts, which would tend to draw water out of the cells, not keep it in.
Should be an addition to this: Unless you’re using RO or DI water!
Why is that? I do use 100% RO water…
Because it’s the alkalinity you want to neutralize when acidifying the sparge water. RO or DI water doesn’t have any or enough alkalinity to have to acidify it.
I think I am finally using Brewer’s Friend correctly. Today I brewed two batches. An APA and an ESB ish. I set aside samples of each all the way through and all of them were accurate pH wise. Woop woop. I probably will only do pH testing all the way through on new recipes from now on.
In Brewersfriend you can specify whether you’re adding salts to the mash only. If you don’t click that option, it assumes you’re treating the whole liquor volume, in which case you should split your salts/acid proportionally between mash & sparge water or predicted pH won’t be right.
I much prefer Brewersfriend to Bru’n’water and it seems just as accurate.