Hi!
I am looking for some advice and I am pretty new to the hobby I am using RO water and I plan on doing a partial mash (LME) American IPA. I need to know how much brewing salts (gypsum, mag, epsom salt, etc) to use to make my water profile spot on. I was trying to play around with Brew father and BrunWater, but the total batch size doesn’t add up to 5.5 gallons. Any help or advice.
Much Appreciated!
I can’t imagine there being any such thing as a “spot on” water profile. Flavors are always a personal preference matter, not a community matter.
You treat the mash as you would treat any other mash. The volume is just smaller, so the amounts of brewing salts and pH adjustments will be smaller to match. Once you’ve mashed, just treat the batch as you would any other extract batch. For an IPA, I’d add a teaspoon or two of Gypsum at the beginning of the boil to highlight the hops and help with clarity…
An important understanding is that you’re still going to make beer in almost every case. Starting with RO water makes that even more likely.
I council brewers to avoid thinking about brewing water needing to be exactly so, for a particular brew. I prefer to use the concept of getting “in the ballpark” for brewing where there’s a modest mineral content and the water has a hope of getting the wort pH into an acceptable pH range.
Using a brewing water program helps get your water into range, but just using the simple water adjustments recommended in the Water Primer thread on Homebrew Talk will help get things close. A brewer can then refine the next brew with a bit more or less of this or that in the brewing water.
If starting with RO and malt extract, I’d say that you’re on a path to success with just that. But to help bring out more IPA character, adding gypsum to the water will help. I don’t recall what the recommended amount was in the Primer, but I’d be targeting at least 150 ppm sulfate.
You’re well on your way with your current plan. RDWHAHB.
A tsp. of gypsum in 5 gal. works for me.