[summy]

Hey all. I am brewing today, but unfortunately had an unexpected COLD night here in VA. Long story short, my outside lines are frozen and I need to go buy distilled water at the grocery store. I usually filter my water. I'm wondering if anyone out there can tell me what water salt/chemical additions I'm gonna need to add to the distilled water to brew a big stout/porter. I plan on having 7gallons in the mash(6 above the false bottom), and 7 gallons in the HLT. If anyone can help me out STAT, it would be greatly appreciated!

[Tim McManus]

I wouldn't buy distilled water because it doesn't have any minerals in it.  Get a 5-gallon bucket (or two) and shuttle water from inside your home to your brewery if it's practical.  Or you could go buy large containers of Poland Spring water from your grocery store and reference their water analysis found here:

http://www.polandspring.com/KnowH2O/OurSources.aspx

That might be a bit easier than building brewing water from scratch.

[mabrungard]

The main things will be to provide enough calcium for proper yeast performance and to control the pH drop due to the dark grain additions. 

To use RO or distilled water for a stout, you should be bringing the mash water alkalinity up to moderate the pH drop.  I calculate that this would require about 0.7 grams of chalk per gallon of mash water.  I don't recall what that would equal in terms of a teaspoon measure.

You don't need to do much to the sparge water, but I would suggest that adding calcium to the sparge water would be a good idea.  I'd suggest Calcium Chloride, but Gypsum may also be useful if you want a more assertive bittering.  My calculations indicate that you could add up to 1 gram of CaCL per gallon of sparge water to perk up the calcium content. 

I hate cold weather.  Sorry for the freeze up!
 

[mabrungard]

I found my rough correlations between mass measures and volume measures for some minerals.

Chalk:  2 grams = 1 tsp
CaCl2: 4.5 grams = 1 tsp
CaSO4: 3 grams = 1 tsp
Epsom: 4 grams = 1 tsp
NaCl: 8 grams = 1 tsp

The bad thing with volume measures is that the density of the packing of the mineral in the spoon affects the quantity delivered, but its not going to be a long way off.  The correlations above were what I came up with using my scale and spoons.  YMMV.

Brew it!

[summy]

I ened up using the water profile app on Beersmith.  I usually use ProMash and hate their water profile calculator.  Discovered the ease of use with Beersmith this AM.  I went ahead and shot for the Edinburg profile, cause I was shooting for very malty, low bitterness.  It suggested for 7 gallons in the mash and 7 gallons in the HLT:
2.1g gypsum ( in ea.)
1.3g epsom (in ea)
1.2g CaCl (in ea)
1.5g baking soda (in ea)
7g chalk CaCO3 (in ea.)

I did notice alot of white powder on the bottom of my mash tun while cleaning, so something didn't get fully mixed in...
The beer smelled heavenly all throughout the process and I got 7 gallons (6 gallon recipe) of 1.075 (shooting for 1.083) into the conical.  I'm not sure what kind of beer it is exactly, a cross between a stout and a porter, might call it a "Pouter"

[hornets nectar]

was reading this post and the last entry he gives several things to add to the water.
then it says each , is that amount to each gal. of water used?

[Hokerer]

was reading this post and the last entry he gives several things to add to the water.
then it says each , is that amount to each gal. of water used?

I read that as him using "each" to refer to each of the mash and HLT (sparge).  That is, add the amount to the mash and add the amount to the HLT.  Not sure it that's really ideal, though, as some of those don't work well added to plain water (ie HLT).

[summy]

No, that was for 7 gallons of water in the mash and 7 gallons of water in the HLT.

[Hokerer]

No, that was for 7 gallons of water in the mash and 7 gallons of water in the HLT.

But he was questioning the (ea.) part.  By that, did you mean to add, say, 2.1g Gypsum to the 7 gallons in the mash and 2.1g Gypsum to the 7 gallons of water in the HLT?  I think that's what he was asking.

[summy]

yes.  there are identical amounts of water in each, so the additions came out the same for each for a change.

[Hokerer]

yes.  there are identical amounts of water in each, so the additions came out the same for each for a change.

Hey, just noticed the club logo in your avatar.  Guess that means you know Beth D., huh?  Tell her I said Hi!

[summy]

Sure do!  She's come a long way in a short amount of time.  She makes some great beers!  I'll tell her you said hello.