[coypoo]

Hey everyone, couple of questions. When do you add the salts? I am going to do them for the mash and the sparge, can I just add the salts while I am heating up the strike/sparge water? Also, for NaCl, I am wondering if the type of salt matters, ie corse kosher or iodinated salt. Thanks!

[hamiltont]

There are many ways to go about it I guess. Here's how I do it with a batch sparge.  I use Palmer's RA Spreadsheet to get an idea of what I need. I mash in & stir for 5 - 10 minutes.  Take a PH reading to see where it's at. If it needs adjusting I'll start adding the salts 1/2 at a time, stir & check the PH again. Once it's in range (~5.4-5.6) I close it up & let the mash finish out.  I don't do a mash out. I don't adjust the sparge water. Don't see a need to since I'm just rinsing out what's already been converted.  If I need more salts in the boil I'll add them in the boil. Usually I don't. I'm interested in hearing how other's adjust theirs as well.

[hopfenundmalz]

I put them in the mash.  Some like the Chalk, do not disolve in water readily.  The acidity of the mash helps the chalk to disolve.

Put some in the boil too.

[coypoo]

Thanks for the replies, so if you dont adjust the mash at all, the calculations I am getting are for mash and sparge or total, do I just to the total amount in the mash and call is good, or just stick with the calculated mash amount.

[Podo]

As I understand it, you make the corrections for the batch size you want at the end of the boil.  If I'm wrong, I've jacked up a whole bunch of beer in my life.     I usually add all my additions as I'm heating the water, and stir as the temps rise to help it dissolve.

[denny]

The other thing to consider is exactly what you're trying to accomplish.  For instance, I like to ad some gypsum in APA and IPA recipes to accentuate the bitterness.  But if I added it to the mash, it would pull my pH down too low.  So I add it to the kettle instead.

[coypoo]

I have pretty boring water, really low in Cl and Ca, so I am adding some chalk, baking soda, and cacl for a wee heavy. My water has a so4 of 62, and cl =24, and an ra of 88. I'm making the traquair house clone, so i really want to get the cl:s04 ratio up as well as raising the RA a tad. So I guess since I am wanting to effect the pH I would add to the mash.

Tha is a good point about the gypsum though, no sense in adding it to the mash if you dont need any pH/RA changes. I will definately keep that in mind for future brews.

[coypoo]

Here's my resulting water profile for a 17.7 SRM 1080ish (my efficiency is set at 65%, but Im still new to AG so it isnt constant yet)
Ca 110
Mg 14
Na 76
SO4 62
Cl2 117
RA 144

This is my first attempt at doing anything with my water, so any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[Kaiser]

For NaCl use kosher salt. The yeast doesn't like the iodine in the regular table salt.

Kai

[coypoo]

For NaCl use kosher salt. The yeast doesn't like the iodine in the regular table salt.

Kai

thanks a lot, if I never got an answer I was likely to guess wrong and use the iodine salt. Thanks!