Water Chemistry Calculator: Salt Addition vs. Ion Results

[Craigerrr]

The profile in the bottom screenshot show the total overall profile- in the total of the water. That’s why the amount in the profile doesn’t double- that’s not the profile of the mash water, it’s the total profile.

If you add your salts to the mash only, or split it among the mash and sparge, it’s the same amount of salts being added to the same volume of water.

To put it a different way, say you are making iced tea and I am making iced tea. We are both making one gallon.

You put 8 teabags in a 1/2 gallon and then add 1/2 gallon of water. I put 8 teabags in the full gallon, and don’t add any water.

We both put 8 teabags in a 1 gallon volume total. So the make up doesn’t change at all.

In the case of mash/sparge water, the mash pH may change because some of the salts drive down pH slightly (or up in the case of alkali). But using 6 grams of gypsum in 10 gallons of water gives you, say, 108 ppm, whether you add it to 5 gallons and top up with 5 gallons or adding it to the total of 10 gallons.

Curious now to know what the purpose of having the "Salts added to mash only" button is.

 

[Yooper]

Curious now to know what the purpose of having the "Salts added to mash only" button is.

There are a couple of reasons to do that. One has to do with the mash pH. While the calcium salts may drive down pH only a little, it can get you there without adding additional acid, especially if you are using a water with little buffer capacity, say like with RO or distilled water. Secondly, if you need to increase your mash pH and need to add baking soda or lime, you wouldn’t want to add alkalinity to the sparge water so you’d use it in the mash only.

Also, if you are using two different water additions you may add the additions to the mash only instead of the entire volume. For example, if you are doing BIAB and not holding water in an HLT with the entire volume before hand when you may add additions. I have a decent size HLT, so it’s easier for me to have all of my water in that HLT and just treat my water all at once. But if you are mashing in your largest vessel, you may not be storing sparge water in the same vessel you had the mash water in, so you would treat them separately. Many times, brewers will just use their “sparge additions” as kettle additions since you really don’t have any reason to add salts to the sparge water.

I hope that makes sense. You never “need” to add salts to your sparging water at all. It’s just very convenient at times to do so. If your mash pH is driven too low with your salt additions, you can add those to the kettle. It will still change the boil pH of course, but that’s not a problem within reason. Simply boiling the wort also decreases the pH of the wort, due to the reaction of calcium and phosphates among other things.

 

[Craigerrr]

Thanks @Yooper , does checking or unchecking the box perform a function in the brewing software? Or is it basically just a "note to self"?

 

[Yooper]

Thanks @Yooper , does checking or unchecking the box perform a function in the brewing software? Or is it basically just a "note to self"?

I don’t understand what you’re asking here.
If you check the box “salts to mash only”, you add the salts to the mash and the mash pH is calculated from that. If you don’t, you add the salts to all of the water.