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Hey everyone,

Got a couple questions about the lovely, fascinating topic of water. No matter how much I read on the subject in terms of brewing, I always come away feeling a little confused, to say the least. My questions here are more concerned with how much volume to use when treating water.

For example... if you use brewing water software, like BreWater 3.0, you obviously have to enter how much water you're treating with gypsum, CaCl, etc. If you wanted to add gypsum to your mash (to provide Ca and help lower pH), do you enter your volume as your mash water (e.g. 18 L), total water used for mashing, sparging, etc. (e.g. 33 L), or volume at the end of the boil (e.g. 20 L)?

Gets a little easier, I suppose, if you're making a kettle addition (which I understand is more for flavor purposes)... but even then, do you put in the volume before the boil starts, or at the end of the boil?

Sorry if I'm not being too clear here...

I always use total water for chemical additions, but for salts added to the mash, as opposed to the water, I'll spread them out over the mash-in and runoff.

For BIAB brewers out there, what volume do you use for your water treatment, since ALL water is in the kettle to start?

The problem with water chemistry is that 2+2 doesn't always equal 4. I target my additions to get my mash pH in the proper zone, then I look to get a Sulphate:Chloride ratio appropriate for the style of beer I'm making.

LeafMan66_67 wrote:For BIAB brewers out there, what volume do you use for your water treatment, since ALL water is in the kettle to start?

I treat my full strike volume before adding the grains. If I'm adding lots of gypsum I'll save some for the boil.

Sent from the brew timer.