Sparge liquor

[Stefano]

Hi all,
I've been brewing full mash successfully for nearly 4 years now. Our water is as near pure as it gets so I add the appropriate salts to the mash liquor. I've always sparged with pure water. Should I be adding salts to the sparge liquor also?
I should add that the SG I get is consistently several points higher than the predicted level so the mash efficiency is good.
Stefano

[orlando]

Depends on the profile of the beer you are brewing relative to the water you have. How do you go about doing that, do you use a spread sheet of some kind that has beer style guidelines for water treatment?

[Hogarth]

You want to get the alkalinity of your spargewater right, but apart from that I wouldn't bother adding salts to it. For one thing, they don't always dissolve well in pure water. Much easier to put them in the boiler.

[Stefano]

I have a spreadsheet which I've tweaked for our local water. I add varying amounts of calcium sulphate, calcium chloride and magnesium sulphate to the mash tun to match the style of beer I'm brewing. I do the calculation based on the quantity of mash liquor and then used plain old water for sparging. This would mean that I typically add around half the required amount of salts for the total amount of liquor.
I thought the level of calcium ions was crucial to the mashing process or are you saying it is only important at the fermentation stage?

[Hogarth]

No, you certainly want to treat the mash water, as you're already doing. But you probably want to treat the remainder of the water too, and my point is that it's easier to do so in the boiler than in the HLT. In other words, when the mash is finished you'd sparge with untreated water, and then add the extra salts to the boiler. As far as I know there's no advantage to sparging with 'salted' water.

If you're doing it this way, I think the general advice is to base your calculations for the second batch of salts on the final volume of wort rather than the volume of liquor used. eg, for a 23 litre batch with a 10 litre mash, you would:

Treat the 10 litres of mash water (usually by mixing the salts into the grains prior to mashing-in)
Sparge with untreated water (but adding CRS if necessary, to adjust the alkalinity)
Add enough salts to the boiler to treat 13 litres of additional water, bringing the total up to 23 litres.

Hope that makes sense / is what you were asking.

[orlando]

Sparge with untreated water (but adding CRS if necessary, to adjust the alkalinity)
Add enough salts to the boiler to treat 13 litres of additional water, bringing the total up to 23 litres.

Hope that makes sense / is what you were asking.

This is the crucial bit. If you don't get the alkalinity of the sparge water right you will alter the pH of the kettle boil, you also will find you may not be able to sparge for long enough without running the risk of extracting tannins from the grain. I differ from Hogarth n that I do add my salts to the sparge liquor. I use the Brun water calculator to make the adjustments.

[SiHoltye]

No, you certainly want to treat the mash water, as you're already doing. But you probably want to treat the remainder of the water too, and my point is that it's easier to do so in the boiler than in the HLT. In other words, when the mash is finished you'd sparge with untreated water, and then add the extra salts to the boiler. As far as I know there's no advantage to sparging with 'salted' water.

If you're doing it this way, I think the general advice is to base your calculations for the second batch of salts on the final volume of wort rather than the volume of liquor used. eg, for a 23 litre batch with a 10 litre mash, you would:

Treat the 10 litres of mash water (usually by mixing the salts into the grains prior to mashing-in)
Sparge with untreated water (but adding CRS if necessary, to adjust the alkalinity)
Add enough salts to the boiler to treat 13 litres of additional water, bringing the total up to 23 litres.

Hope that makes sense / is what you were asking.

The difference may be small but in trying to mimic a water mineral profile not a beer mineral profile, in the example above shouldn't it be to treat with salts the 10 litres of the mash and then the remaining pre boil volume not final batch size?

[orlando]

The difference may be small but in trying to mimic a water mineral profile not a beer mineral profile, in the example above shouldn't it be to treat with salts the 10 litres of the mash and then the remaining pre boil volume not final batch size?

That's my approach, treat the full volume of liquor used.

[Stefano]

Cheers guys,

I'll give it a try in the next brew.

Stefano

[Hogarth]

The difference may be small but in trying to mimic a water mineral profile not a beer mineral profile, in the example above shouldn't it be to treat with salts the 10 litres of the mash and then the remaining pre boil volume not final batch size?

That's my approach, treat the full volume of liquor used.

Um, yeah. Might have been talking out of my a*** there. etc.

Here's what Graham Wheeler has to say on the subject:

If using CRS, this is always added to the total liquor before brewing. With the exception of calcium carbonate, which is always added to the mash in proportion to the amount of mash liquor, the best place to add the salts is generally to the total volume of the liquor. However, calcium sulphate can be difficult to get into solution in cold water, as is usually the case when using CRS. The other salts go into solution easily. There are two ways of overcoming the difficulty of getting calcium sulphate into solution. One is to premix it in a small volume of liquor using a food processor or a hand blender before adding it to the main liquor. The other is to split the calcium sulphate into two portions, one in proportion to the volume of mash liquor and the other for the remainder of the total liquor. The proportion for the mash is mixed in with the grist prior to mashing, and the remainder is added to the wort boil. This has the disadvantage that sparge water is untreated which, ideally, should be treated, although it probably doesn't matter too much if it is not. For this reason, premixing and adding the sulphate to the total liquor is preferred. Even if boiling the liquor to remove carbonate, it is a good idea to premix the sulphate before adding it to the liquor boil.

The calcium-bearing salts are required for mash reactions, so it is important that these are present in the mash in the correct proportions. The other common salts, magnesium sulphate and sodium chloride, are not particularly important for the mash, and they can be just as effectively added to the wort boil. In fact, for slightly technical reasons, it is probably better if the magnesium and sodium salts are added to the wort boil. Calcium carbonate should only be added to the mash. It should not be added to any other liquor including the sparge liquor. The carbonate is detrimental to brewing processes beyond the mash.

That's from the notes to his water calculator.