I've looked up anhydrous on Wikipedia, obviously I knew it meant "without water" but I'd never realised or thought about salts coming in anhydrous or hydrate forms. Clearly when brewing texts (or software) talk about salts it might be more correct to say calcium chloride dihydrate or magnesium sulphate heptahydrate? Also there is an implication for storage as these salts absorb moisture from the air.
I agree about not going overboard on the water analysis. I added 20g of DLS to my last brew which was a 36L batch. The beers just gone into kegs, but a taste sample from the fermenter hints at the less harsh more rounded hop flavour that I was after. I've always found my "golden" ales disappointing and I suspect that using dark malts was acidifying my mash to give better results. So a "Styrian Stunner" will be the next challenge. I've got some CRS on order and I'm just looking at this as an easy way of reducing carbonates in my water. Do not fear, if I'm brewing a beer with a lot of dark malts/grains then I'll throttle back on the DLS to avoid over acidifying my mash.
Any way thanks for explanation.
