Water Treatment for Mash and Sparge Liquor

[hommebru]

I've been brewing for a small while and have used GW's water treatment calculator to sort out my salt and crs additions. But it occurred to me the other night that I might be doing it all wrong. Where it asks for volume to be treated, I use the volume I get given off the batch sparge calculator. This is enough water for the mash, the top-up and the batch sparge (including grain absorption) and I've been adding all the salts for this amount just to my mash, not the total volume of water.

Does this mean I'm getting it all wrong and over treating my mash? And should I be splitting my salts between the mash, top-up and sparge water?

[Dave S]

I've been brewing for a small while and have used GW's water treatment calculator to sort out my salt and crs additions. But it occurred to me the other night that I might be doing it all wrong. Where it asks for volume to be treated, I use the volume I get given off the batch sparge calculator. This is enough water for the mash, the top-up and the batch sparge (including grain absorption) and I've been adding all the salts for this amount just to my mash, not the total volume of water.

Does this mean I'm getting it all wrong and over treating my mash? And should I be splitting my salts between the mash, top-up and sparge water?

Yes! You should treat the mash and sparge separately. If you're making all your additions to the mash, it's likely the mash pH will be wrong. I and a few others have moved onto Bru 'n Water, which advocates the use of discreet acids such as phosphoric rather than CRS. Have a read of the thread below on treating alkalinity with acid. There's some useful information in there. For final volume I go for 25 litres which is my post-boil volume - I think that's right.