BeerSmith water profile tool

[MNHazmat]

I'm just starting to think about doing water adjustments in my brewing and have been playing with the water profile tool in BeerSmith. Most of it is pretty straightforward, but am confused on a few parts.

When using the water profile tool, after selecting the base profile am I entering the batch volume, preboil volume or the total volume of water needed for the entire brew?

If for the entire brew, do I divide the mineral additions proportionally between the strike and sparge water, or add all the minerals to the mash? After adding the water to the ingredient list it appears as though the software wants the full addition added to the mash - this doesn't seem right to me.

Next... When I add the water to the ingredient list it sets the amount of water to the batch size (and adjusts the mineral additions downward accordingly), not the total volume needed. This doesn't make sense to me. Help?

Thanks!

[WoodlandBrew]

Adding the salts to the mash will help lower the pH which will aid in enzyme function. Sparge water pH is not as critical unless your temperatures are above 170 and you have very alkaline water. So most people just add it the the mash. It does more good there. It's easy to go overboard with the salts the first time around. My first beer that I used water adjustments I thought it would be a good idea to get all of the mineral contents into the middle of the brewing range and it ended up tasting like Alka Seltzer! Also, stay away from the Epsom Salts and Table Salt.

Here's a blog entry I did today talking briefly about brewing salts.
http://woodlandbrew.blogspot.com/2012/1 ... sweet.html

[PrymalInstynct]

If you want to start playing with salts I would say the first rule is don't try and match the water of some famous brewing city. Desipte beersmith and others giving the water profile of many of these cities trying to match that will give you head aches and most likely yield something way out of a good PH range which in the long run is much more important then the actually mineral content of your water. If you listen to many experienced brewers like Doc and Tastey they typically talk about only adding Gypsum or Calcium Chloride. Both of these lower mash PH and can either enhance bitterness or maltiness depending on how they are used.

I would suggest going to the local grocery store and buying gallon bottle water for your next brew day. Either Spring water or RO water from one of the machines is good. These waters are very soft and are a good starting point for adding salts. I would then try adding 6 grams of Gypsum for a hoppy beer or 6 grams of Calcium Chloride for a malty beer per 5 gallons of mash water. See how the beer turns out. If you think you have made a better tasting product go a head and download http://www.ezwatercalculator.com/ This is a great tool (better then beersmiths calculator IMHO) Sorry Brad. The tool takes into account your volumes of water for both mash and sparge as well as your grain bill and allows you to estimate your mash PH depending on your salt additions again stick with only Gypsum and Calcium Chloride. This tool also tells you your Resdisual alkalinity which can be referenced to John Palmer's work to determine whether the water you have come up with is good for the style of beer you want to brew. A lower RA of -50 to 50 is good for 0 srm to 15 srm, an RA of 50 to 150 is good for beers 15 to 25 srm and between 150 and 300 RA is good for everything darker. There is a lot of information to be had and it can get really confusing so start small and work your way up.