I’ve searched around the web and am either using a poor search string or it’s not out there. Anyway, I think I must be doing something wrong or misunderstanding something.
I’ve selected distilled water and set the dilution factor to 100%. My mash water volume is 5 gallons, my sparge water volume is 4 gallons, and my total batch volume is 6.25 gallons. I’ve added some salts which the spreadsheet splits at a 5/4 ratio between the mash and sparge additions. (Which makes total sense.)
The spreadsheet says my mash water profile is the same ppm for all salts for both the mash water profile and the finished water profile. How can this be? I think the ppm of the salts in the finished water should be much higher than the ppm of the salts in the mash since the sparge water additions all end up being in there (minus some slight losses to trub, etc.)
Now the final volume is slightly more dilute than the mash, but it would need to be almost twice as dilute for the ppm in the mash and final water profiles to be the same.
Am I thinking about this incorrectly?
I’ve asked this same question before, and got a response from Martin. He indicated that there are a number of variables that would affect finished water profile that the program was not designed to deal with, so it was thought best to just calculate additions for mash/sparge with understanding that boil-off volume reduction not accounted for. This is, at least, how I remember his response.
Far be it from me to question, but I was a bit curious too why a boil-off percentage could not be worked in to the calculations. But bottom line his calculations and water profiles make such an incredible improvement in finished beer, I say just go with it.
Thank you.
Seems weird to me to. I suspect the numbers for “finished water profile” must be the total salt additions divided by the total batch volume, and it just ignores the small losses from boil kettle dead space and lauter tun dead space. Because then you can compare that to the target profile and it’s probably close enough.
But then why also show the same numbers for mash water profile? He’s obviously calculating the salts in the mash to a high degree of accuracy in order to predict the pH.
I wish I remembered all the moles stuff from school so I could figure out what those numbers are actually representing.
I found your old post and it helped me realize that I’m thinking about it wrong.
The actual concentrations being shown shown are:
-
The salts in the mashing water profile
-
The salts in the finished water profile, which is mashing water volume + sparging water volume pre-boil
They are both the same numbers for me because I’m starting with distilled and adding the salts to both the mashing and sparging water in proportions equal to the proportion of mashing to sparging water.
We don’t care about the post boil concentrations because the water profiles we are attempting to duplicate are pre-boil profiles.
(In my head I was treating this like a gravity points problem and trying to take the points pre-boil into the post-boil volume – but that doesn’t make sense here.)
Thanks for putting up with me!
Another thing to keep in mind with the “Mash Profile/Finished Profile” is that you have the option to add sparge salts to the mash if needed for pH adjustment as well as hardness salts directly to the kettle as opposed to the mash for flavor adjustments. This causes the mash profile to not equal the overall finished profile and allows you to see the actual makeup of your water based on where and when you add your salts.
I can’t figure out how to do that.
When I input my additions it automatically splits them between the mash and sparge at the same ratio of mash to sparge water.
I don’t see anywhere to input additions earmarked directly for the kettle.
[quote=“JohnnyB”]I can’t figure out how to do that.
When I input my additions it automatically splits them between the mash and sparge at the same ratio of mash to sparge water.
I don’t see anywhere to input additions earmarked directly for the kettle.[/quote]
Water Adjustment sheet, Lines 23-24-25 in column M. It’s a drop down box to adjust where/when to add minerals.
Thanks! Never noticed those drop downs.
You’re welcome glad to help.
Cheers
Ron
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