So, I’ve decided to start with distilled water for my next all grain batch (thanks to users here helping me discover my tap water has too much iron!), and I have a quick question: do I need to adjust all water I’ll be using (mash and sparge) or just the mash water? It is correct to collect all water I’ll need for the entire batch first and adjust all of it using the same amount of salts, or do additions for the mash and sparge differ?
Thanks again everyone!
yes if your using distilled you are going to need to add stuff. Or just buy spring water instead and find out what the profile is
I adjust my mash and sparge water all together since I heat them both at the same time in the same pot. You don’t have to adjust your water if you’re using RO but at the very least I’d add yeast nutrient to give the yeasts the mineral content they need. Also depending on what you’re brewing it may benefit from some additional salts. I use Bru’n water to help me know how to adjust, takes a bit of time to understand it but its quite easy to use one you do.
I use RO and a combination of calcium chloride, gypsum and chalk as well as the occasional use of phosphoric acid. The calcium chloride lowers pH in my malt-forward beers, gyp lowers pH in my hoppy beers, chalk raises pH for my dark beers. This functions to give me the right pH and at the same time gives me the right flavor ions in my brew.
Thanks very much for the help!
My first batch using distilled water and salt additions is an IPA, and I’m going to use Randy Mosher’s Pale Ale water profile. So, I guess my final question is: Since I’m using distilled water for 100% of my brewing water, should I add the salts to the full volume or just my mash water?
I guess it depends on what Mosher does. Where are you getting the water info? I have a couple of his books so I could look it up.
Actually it’s from a Mike McDole APA recipe, and apparently his pale ale water profile is similar to Randy Mosher’s. I’m just not sure if I treat both mash and sparge water, or just mash water?
I treat both, but it depends on what he’s doing. You need enough salts to get the pH of the mash right. What is his recipe? Maybe we can figure it out from that.
