Water treatment in beersmith 3

tominboston 2018-07-04 16:24:53 UTC #1

I noticed in Beersmith 3 that the water additives are clearly separated between mash and sparge (or really designated for Mash I guess.
Up to this point I have been collecting my RO water for the total batch and treating that. Maybe I have been doing it wrong. I can pretty easily separate the mash water from the rest and just treat the mash water. I am thinking my mash water has been a bit lite in the treatment. What do you guys typically do?

I am going to do a batch of Kolsch on Sunday so I am getting some prep work done today, water, Wyeast Kolsch yeast #2565 starter etc.

Happy 4th !

Tom

voodoo_donut 2018-07-04 19:21:24 UTC #2

I typically will do separate water additions for mash and sparge water. Mash gets the full treatment, sparge just gets a quarter campden tab and ph adjustment to 5.3 with either lactic acid or citric acid.

tominboston 2018-07-04 19:32:07 UTC #3

Thanks voodoo I have been missing the mark on this. For this batch I will treat the mash water and maybe leave the sparge water just as the base RO. I guess it will all even out in the kettle. Little by little the lights start coming on.......

sneezles61 2018-07-05 10:00:44 UTC #4

Since I am BIAB, I treat for pH first, using lactic or citric... mash in, then after pulling the grist, treat for style of beer...Sneezles61

loopie_beer 2018-07-14 19:27:30 UTC #5

@tominboston since you are fly sparging you’ll want to treat both mash and sparge water. The way you were doing it was fine as long as you treated it correctly for the full amount. With fly sparging you need the minerals and correct pH to act as a buffer since the water is in contact with the grains longer.

tominboston 2018-07-14 19:45:14 UTC #6

Thanks Loopie, not sure why Beersmith3 seems to ignore treating the sparge water other than for lactic acid, but I may very well be misunderstanding it. I did add what it told me to add to the Mash water. But I only added a bit of lactic acid to the RO sparge water.