How much gypsum?

[kombat]

Hey guys. Quick question. I know that for IPAs, it's recommended to add some gypsum to the strike water/mash to increase the perceived bitterness and nudge the water profile closer to the traditional Burton water. But how much do you use?

I'm brewing with city water, which is pretty low in everything (I guess), and I've always just sprinkled in a tablespoon or so. However, in BeerSmith, when you add "Gypsum" to a recipe, the default amount is 10g (!). That seems like a lot to me, no? I just have a little Ziplock baggie/pouch that I bought from the LHBS, it seems BeerSmith would have me dump the whole pouch into a single batch.

So how much do you use? I know, I know, I should check my water profile (I have it, actually, what am I looking for?), but in general, are people adding a teaspoon, 10 grams, or everywhere inbetween?

 

[kh54s10]

I don't think you can get an accurate answer without knowing what your water profile is. I have only added gypsum to one brew out of 71. I could not tell any difference.

I plan on getting my water analysed and make corrections sometime soon. But my beers are very good so it will only be to see if I can make them any better.

 

[Patrick87]

My filtered tap water is pretty void of sulfate, close to distilled, so for my IPA's I usually add about a Tablespoon (three teaspoons) to six gallons of wort. That gets pretty close to 300ppm, if I remember correctly. Adding gypsum was the single biggest improvement to my IPA's so far. I didn't like my IPA's at all before I started adding it.

 

[peterj]

I have pretty low sulfate in my tap water and for IPAs I have been adding about 7-8 grams of gypsum for a 5.5 gallon batch. That will usually get me into the 125 ppm range for sulfate (starting with about 12 ppm). Burton water is a good bit higher than that and I know a lot of people like to go up to around 300 ppm sulfate (like Patrick87 said above), so I don't think 10 grams of gypsum in a 5 gallon batch is unreasonable provided you are starting with low levels of sulfate. But it really all depends on what your mineral levels are to begin with.

I would read up on water and try to figure out your mineral levels before adding salts though. I emailed my county and they got back to me with the mineral levels (because they weren't supplied in the water report) or you can send a sample off to Ward labs or somewhere similar. Getting a sample tested is probably more accurate.

Here's some good reads and calculators:
https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/water-knowledge
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/brewing-water-chemistry-primer-198460/
http://www.brewersfriend.com/mash-chemistry-and-brewing-water-calculator/
https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/home/files
http://www.ezwatercalculator.com/

I find the brewersfriend calculator the easiest to use and it has been pretty accurate for me.

And anything you read that talks about Residual Alkalinity (RA) just ignore that part. That's basically a useless number for brewers. Pretty much all that matters is the mash pH (which can be predicted with calculators and measured if you get a pH meter) and your ion concentrations.

 

[Roadie]

^^^ This.

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

1. Get your water analyzed.

2. Read the Water Chemistry Primer sticky in the Brew Science forum. Great information. AJ and Martin are the chemistry gurus.

 

[Demus]

It's kinda like asking how much hot sauce to add to your chilli before tasting it. This question simply cannot be answered without knowing the parameters of the base water. Keep in mind that gypsum is both calcium and sulfite and not in a 50-50 split....

 

[Natdavis777]

I will add anywhere from 2-4 tsp of gypsum to a beer depending on what I want my sufate to be, but depending on how my mash ph is, the majority of it may just go to the boil. My last pale ale I added a decent amount to get my RO water to 200ppm sulfates