Acid addition, first or last?

[Bullhog]

I am prepping my water for a brew tomorrow and while doing it, too late I might add, I remembered recently reading that you should add your water salts fist and then add acid last. I don't remember where I read it, maybe the BA water book, but I always have added acid first. Anyone have any insight on this? Should I starting adding acid after the salts?

 

[Robert65]

Never heard that, can't see how it would matter.

 

[day_trippr]

Me either, although that's actually my method, as I make up the salt additions the evening before brew days, and add the acids directly after.
I heat my strike liquor in the BK and sparge liquor in the HLT and have Bru'n Water set the split additions...

Cheers!

 

[Bullhog]

I feel the same way, can't matter too much. Hopefully I will remember where I saw it at some point.

 

[Vale71]

Makes no sense to me. Salts and acids/bases aren't going to react with each other and if you're adding both acids and bases they're going to react no matter how and when you add them...

 

[Gnomebrewer]

I wonder if there's some confusion here between physically adding the salts and acid, versus plugging them into a water calculator (eg. Bru'n water)? With a calculator, you 'add' salts first to desired taste, then work out how much acid is needed to hit a desired mash pH .