Brewing Salts in Herms HLT

[JayDog]

So I'm preparing to brew my first batch on my Herms system. One question keeps popping into my head. I use RO water for some recipes and add my brewing salts into my strike and sparge water. What is your process now? Should I adjust all the water in my HLT to one profile and just use the same water profile for strike and sparge?
Should I put the salts into the mash? I've always heard that they dissolve better in cool water so this might be a concern.

 

[bgmac]

All my water comes from an RO system. I usually add salts to the strike water based on strike volume before adding the grist. I hold off on adding salts to the sparge water to keep PH a little low. Then add the sparge water volume salts to the boil (before it warms up to boil) after sparging is complete.

 

[RocketBrewer]

I use Brun' Water to calculate my brewing salt additions. My HLT is large enough to hold all my strike and sparge volume, plus a little extra for keeping my HEX coil fully submerged during mash. I add salts to all of the water, with the exception of Baking Soda or Pickling lime, which should only be added to the mash itself. I do my calculations for batch and sparge water, and then temporarily change the mash water number to my total water amount (mash, sparge, and the extra amount) to give me the total amount of salt additions for the HLT. I'm treating water that I don't use in the beer, but brewing salts aren't that expensive. If you don't have the volume to treat all of your water at once, this may not work for you.

 

[itsnotrequired]

i also do full ro, add all mash salts to the mash only, sparge with straight ro. i could add it all to the hlt but it isn't necessary and my thoughts are that it keeps the hlt 'cleaner' by not dumping salts into the kettle.

 

[gavinr]

I do not store or boil RO water in any metal vessels, including stainless steel because of its corrosive nature. I collect my RO water the day before, store it in plastic, and dose all the water with the same brewing salts, with the exception of CaCo3/Ca(OH)2 as stated by rocket brewer above.

 

[JayDog]

Thanks for the replies, I think I’m just going to fill my HLT with the full amount of water I need and add my salts for the profile I need.

 

[postalbunny]

two ways to go about that...

1) you can either fill your HLT and treat the entire quantity. This is usually easier to deal with... the draw backs are you will treat the entire quantity... which may be more than you need if you keep an extra gallon or two. You also can't easily "top up" if you are brewing back-to-back or reclaiming water from heat exchanger for another brew session.

2) your can measure our your "mash" salts and your "boil" salts based on the exact quantities. This works great if you want to brew different styles back-to-back. It also means the water in your HLT is RO so it's better for cleaning or mixing up starsan. If you use any kind of CLT and heat-exchanger you can reclaim the water directly into the HTL. The draw back of course is you now have to measure out salts for mash as well as boil instead of just one quantity.

For most people just treating the entire HLT of water is an easier solution.