Simple Sparge Salt Question - Bru'n Water

[whovous]

I use RO water and build from there with Bru'n Water. Let's say my recipe calls for 0.5g of gypsum in my mash water and 0.2g of gypsum in my sparge water. Is there any reason not to simply add 0.7g to the mash and leave the sparge at zero?

I find measuring all these chemicals tedious and I'd rather measure once than twice.

 

[thehaze]

Your mash pH will stabilize at a certain level, but when you add new water ( sparge ), it will increase the pH value, which might put you out of the recommended/safe parameters. This is why it is recommended to add minerals and salts to teh sparge water as well.

You can however add all the salts once to the whole qty of water and then simply use the apropriate qty for mash and sparge, but that means you need to have all your water in a container, where you can make the additions.

 

[whovous]

I do not have a container large enough to hold all of the water at once.

I've been told that pH values of RO water do not mean a lot since it takes little or nothing to change them. Is this true?

Also, I brew only pales and IPAs and it is my impression that my recipes fall naturally into the pH target range.

 

[SoCal-Doug]

Adjust your mash water as needed. Sparge with straight RO water. You will be totally fine.

 

[mabrungard]

There is no problem with adding all the salts to the mash. However, you will have to account for the additional pH drop due to the extra calcium and magnesium.

 

[whovous]

There is no problem with adding all the salts to the mash. However, you will have to account for the additional pH drop due to the extra calcium and magnesium.

Did I get this right?

I changed the RO input from 4.2 mash and 1.8 sparge to simply 6.0 gallons mash. The program then added the sparge amounts to the mash column and produced an almost identical profile. The only difference was that calcium increased from 77 to 90 in my finished water profile.

The program also changed the lactic addition from 4.6ml to 6.6ml. This moved the estimated mash pH from 5.26 to 5.28.

I assume this is not exactly what I am going to wind up with, because I am adding a six gallon ration of salts to 4.8 gallons of RO water and only later adding 1.2 gallons of pure RO water. But am I safe to assume my final pH will at least be in the right ZIP Code?