Water Prep

G'day! Ph is very important in AG. I have no idea about Mangrove Jacks kits, I've never seen them anywhere, it would be very hard to judge what to add to what water if its the same kit sent around the world. If the kit was made up by your LHBS then I guess they'd know what to add. Most Melbourne water is pretty good and for a pale ale not much is really needed, the Calcium Sulphate could be just left for the boil, it will bring the hop flavour up front, I'm guessing thats why its been added. My suggestion would be to add it to the boil, if added to the mash it could throw the pH out of whack. I wouldn't bother filtering your water unless you think you really need too. If you are brewing tomorrow you could fill a few buckets with water tonight for tomorrow, so any chlorine will be gone, alternatively you can add metabisulphite (about 8g per 40L) to get rid of chlorine immediately if you have any around.

The grain will change the the ph of the water itself, if you do want to check the pH and have an appropriate pH meter, test mash water about 10mins into the mash.

Cheers!

I do adjust my mash water before the mash, I search net for my local water profile and put the figures into a spreadsheet called EZwater, Brewers Friend also have an online one. But most of Australia town water doesn't need adjusting to get a good mash unless you use a lot of dark or other grains that can throw the ph out. The most important is whats happening during the mash, if I had a professional brewery trying to make money I'd get grains and mash water in but lower than mash temp so the mash isnt happening yet, leave it 10 mins and test then, make adjustments if needed, then ramp the temps to mash temps, this isnt easy at home depending on your system, and most dont bother checking unless things start to go wrong. So at home I'd mash in and check the ph at 10mins, strips can be used if they are good ones, but a proper ph meter is better, good ph meters are at least $80 usually more for entry level and must be looked after and used correctly which means calibrating every use. Its a easy once you get used to it, but can be a handleful so as I said most dont do it unless they are having issues. More then just ph adjusting salts can really help with cloning beers or beer styles as you can make the water the same as it is in Germany or UK so the beers are very close to what they should be. I use 4 different ones mostly.. epsom salts, gypsum (calcium sulphate) , bicarb and calcium chloride. Salts and pH are one of those things I wouldn't tell people to mess with until they have the basic practices down first, unless of course their water is causing them issues. You can start at simply adding some to the boil, if you want malts to shine through you can add a teaspoon of Calcium Chloride, if you want hops to shine you can add a teaspoon of Gypsum to the boil. Water is hard to discuss because its different for everyone unless your on the same supply.