This is s definite bug. If I set the "dilute with" to 0.0 gallons then I get the correct resulting profile. Further, if I manually change my starting water profile to a diluted profile, then BS2 calculates the correct additions.
Second, I suggest that the "dilute with" addition should be added to the "additions to achieve this water" properties along with the associated minerals.
Third, since salts don't readily dissolve into plain water, the additions should be split between mash and boil ingredients.
The normal procedure is to add mash salts directly to the mash. The low pH of the mash assists the salts in dissolving into the water and therefore participating in the phosphate system to lower the mash pH, as desired.
Mineral additions for sparge water primarily are for the purpose of controlling the flavor profile of the beer, not the pH of the sparge. Again, since the salts won't dissolve into plain water adding them to the hot sparge water would be mostly pointless---they would just sink to the bottom of the HLT and be washed away at the end of brewday. So, the additions necessary to correct sparge water are actually added directly to the boil kettle.
Therefore, it would be more useful for beersmith to ratiometrically split the salt additions between the mash and the boil. Alternatively, there should be an option to do so.
Because of the above bug, I do all of this by hand right now:
[list type=decimal]
[*]I use Beersmith to determine my mash and sparge water volumes
[*]I use an external spreadsheet (EZ Water) to calculate my dilution and salt additions for mash-ph and desired flavor profile
[*]I add equal parts of my local tap water and distilled water to my recipe
[*]I add each salt addition as a mash ingredient
[*]I add each salt addition as a boil ingredient
[/list]
This is a fair amount of manual work, and is somewhat error prone. Further, if I adjust my mash thickness, recipe efficiency, batch size, etc... for some reason, I have to go back and redo all of the above.
Finally, I would dearly love to see the Mash-pH calculations incorporated into Beersmith.
