Posted 18 September 2017 - 08:49 AM
In some of the books (Beer Captured comes to mind), there was a water chart in the book and each recipe would suggest which chart to target for each beer. Agreed, they don't know what your water composition is and since water and pH could be their own book (big books...) they must just assume that the brewer already knows about it and knows how to arrive at a suggested profile by either diluting, starting from RO or distilled, etc.
All of that said, water composition (and an understanding of how it works) and pH control is what cranked my beers up from good to great (this is only my opinion of course) and two areas that are often not covered by a "recipe".