brewmax25

Recipes 

I just listened to the brewstrong episodes regarding water and I have become a little concerned with my water choices. If you had to chose distilled or spring water for ales and lagers what would you go with?

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Primary: Pale Ale
Secondary : Belgian Golden Strong, Bourbon-Oak Aged Barley Wine
Kegged : Bohemian Pilsner
Bottled: Hefe, Cascade IPA, Kolsch

FarmBoy530

Recipes 

When you say Ales and Lagers it kinda covers the spectrum. IMO hard water (spring) is good for Pale and IPA's. probably ok for most ales. All I do is filter the water from my well and brew everything with it. Mostly because I've yet to have my water tested. This becomes most important when trying to nail a style.

BigTerp

Recipes 

Depends on if your doing extract or All-Grain. When i was brewing extract batches, my beer got noticeably better when I started using straight distilled water. Not that I do all-grain, I use my well water and adjust it based on my water report and what I'm brewing.

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On Deck: Watermelon Wheat
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Bottled: Hobbs Filled Tire, Yoopers Haus Pale Ale, Strong Scotch Ale, Yoopers DFH 60min, Cream Ale, Indian Brown Ale, Apfelwein (9/3/11)

Homercidal

Recipes 

OP your question is very broad. I'd probably only use Distilled water for extract since I have highly alkaline water.

For AG beers, I would mix my water with RO/distilled, and/or adjust depending on the amount of acids the dark grains add to the mash. (and while I'm at is maybe do a minimal adjustment of the flavor minerals as well.)

Ale or Lager has nothing to do with it. It's the amount of acidity that the grains add to compensate for the water minerals you have. Generally you want to target 5.2-5.4 pH in the mash.

Darker malts generally have more acidity and can counteract more alkalinity than can lighter colored malts.

Therefore, when brewing lighter beers, I generally either add additional acid, or mix with RO water to bring my alkalinity down some (or start with RO water and add a few minerals).

For darker beers, I might not have to adjust for pH much, maybe a small amount of acid.

Someone with less alkalinity might be fine for light colored beers, and may have to add stuff to raise the alkalinity to adjust for the acid the grains add.

FarmBoy530

Recipes 

Your right, ales and lagers are different because yeast not grain. However Most brew light lagers (not always) and darker ales (again not always) so thats more so what I was getting at. Thats for pH. For soft/hard water ale and lager does matter because pils water should be soft and IPAs should be hard. The hard water complements hops. my buddy worked for a brewery that would add an iron bar to the boil kettle to get the water harder for an IPA.