Downtown Seattle tap water?

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Eisenhans

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Any downtown Seattle brewers here that use the tap water? I've heard that our tap water is some of the cleanest in the country, but I still have my doubts.
 
You can get a full water report by going to Seattle public utilities and hunting around for it.
It's really good water for brewing unless you have really rusty pipes.
Use 1/4 camden tablet per 5 gal for chlorine.
 
Cool, thanks for the tip! I live in a vintage apartment building from the 1920's so now I'm going to need to see if the landlord can tell me about the pipe quality...
 
Seattle has excellent water for brewing as there is little in terms of metals, minerals, or hardness, and it has a pH around 8, making it a good base to start for any beer type. You may need to add minerals and some acid depending on the type of beer to improve mash efficiency and hop flavor (read the water primer FAQ).

contaminant report:
http://www.seattle.gov/util/myservices/water/water_quality/waterqualityannualreport/

Detailed water quality (including Ca, pH, alkalinity, etc)
http://www.seattle.gov/util/groups/public/@spu/@water/documents/webcontent/01_026091.pdf

As acidrain says, you should dechlorinate your water as SPU adds chlorine for disinfection.

Old, corroding pipes are probably your only concern, but if the water tastes fine out of the tap, then it won't taste funny after being brewed because the yeast will scavenge trace amounts of copper and other metals or minerals during the fermentation.
 
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