rjwhite41

Recipes 

If any of you do all grain or begin doing all grain you will have to look at the mineral content of your water (specifically PH levels). If you do extract then by all means buy distilled or RO. There are many threads around here about using distilled, RO, spring or tap water. The first step always is to get your tap water tested.

CrookedTail

Recipes 

My tap water is filtered. I use it in all my beers and they come out fine.

Sarrsipius

Recipes 

I agree that it really depends on YOUR tap water. There is no right or wrong answer. It's like asking if you should bring an unmbrella to work today....depends on the weather where you work!

My tap water is extremely hard (23 grains, practically crunchy). I buy 5 gallon jugs of RO/DI water at a local pet store for $3.25 a jug. Through experimentation I've found the best mix of RO/DI and filtered tap water for each style. For example, for IPA's I do 50/50. For Lagers or Pilsners I do 90/10. For pale ales and wheats 75/25 (RO/DI to tap ratio) etc. etc. I played around with measuring water chemistry at the different mixes and fine tuned through experimenting and now, without a lot of fuss, I get a pretty good water profile for each style. I also use PH5.2 in my mash so I'm probably not optimizing my mash PH but my beers turn out well so I'm sticking with what works.

I do all grain. Haven't tried this method with extract or partial boils.

__________________
Conical : bohemian pils
Keg 1: Stout Envy Porter__Keg 2: Pale Ale
Keg 3: Russian Imperial Stout__Keg 4: Pale Ale
Keg 5: AIR 6: Edworts Apflewien

My HERMS rig