water and what you do to it for your steep

jimmythefoot · 11-22-2010, 06:00 AM

what type of water do you use? do you mostly use distilled or RO or do you use faucet or spring? also do you mess with the water alkalinity when you are gonna steep heavy malts or light malts? i have yet to mess with my water so i am asking because i want to know if it is worth going through the whole PH, alKalinity, Ca, Mg additives raising/lowering blah blah for an extract brew with specialty grain steeping?

i currently us spring for boil and distilled for topping and sometime i mix the two 1:1 during the boil and final topping of fermenter.

beninan · 11-22-2010, 06:22 AM

I use to use regular tap water (well water) until I moved to a place with city water. I'm not sure what's in it but I play it safe. Now I use regular bottled drinking water in 2.5 gallon jugs. I use it for everything and haven't had any issues.

Nateo · 11-22-2010, 06:25 AM

Water chemistry plays a minimal/nonexistent role in extract brewing. I use an inline filter for my tap water, but I have pretty good water here. Coors is tapping the Rockies just upstream from me.

Toga · 11-24-2010, 07:18 PM

I have well water with a very high iron content. I do not care for the taste even after softening and filtering. I do cook with it but for brewing I use bottled spring water.

RIT_Warrior · 11-24-2010, 07:44 PM

The water that comes out of my tap is so opaque that I can't see through a pint glass of hot water from it unless I let it settle down for 5 minutes or so. It looks like a blanche absinthe after louche. I don't know what is in it, but I do know whatever that **** is isn't going in my beer. I buy 2.5 gallon tubs from the supermarket and use that.

beninan · 11-24-2010, 11:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RIT_Warrior

The water that comes out of my tap is so opaque that I can't see through a pint glass of hot water from it unless I let it settle down for 5 minutes or so. It looks like a blanche absinthe after louche. I don't know what is in it, but I do know whatever that **** is isn't going in my beer. I buy 2.5 gallon tubs from the supermarket and use that.

Doesn't all hot water do that when poured due to aeration?

big_jannie · 11-25-2010, 01:20 AM

Exactly. It's cloudy because it could hold more gas when it was cold (outside), then it can when it is warmed up (inside). It's free aeration for your wort.