Water?

Making my first batch today. Should I use distilled water, water from one of those water purification machines, or just plain old tap water?

It depends on whether you are brewing all grain or w/ extract and what your tap water contains.

If you are unsure of the tap water contents, I would use purified water or store bought "drinking water" until you get a chance to research the stuff that comes out of your tap.

Distilled should not be used for all grain (you need some minerals and whatnot in there for proper mashing), but for extract it would probably be OK to use distilled since the mashing has already done for you.

You want to avoid the chlorine and chloramines in the tap water, if that's what you decide to use. You can use carbon filtration and or campden tablets to eliminate the chlorine and or chloramines (I use both) or buy spring or drinking water at the store.

I've got the same question. First off, I don't want to use our tap water. Besides chlorine it also contains fluoride which I don't want in my beer.

I'm thinking of taking some 5 gallon water jugs I have and going to a local spring to get water. We have some springs which flow right out of the ground either that or just buying gallons of pure drinking water at the store.

Chlorine will boil off, so it's not a concern as long as you are boling the water. Chloramine, however, will not boil off. The campden will take care of it, though.

No idea if flouride is harmful. Never even considered it.