What kind of water to use for extact brewing, spring/distilled/filtered?

I'm wondering what water is best for extract brewing? I've gotten a strange taste out of two of my three batches ive made, and I am trying to eliminate possible causes of contamination, and or off flavors.

I am considering using botled spring or distilled water, because I have well water, and I dont know if that in itself can be a cause of something screwy.

Chaddyb said:

I'm wondering what water is best for extract brewing? I've gotten a strange taste out of two of my three batches ive made, and I am trying to eliminate possible causes of contamination, and or off flavors.

I am considering using botled spring or distilled water, because I have well water, and I dont know if that in itself can be a cause of something screwy.

Click to expand...

Yes, the well water can be the cause of something "screwy". Where we live, the water has tons of iron, which causes terrible (blood) tasting beer! I never use well water to brew.

Spring water or distilled water is fine. Whichever is cheaper for you will work.

My well water also has high iron...almost 2ppm. I have brewed two extract brews using softened water, and they taste great. I have three AG brews that I brewed using non-softened water. Hope they don't taste like blood!....the non-softened water tastes great though, and it's clear. It's actually the best drinking water we've had in any place we have lived.

I have used some really hard water with no problems. I'm pretty sure if it tastes good enough to drink it won't screw up your beer.

Listen to the Brewstrong Water episodes. I'm sure they cover this.

Brew Strong: Why Adjust Your Water
Brew Strong: Water II - How to Adjust Your Water
Brew Strong: Water III - Adjusting Water to Styles
Brew Strong: Water IV - The Final Answers

The only way I'd use well water is to run it through a multi-stage RO filter unit. If you rather buy water, I'd use 100% spring for darker beers and 50% spring, 50% distilled for lighter beers.

My water looks and tastes fine when I drink it, but I have never had it tested, so I dont know what may be lurking in the water. The one batch Ive gotten to turn out was a java stout, and that tastes delicious after a month in the bottle.

I've had my water tested, and beside the high iron...it's clean. pH is 7.42, no bacteria, and fairly soft @ 84 mg/l. It's going to have to do for now, and I hope there is no funky off-tastes in my AG brews.

At some point in the future, I may look into adjusting it for brewing.

When I was on crappy city water I always used spring water from wal-mart. worked well... I have well water now, it tastes great and makes great beer. Never had it tested but never thought I needed to. I usually throw a gallon of bleach in the well about once a year, just on the recommendation of other homeowners .. we must have a large well because even the day of adding the bleach, it is not detectable in the water.

I use spring water. The county water here (Delaware County) is perfectly safe but not very good tasting.

If topping of the wort with spring or distilled water, is it ok to just dump in, or should I boil it first?

I can tell you for a fact that bottled Spring water is not completely free of all bacteria. We have a tattoo shop nearby by that was using bottled spring water and some people got some really nasty infections. guess what was determined to be the source of the infection?? That being said, spring water is all I have ever used in making wine and I have never had a problem.

Lots of people just dump right in. I boil.

I've used Spring, RO and distilled. I like the taste of the Local spring water, so I use that when I can. But with extract, I figure, as long as the water tastes good, it good...well, I never use my tap water...

My old tap water was high in chalk so it was no good for lighter beers. I used RO or distilled when I lived there. Now that I've moved I get a blend of that water source and another reservoir the chalk content is lower and the hardness is lower so I've made good beers just filtering. YMMV.