boiling tap water?

so whats the deal with boiling tap water for brewing?

What do you mean by the deal?

It kills any bacteria that may be in the water and also helps to get rid of Chlorine that is in the water.

and also will help precipitate any dissolved solids present

When waters temperature gets to 212°F (100°C) it starts to convert to steam (a gas).

You can boil it for several reasons:

- Precipitate the disolved solids if your water is too hard, so you can later modify it by adding minerals depending on what beer you want to brew (some say this is pointless, but depending on how strictly you want to follow a recipe to brew a Pilsner, which normally has low disolved solids)

- Remove chlorine (like Brewjunky said)

- Kill bacteria (like Brewjunky said)


I don't trust my local municipality to provide consistant, "good" water. They sometimes take it from a local lake rather than the mountains, and it will taste "brackish", it also contains varying amounts of chlorine (more for lake water, less for mountain water). I also live in a 600 year old house, so lord knows what all is growing in the pipes or in the water mains.

So, I boil my water prior to fermenting (I am currently doing extract brewing, so I put cold, disinfected water into the fermenter to dilute the high-gravity extract wort).

Cheers,
Awfers

Awfers said:

I also live in a 600 year old house, so lord knows what all is growing in the pipes or in the water mains.

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Wow do you live in Rome or something didn't realize they had plumming that long ago... J/K

Boiling only gets rid of Chlorine if your locality uses Gas.. Where I'm at they use chlorine compounds that don't boil out

budbo said:

Boiling only gets rid of Chlorine if your locality uses Gas.. Where I'm at they use chlorine compounds that don't boil out

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A carbon filter should clean them out.

If it is a concern, buy a cheap 5 gallon or larger vessel and buy it at walmart. It is like $.35 a gallon for RO. I usually let my tap water sit out overnight and then dilute it with RO. (50/50).

you guys have tap water! lucky!

A carbon filter should clean them out.

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It does

you guys have tap water! lucky!

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It took years to get, now if only we could get a roof..

I don't boil my tap water, but I do use it through a PUR 3-stage filter.

sittingturbo said:

Wow do you live in Rome or something didn't realize they had plumming that long ago... J/K

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Two Thousand years of civilization and they still haven't figured out how to have the hot and the cold water come out of the same tap.

Rudeboy

Hoosierbrewer said:

If it is a concern, buy a cheap 5 gallon or larger vessel and buy it at walmart. It is like $.35 a gallon for RO. I usually let my tap water sit out overnight and then dilute it with RO. (50/50).

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Why do you let your tap water sit over night. What does this do?

Hoosierbrewer said:

If it is a concern, buy a cheap 5 gallon or larger vessel and buy it at walmart. It is like $.35 a gallon for RO. I usually let my tap water sit out overnight and then dilute it with RO. (50/50).

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come on, even though the vessel itself is probably made in China you can't find a local place to buy it?
-ander

sittingturbo said:

Wow do you live in Rome or something didn't realize they had plumming that long ago... J/K

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I think it's awesome how much the human population has evolved over a couple hundred years. (yeah i know Rome existed beyond 600 years ago for anyone tryin to jump me)

wait...who boils tapwater?

I boil tapwater.... with sugar and hops added to it.

67coupe390 said:

Why do you let your tap water sit over night. What does this do?

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If the chlorine used to sanitize the water by the municipality is the gas form, it will simply evaporate out of the water..

An old NYC trick : Take a old plastic milk jug, fill it with tap water, let it sit with the cap off overnight in the fridge. The next morning, good tasting water without the chlorine/bleach smell and taste.

EvilTOJ said:

I boil tapwater.... with sugar and hops added to it.

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x2..............