Distilled water?

Will there be any kind of taste differance in distilled and tap water? Does it make any notable differance? Any info would be nice. Likely, a dumb question, but eh...

Yes...but it depends on your tap water. The biggest problem you will run into is that distilling takes out a lot of the natural nutrients your yeast feeds off of for fermentation. If you are going to use bottled water use spring water.

Distilled water is normally frowned upon because most brewers are looking for a particular hardness. IMO, the best water source is just filtered tap water....but if your water still tastes bad after filtering, then buying spring water is the best. It's going to have less chlorine (the main chemical that needs to be eliminated) while still having minerals (which helps contribute to a particular beer).

But as is with most beer brewing procedures....these are general guidelines. You can still use tap water and you'd still wind up with mighty drinkable beer.

If you are brewing extract, all the minerals are already there in the extract. Distilled water is fine. If you have stepped up to AG then you want to use drinking water(spring) or dechlorinated tap water. Minerals may need to be added to either(AG) to achieve the water quality that is desired for your particular style.

I use water filtered through a carbon filter when brewing AG. before I started filtering I used 60/40 distilled/drinking from the water store when brewing AG and 100% distilled when brewing extract.( No I could never taster the difference, but why take a chance)

beerthirty said:

If you are brewing extract, all the minerals are already there in the extract.

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Most of what I've read says that there's still not enough minerals for a full 5 gallons of wort. That malt extract producers aren't accounting for a wort batch size when they're creating their extracts. Some extract brewers recomment half spring water, half distilled water for this disparity. But then again, mineral concentration on any given spring water/extract sample is splitting hairs.

But if you're a beginer starting off with extract....the old addage of if your tap water tastes good to begin with, then the beer should taste good....then that should be good enough!

Best batches I've brewed have been made with WalMart brand spring water (it's from Magnetic Springs in Ohio...at least the stuff they sell here is).

Ok, thanks so much for all of your help.

+1 on Distilled water for extract.

If you are AG you need to listen to the BrewStrong Podcasts on water.

The Brewing Network.com - Beer radio | The Brewing Network™ for craft brewers and microbrews

It will let you know just about everything you need to know.