What kind of water do you use?

For my five gallon batches I use purified water from the grocery store; is that good mineral content wise, or should I use a different type?

I started with bottled drinking water, then Milwaukee tap water with 5.2 stabilizer, now I use Straight Milwaukee tap water. I have heard that if the water is good enough to drink that its good enough to brew with.

olz431 said:

I started with bottled drinking water, then Milwaukee tap water with 5.2 stabilizer, now I use Straight Milwaukee tap water. I have heard that if the water is good enough to drink that its good enough to brew with.

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If you are on a municipal water system you need to get the chlorine or chloramine out or your beer will have a plasticy or band-aid flavor. Otherwise, if it tastes good to drink is should make good beer with a few exceptions.

There's a water chemistry thread if you have trouble sleeping one night....

Generally, our local tap water here in FL is just about ideal for brewing with only minor pH adjusting. You can make yourself crazy playing with your water values, so have at it if insanity is your bag.

I like using a roughly 50/50% mix of tap to distilled water.

As pointed out by RM-MN, chlorine/chloramine is in most municipal water - and it can have adverse effects on beer.

The "it tastes good" test is ok, but there are problems with that as well - Water that is high in bicarbonates and very hard "tastes good" but is problematic for brewing.

When it comes to extract brewing, minerals are not a problem for the most part. Generally, there are already minerals in the extract (left there when the water is evaporated off from making the extract.) Personally, if I was brewing extract, I would just use Reverse Osmosis water that you can refill at most stores (like walmart, or grocery stores.) It is cheap - .39 cents - to refill as opposed to $1 to buy new jugs every time. I might look into adding a bit of sulfate addition if I was brewing a really hoppy beer, but that is another strand of research.

Water is important to brewing and moreso if you eventually brew all grain.

You absolutely do not need the 5.2 - No point with extract (as you do not need to worry about "mash pH" since you are not mashing. And really, when it comes to all-grain it has been shown not to work - several good threads on it.

I was using bottled water and just recently switched to my well water.The stuff was nasty and undrinkable because of all the iron (think red mud).
I put a sediment filter at the well head and then 2 more filters in my brew room filtering down to .05 microns along with charcoal filters. Taste great now and the elcheapo homeless depot test says its fine. So get yourself a good filter system, they are not that expensive.

Another quick thought - always a decent idea to just send in a sample to Ward Labs. For $15 you can know exactly what you are working with in your tap water within a week. Ultimately, it is worth knowing, and it is really pretty hard to make any decent decisions without actually knowing what you are dealing with in your water. Your water could be great and you do not want to waste time and money if it is. Likewise, your water could be horrible and you do not want to make bad beer because you are overlooking something very easy to address.

RM-MN said:

If you are on a municipal water system you need to get the chlorine or chloramine out or your beer will have a plasticy or band-aid flavor. Otherwise, if it tastes good to drink is should make good beer with a few exceptions.

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Havent had an issue yet. It smells like it all comes out when you heat it for mashing.

I once spent the $5 or $6 on Spring Water, now I just use it right out the tap, my water tastes ok, and could never tell a difference in my tap water vs the spring water beer. So, now I save $6 in the process.

I am a new home brewer and came to this site to get definite answer on chloramine in my tap water. I have been told it's ok. no worries. I can't believe it is the thing to do. I can buy good beer so making bad beer is silly.

Chloromine can't be boiled away. you need to use campden tablets to get it out. My tap water is soft,& is pretty good for AE beers. Was even ok for steeping. Then I got the idea to get Ohio spring water from Giant Eagle for 79c per gallon to try. Beers tasted a lil bit better. Then I remembered the two local spring water places 15-20 minutes from home.
I can get local spring water for 10c per gallon that so far tastes real good. The yeasties do seem to have a ball in wort produced with it. So search for local spring water sources. It can be cheaper directly pumped from the source. Darn stuff is def cold coming out of the ground too.
Amuzing problem was,though,upon getting to both places & seeing the price,we both realized that "somebody's gotta run back & get a shiz load of dimes"!!

I use reverse osmosis water and add gypsum if i'm brewing a hop forward style beer.

My local Home Depot just had a free water testing service. An old spring that we used to get water from was developed over...but I found another one. I'll be dropping by there and filling up the sample jar sooon.

I used to waste money on bottled water. Then my bro-in-law gave me a brand new GE 2 stage sediment/carbon block under sink filter setup.
I pitched all the faucet and mounting hardware and attached a garden hose adapter and a couple of feet of 1/2" clear hose to the inlet side and 4' of the same hose to the outlet side.

AP

I just checked with water works, was told the total chlorine content including chloramine here is 1.5 mg/L at the treatment plant, 1.0mg/L at the distribution plant and could be as low as .5mg/L by the time it comes out of the faucet.

I am on a well and the well water has a very high iron an manganese content. Fine to use for drinking, cooking, and general needs after it goes through my softener and filtration system but not good to brew with. I use bottled spring water from the local grocery store or Detroit city water I bring home from work. I treat the city water with campden tabs to get rid of the chlorine and chloramine.

Tap water, minerals and all. We have hard water, very hard water. I enjoy every drop.

I used filtered water just in case theres too much cholrine.

I've used distilled water, drinking water, spring water and now use tap water that is ran thru a PUR filter attached to my faucet. They all produced good tasting beer the only difference I could tell was the extra $5 I lost buying water.

I brewed my butthead belgian white using distilled, spring and tap water and they all have tasted the same to me.