Intro and somewhat of a serious problem

Hello,

I am dropping in for the long haul here at homebrewtalk to learn more about brewing and to meet new people. I just started my first batch ever. Its from a kit and it should be an IPA. However, I think I made a huge mistake. I watched a bunch of youtube videos before I started this batch. Each one of them said to pour my wort into a the fermenting bucket than top it off until I have 5 gallons total liquid in the bucket. Well, I never heard anything about boiling the extra water going into the bucket so I never boiled the water. Then, after filling up the bucket by eye sight, I realized that I was still a half gallon short so I poured the rest in manually with a measuring cup.....(I did sanitize it). The fact that I didn't use boiled water, would this infect my batch?

Thanks in advance.




On the good side of things, I enjoyed making the brew and the hops smell amazing!!!!

You may or may not have infected it. Non-sterilized water may or may not have beer bugs present in it. You exposed your beer to this, which may lead to an infection.

With that being said, I've done this multiple times before and never had an infection. Although I can't promise, I would place $100 (a lot of money for a broke college kid) on it that your beer is most likely not infected.

I would recommend purchasing gallons of sterilized water in the event this happens again. It can be a pain to constantly have to boil water, cool it, than add to fermenter.

Moral of the post: nothing you can do now, so don't worry about it. Most likely not infected.

That's good to hear! Thanks for the advice.

I don't think it should matter. I'm on my first batch, and will be bottling next weekend. I just used spring water. When i transferred it into my secondary fermenter it looked and smelled good.

ahsmatt7 said:

Hello,

The fact that I didn't use boiled water, would this infect my batch?

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no it shouldn't.
I've never, used boiled top-of water.
I've never had an infected batch.

I routinely add 2 gallons or so of bottled water from the grocery store to my fermenter and have never had any issues with it.

im not sure but i believe my first pre-made wort kit told me to add some litres of tap water. i did and it turned out fine

Dude, EPA regulates tap water and is very strict. People top off with tap water all the time. The fact that you didnt boil the water means there is more o2 present, which is better for the yeast. There is a slight possibility of infection but its very slim.

As a side note, fda reglates bottled water and is less strict than epa. Its more important to look at chlorine/chloramine content. Thresholds may me okay for us humans but not for our yeasties.

It's nice to know that I am blowing the water issue out of proportion.

Tap water is pretty clean. I use it all the time with no issues.

However, it is not pure, and there is always a risk of infection. The key is getting the yeast going and creating alcohol before any contamination has a chance to get a hold in the beer. Really that is all we are doing when we sanitize everything; we don't kill everything, but we knock the numbers down so low that the yeast should win the race for the sugars in the wort.

The bigger potential problem is if your water contains chlorine, this can affect the taste of the beer. My water is filtered thru a carbon filter which takes this out.

Our brewing liquids while "sanitized" are not "sterile". There are bugs/bacteria present....just in very small amounts and they die as the yeast out-compete them and turn the wort into a low PH, low O2, alcohol environment.

I've topped off with tap and bottled, never boiled it first. Pitch a healthy amount of yeast and it will be fine.

I too have always topped off with several gallons of tap water without ever boiling. So far no infections after 10 batches. *knock on wood*

I've always topped off with tap water and never had a problem. I'm just wondering what your brew would taste like if they're doing hydaulic frac'ing nearby....

Rhuarc said:

I too have always topped off with several gallons of tap water without ever boiling. So far no infections after 10 batches. *knock on wood*

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Me too. My tap water is actually good enough to drink, without contaminates and bugs, so I assume it's fine to use in beer.

The only thing that can cause some issues with using tap water is if your water doesn't taste good or has chlorine or chloramines in it. Since beer is mostly water, using water that doesn't taste good just won't make a good tasting beer. Using water with chlorine or chloramines or chlorine dioxide is safe, but it makes the beer taste bad with something caused "chlorophenols", a rubbery/plasticy taste.

Using good water is important for good beer. But unless you have contaminants in your water, or want to boil of chlorine (chloramines don't readily boil off), there is no reason to worry about boiling the water.