Brewing Water... Chem Geek Needed

Hey all
I am a reletively new brewer and had a quick question about water. I have been using straight tap water for all my beers, we have good tap water where I live but I want to be certain I am not compromising my beer. I dont want to get into water chemistry/ additives yet since I feel I should concentrate on getting other aspects of my process perfected first. I just want opinions on what is my best option right now (also, I use 5.2 ph stabilizer in all my mashes, wyeast beer nutrient/super moss 10min before end of boil, and I brew all-grain batches) . I can:

• 
  Continue to use tap water (I pull it cold and heat it slowly)

or

• 
  buy 5 gallon containers and fill it at the water bottle filling station at the grocery store

Basically, I want to know if it is worth it to spend the money on getting processed water from the store, and if so will my water be void of necessary minerals, salts, ect. Again I don't know much about brew chem yet. I know I dont want distilled water and I know the water at the store goes through RO, but I don't know what else.

The reason I am concerned is because of what papazian says in his book about if the water tastes alright from the tap it is alright to brew with. It tastes fine initially, but sometimes I fill up water bottles and leave them next to my bed at room temp for a few days and they start to taste stale. I figure since the beer water sits at room temp for a few weeks this might be of some concern.

Sorry about the length, happy brewing!
Ben

ps. who is stoked about outddor brewing without freezing your nuts off

Just ask your utility for a water analysis. Without knowing what's in your water versus what's in the bottled water you are thinking of using, there is no way to tell which is better.

Yes, your waters ionic profile is one of the most important aspects of how your beer ends up tasting, and how your mash performs. In order for us to tell you if you should start with tap water or go to distilled/RO/whatever you need to post the ionic profile of your tap water.

As long as all the other nasty chemical stuff is not in your water (chloramines, chlorine, cleaning agents, extra crap etc) there are 6 important ions that constitute your brewing water. Generally measured in parts per million or mg/L (which is the same as PPM)
Calcium, Sodium, Sulfate, BiCarbonate, Magnesium and Chloride.
This is a good quick primer on what each one of those 6 things do to the flavor of your beer.
http://www.brewery.org/library/wchmprimer.html

briewer2 said:

I dont want to get into water chemistry/ additives yet since I feel I should concentrate on getting other aspects of my process perfected first.

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That's a good attitude to have, but unfortunately i feel water chemistry is a polarizing subject - you either don't worry in the least about it, or you take the time to understand what's going on. And it sounds like you're starting to want to know what's going on.

It's a slippery slope, too. Once you decide you're going to learn about your water & how it potentially affects your brewing process, you'll feel the need (or you should) to figure out what to do with your water. Not that it's a bad thing; in my opinion i just don't think dealing with water chemistry is something to be half assed in brewing, once you decide you're going to sweat it.

More pointedly, you should start with figuring out what your tap water is doing for you (water analysis). you might even figure out (after an analysis) that something as simple as diluting your water with DI/RO 1:1 will get you into an ideal range. Gotta start at square one.

This is all they could give me when I requested a report.

Finished Water Parameters
Parameter IAWC Range
pH
8.5 - 9.0 mg/L
Calcium
30 - 40 mg/L
Magnesium
40 - 50 mg/L
Total Hardness
75 - 85 mg/L
Iron
0.01 - 0.05 mg/L
Nitrate
<0.05 mg/L
Sodium
30 - 40 mg/L
Flouride
0.9 - 1.2 mg/L
Turbidity
0.01 - 0.1 mg/L
Phenolphthalein Alkalinity
10 - 20 mg/L
Total Alkalinity
135 - 160 mg/L
Ammonia
0 - 1.5 mg/L
Total Colioform
Absent (A)
Fecal Colioform
Absent (A)
HPC Colonies
0

btw.... I think I am glad that Fecal Colioform is absent. My recipes call for little or no poo.

EDIT:Actually I think saq nailed it

saq said:

As long as all the other nasty chemical stuff is not in your water (chloramines, chlorine, cleaning agents, extra crap etc) ]

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Also, just found a water report from my area that someone else posted.

Champaign, IL

pH: 9.1
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est: 204
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm: 0.34
Cations / Anions, me/L: 3.2 / 3.7

(ppm)
Sodium, Na: 39
Potassium, K: 2
Calcium, Ca: 10
Magnesium, Mg: 11
Total Hardness, CaCO3: 71
Nitrate, NO3 -N: < 0.1 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4 -S: <1
Chloride, Cl: 9
Carbonate, CO3: 22
Bicarbonate, HCO3: 166
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3: 173

Doesn't look too bad, although the Magnesium level is way too high, to the point where it is going to significantly affect your beers flavor profile.
Unfortunately it doesn't say what your Chloride, Sulfate or BiCarbonate levels are. You could ask for it and see if they have it, or take some water samples and send it off to a lab for analysis.
If those turn out to be lowish you could do a dilution with pure RO water, but you'd need a chemistry sheet to see what the ionic profile of what you are diluting with is.
I prefer to buy pure RO water from a local place that publishes chemistry papers on their water that gets tested every 3 months. The only thing in the water is a 4ppm of sodium.

Those are two completely different water profiles.

I couldn't tell, cant convert mg/L to ppm that quick

briewer2 said:

btw.... I think I am glad that Fecal Colioform is absent. My recipes call for little or no poo.

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a little poo??? Now that's funny, LOL! Most municipal water reports usually tell the homebrewer nothing in the way of useful information. The levels that they show have to do with the safety of the drinking water, but not the ion concentrations that we are interested in. Your municipal water report has better info than most I've seen, but still omits a few needed ions (chloride, sulphate, etc.)

Contact Ward Labs and get the $16.50 for the W-6 Household Mineral Test, or the W-5 test for $10 more if you have concerns about iron and fluoride. This will tell you everything that you need to know about what's in your water. It will be far more accurate than anything you will get from your municipality.

mg/L = ppm

A quick note on store bought water. If the label says 'drinking water' it is RO. However, 'spring water' is usually just filtered and not run through RO. Thus it can be used with little or no additives depending on the style you are brewing.

If you know what brands of water your store carries you can get the water report from those companies websites.

briewer2 said:

This is all they could give me when I requested a report.

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They have the other info as well. It just requires being persistent and getting ahold of the right people.

My water is similar. Your water is OK to use with 5.2 for anything but the hoppiest beers, for which I would recommend blending equal parts tap and RO water and adding some gypsum (a teaspoon or so... no need to worry about being exact if you use 5.2 for the mash). The only other suggestion I have would be to use Campden if you aren't already, 1/4 crushed tablet per 5 gallons of tap water. Let it sit for 15-20 minutes before using the water for brewing. This will get rid of chlorine/chloramine which is common in municipal water.

I have high pH like I see on yours. Now that I have a pH meter I've found it necessary to add a bit of lactic acid to get the mash pH in range when brewing light beers, and for sparging. Before I ever treated the sparge water, I had a cream ale that had some strong tannin astringency. That was even through the mash water had 5.2 stabilizer in it.