So how screwed am I?

Ok, so for the next two weeks I'm in a tiny place since my wife is doing some post-grad work in Chicago. Which means I'm migrating my brewing activity over to my parents' house, where there's loads of space.

Here's the problem: their new place has a water softener system on the whole house. Even the garden hose spigots outside the house. I'm about to send a sample off to Ward Labs, but am I likely looking at purchasing RO water for everything for the next couple of years?

There's got to be a valve before the softener. Or you could truck a couple buckets of water over.

Yes, you'll want any RO system unless the softener its self has some kind of bypass valve you can use to grab unsoftened water--though you probably would have to dilute with RO anyways, since the water needed a softener. An RO system big enough for brewing isn't very expensive, though.

Sorry, I meant two years, not weeks.


And I checked, there's no cutoff valve before the softener. I guess my dad figured he wanted soft water to wash his cars. The funny part is the city water isn't bad - I used to use it at my old place.

TromboneGuy said:

Sorry, I meant two years, not weeks.

And I checked, there's no cutoff valve before the softener. I guess my dad figured he wanted soft water to wash his cars. The funny part is the city water isn't bad - I used to use it at my old place.

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What would be stopping you from dropping in a valve?

Heh. Nothing, I suppose. Honestly though, I'll wait to see the analysis. They've apparently got a really new softener that's supposed to be very salt-efficient. If the result is too sodium-rich I'll just figure out a good dilution ratio. I'm just complaining about how my dad had his new house plumbed.

Even if it's salt-efficient, one would think it'd still replace all of the calcium and magnesium with sodium (it'd just do that efficiently).

This is one of those thread titles where you're not quite sure what that topic will actually be...

It sounds like you're thinking about your options if the water report isn't to your liking. If the city water is acceptable, why not get a couple of 5 gallon water cube containers and haul some water with you when go to your parents' house to brew? "BYOW." A bit of a hassle, but maybe less so than having to buy RO.

I brew at home, and I used soft water and I have had not issues with flavor profiles. Maybe I am just lucky.

Wisluggo said:

I brew at home, and I used soft water and I have had not issues with flavor profiles. Maybe I am just lucky.

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Me too... only had 1 bad batch, and many GREAT ones! And believe me, the 1 bad batch had NOTHING to do with soft water. Haha, unless a bunch of cats pissed in the water softener... Hahaha. Just my $0.02

Go ahead and use it. I use soft water all the time at my house with no issues. It's dead easy and makes great beer.

Worst case scenario, you may have to give a 6 pack to the neighbor in return for use of their water hose. Who knows they may ask the eternal question, "Is making your own beer hard?" A new homebrewer is born.

I would strongly warn against using soft water, unless the source water was not very hard to begin with (e.g. City water as was mentioned, is probably not very hard). Our new house is on a well, and our water is extremely hard (639 total hardness, 234 Ca). The resulting softened water has a sodium content of 261 ppm.

I brewed after moving in and did not realize the hose was on softened water (my own ignorance/stupidity and before I researched water chemistry). The resulting beer was like drinking a salt lick :-/. Not very drinkable, but the good news is that it makes great beer brats and bread .

As someone else mentioned - I'd be making friends with a neighbour at your folks place then