Who uses tap water?

Who uses tap water for their beer?
I've read recipes where they add more tap water to cool the wort after boiling. Will the tap water contaminate your wort after boil?

jiffybrew said:

Who uses tap water for their beer?
I've read recipes where they add more tap water to cool the wort after boiling. Will the tap water contaminate your wort after boil?

Click to expand...

If you run a search you will find a lot of threads about water. In my opinion if your water is good enough to drink it is good enough to brew beer.

I have used strait tap water for all my brews and no problems or off flavors

If the water is no good for the beer then it's probably not drinkable.

If your asking if you can top off with cold water straight from the tap....maybe. I think one of the infections I've had was caused by this. I boil a couple gallons of water prior to brew day, put in a sanitized container to let cool for a day and add that to my beer, if needed.

I'm not real anal about cleanliness, but what goes in the wort need to be sanitized/pasteurized, etc

I use tap water all the way through, which means it gets boiled - I wouldn't top up anything with it before boiling it first.

jiffybrew said:

Who uses tap water for their beer?
I've read recipes where they add more tap water to cool the wort after boiling. Will the tap water contaminate your wort after boil?

Click to expand...

I brew with filtered tap water, but for topping off I use bottled spring water. So far, so good.

Personally, I wouldn't use tap water for topping off unless it had been boiled first.

Tap water has always worked fine for me. I always used it to top up my partial boils and never had any problems with contamination, knock on wood.

I used boiled Tap water.

Edit: My tap water is Spring water.

PUR filtered tap water here. Taste yummy yo drink as water and yummy as beer!

When i brew i use tap water. When topping off, i use one gallon jugs of springwater..

When I did extract brewing, I always topped off with unboiled tap water. My city water is excellent, though, with no choramines (is that spelled right?) or sulfur-y smell. I even used my faucet sprayer to add the cool water, so that the wort was extra foamy and full of oxygen.

Keep in mind when you boil your top-off water (which is probably best anyway IMHO, even though I didn't do that), that you remove oxygen from it. So make extra sure to aerate by splashing and shaking to give the yeast enough oxygen if you've boiled it. Bottled water is a great choice- and you can refrigerate it to cool it so if you add it to 75 degree wort, you'll be about right to pitch your yeast.

I wouldn't use tap water unless I knew how it was treated or how much if any chlorine was in it. A swimming pool test kit will tell you the amount of available chlorine. A relative inexpensive water filter will remove available chlorine and chlorine byproducts. Just a personal preference however not something that's a must.

I do 1.5 gal boils. I use PUR filtered tap water...straight from the tap, no pre-boil, nothing, nada, nichts.

I place 4 gal jugs in the freezer about 4-5 hours prior to brewing.

I pour it directly into the primary. I've been doing this for years...since 1994.

I also just use tap water and I haven't had a problem as of yet.

Well I have a weird method. I use half bottled spring water and half tap water that is filtered with a britta filter. Dont ask me why I do this - there is no real reason. Havent had a problem with infection from using tap water yet.

I do extracts, but full boils with a keggle. I only use tap water.