What type of water do you use?

Hey hi,
I'd like to know what kind of water you use : tap water, bottled water or sap water?
And what would be the effect of using one or the other?

My tap water sux... local mkt sells arrowhead spring water $1 a gal with a coupon on the bottle for a $1 off if you buy 4 I buy 8-10 at a time so I've been doing that my last 5-6 brew sessions

I use RO and its made a huge difference to my beer

If I remember to start ahead, I use my own filtered water. If not, and that is usually because it takes 8 hours to get 2.5 gallons, I use "drinking water" from the grocery store.. It has some minerals added to it, that are usually good for beer. I find "spring water" sometimes is too pure, or void of minerals. I feel if it doesn't really taste great (too pure), it doesn't make the best beer either.

I use RO water, available at a local grocery for $ 0.39 / gallon. It's cheap enough, and they have two machines in tandem (so I can fill two 5 gal. containers simultaneously in about 2 minutes). We live in a rural area, and our well water is far too high in dissolved iron and calcium to brew with. I investigated various types of RO equipment for the home, and concluded I didn't want to mess with it. The main problem is that most home RO equipment wastes quite a bit of water, actually more than it produces. I'm not prepared to put that kind of load on the well.

Well......since we're getting into water amendments, yeah, I started treating the RO water, for most beers with 1 tsp. CaCl2 and 1 tsp. gypsum per 5 gal. batch.

I use various combinations of my very hard tap water (Carbon Filtered) and R.O. water from the store (.39/gallon cent refill). Depending on style I use various ratios of each and additions as determined by Bru'n water.

The reason is to control Mash pH when using different grains (More pale malts = more RO water, More roast malt = more tap water basically). The effect is better beer. Different folks will have different issues depending on their local water supply. My issue is very high bicarbonate levels that are ok for dark beers, but disaster for lighter beers, hoppy IPA's, etc.

I've been using unfiltered tap water since day one without any issues.

I've been going to Artisan Springs for local spring water @ 10c per gallon. Works great with everything from AE to PM.

I use ro and build it using Kaiser's water calculator on brewer's friend to get the right pH and mineral content for the style I'm brewing. But I would suggest not adding anything to your beer until you know why you're adding it!

I use half tap and half RO.

100% Tap, but I'm lucky that my water profile is very close to that of Plzeň[ame="http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&q=pilsen+czech+republic&ie=UTF-8&cd=1&cad=srcpiwlink&ei=DdGHUayqH6bLiQKAoYHgCQ&sig2=vqVg-l8JXGj5AMsSq5TeWw&dtab=2"][/ame].

100% tap water here, very hard but good for brewing. No filtering but I do use campden tablets for chlorine/chloramine

There's an artesian well across the street from me in olympia, I just use that. Delicious water.

Well water. Never had it analyzed, for beer. <note to self, should probably do that>

Straight out of our bedrock well into the kettles...

Cheers!

daksin said:

100% tap water here, very hard but good for brewing. No filtering but i do use campden tablets for chlorine/chloramine

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+1

I finally found a spring water I like at a place I dont like to visit much-Walmart.Ive been on a mission for some time for a good tasting spring water-Looks like its from Arkansas. I did split it with R/O water.And add a bit of salts to get my ph correct when mashing. I think I finally found spring water I like,I havent liked my all R/0 + salts water for brewing really my last dozen I tried, I like the spring/R/0 combo + salts as needed latley.

You guys are lucky.. Our tap water is chlorinated, soft, and has arsenic in it. Lots of fun for brewing.

I use RO water Around the world, household drinking water purification systems, including a reverse osmosis step, are commonly used for improving water for drinking and cooking.

Tap.

woknblues said:

If I remember to start ahead, I use my own filtered water. If not, and that is usually because it takes 8 hours to get 2.5 gallons, I use "drinking water" from the grocery store.. It has some minerals added to it, that are usually good for beer. I find "spring water" sometimes is too pure, or void of minerals. I feel if it doesn't really taste great (too pure), it doesn't make the best beer either.

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You are correct sir. I work for a spring water company. Because of high iron we run it through our RO filtration. If it was anymore "pure" it would be distilled.

I use jugs of store bought spring water that has minerals added. I would like to use the water from work because we get monthly water reports and it's free, but I'm still a bit uneasy about brewing salts and such.

The cold water tap in my kitchen sink has an inline Rainfresh charcoal filter on it and the water tastes pretty good to me so that's what I use.

Now in Pearland: store bought drinking water (from Kroger)

Previously:
Lake Jackson: half tap half filtered (pretty sure one of the reasons my beer while living there was never very good)
Austin: 100% tap

my local tap water tastes great and isn't too hard or soft. lucky me
i dont alter it at all

50/50 tap and distilled for now, until I get a real water report. I know my water is not the best, but I dont know specifics. Has worked well for me so far.

Well,that local spring water I've been using worked great again. My Hopped & Confused v2 is good with that light euro sort of light lager flavor,spicy hops with that crispness from the yeast. This one came out clear too finally.

I use tap water that's been through the softener. I have an RO system in my house but it would take quite a while to get the amount needed for brewing.

When I first started brewing, I used RO water with a little mineral mixture added back in. Since our well water tasted so awful (and had some lovely uranium in the well water to boot), I didn't even think of trying it for brewing. The beer came out great.

I have moved to a different part of the country where our tap water tastes very good. Now, I use tap water with a campden tablet to get rid of the chloramine used in the local city water. I have just cracked my first keg since moving and the beer came out great.

In all of our moves, our tap water has either tasted great or really crappy. If it tastes good to drink, it is likely good to brew with too.