tap water in starter

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Saccharomycetaceae

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Hey,
I just something pretty stupid. I made a starter, but I boiled off more than I meant to and came up 1.5 cups short. Without thinking, I topped it off with tap water (straight from the tap) and then immediately cursed myself.
Should I use that starter, or will I most likely get some contamination?
thanks
matt
 
I used straight hot tap water once to make a starter. Never even boiled any of it.

Surprisingly it was one of my four brews that actually tasted good....

Basically I have serious brewing problems, in the 16 or so I have done only four tasted good, that was one of them.

I should mention though, I turned my hot water heater almost all the way up. It gets to about 140-150 straight from the tap. Yeah, its basically enough to kill almost everything.
 
rollinred said:
I used straight hot tap water once to make a starter. Never even boiled any of it.

Surprisingly it was one of my four brews that actually tasted good....

Basically I have serious brewing problems, in the 16 or so I have done only four tasted good, that was one of them.

I should mention though, I turned my hot water heater almost all the way up. It gets to about 140-150 straight from the tap. Yeah, its basically enough to kill almost everything.[/QUOTE]

Health department says 170 degrees
Click to expand...
 
lots of bacteria can live past 170F. In fact they can live past boiling which is why you use a pressure cooker for canning. The pressure raises the boiling point. But if you have bacteria in your tap water you have much bigger problems. I would not make a habit of not boiling your starters but you may get away with it every now and again.
 
I wouldnt even blink at adding that much tap water.

People do partial boils constantly and top up with tap water, myself included.
No boil kits recommend use 80% of the water straight cold from the tap.

few ml in a big yeasty starter? I'd be shocked if anything bad happened.
 

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