Distilled water?

Would distilled water be good for brewing? It is a lot cheaper then bottled water. 4 gal. at wallmart is $2.56. And 4 gal should be all you need as you could have 1 1/2 gal of hot wort to add to the 4 cooled distilled gal.

If you use distilled water and are doing straight extracts, adding some yeast food would be a very good idea. If you are also steeping specialty grains, you can probably get by without the yeast food.

My rule of thumb is, if the water tastes good, it will probably make good beer. Trying tasting the distilled water next to spring water, which costs only pennies more.

Distilled water doesn't have near enough minerals to work well for brewing, that is.. if you do all grain. If you are doing extract there's plenty of minerals in the condensed liquid/powder that'll end up in the water.

You could use distilled water for about 80% of your brew, and tap for the other 20%.. if your tap water sucks. Or just use spring water.

SteveM said:

My rule of thumb is, if the water tastes good, it will probably make good beer. Trying tasting the distilled water next to spring water, which costs only pennies more.

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I was trying to be subtle.

Actually, anyone who ever tries this will swear off using distilled water for anything to be consumed, because it is awful to drink. Use it in your iron, or your fish tank, or for rinsing your contact lenses...but don't brew with it.

Distilled water isn't my choice for water. If the house water source is good, just use that and adjust recipes to fit.

distilled water is by far the best water for home brewing if you have an understanding of water chemistry and are willing to spend just a few cents more per batch to add minerals and/or adjust the pH to what you want. being as you care enough about your brews to buy distilled water i bet you would spend the little bit of time to get to know something about water chemistry and learn how to adjust the water to yoour needs via adding minerals. water is the single most important part of beer in my opinion. if it weren't for water it'd be bread. from experience it's worth it to care about your water supply, it will drastically effect the final outcome of your beer. think about the fact that the major brewing centers in the world became famous for their water supply. i'd use distilled water and tinker with a program like pro-mash to figure out how many minerals to add based on what kind of water you want. it may sound complicated but it is easy and well worth the effort, especially if your tap water is no good.

edit: if you don't want to take the time to work all that stuff out a good drinking water that is not salty tasting works well.