Your extract brew water.

I'm wondering what some of the extract brewers here use for water.

Upon reading an article in the current BYO I have realized a new notion. Malt extracts still have all the minerals from the water from which they were made. I will be using distilled water for a portion of my next beer. I always use tap water for the mash/sparge/boil. Then I use 3 gallons of store bought drinking water for cooling the wort.

This article has prompted a change so I'm thinking I'll boil and cool water and use half this and half tap for the mash/sparge. My next brew is gonna be my first PM w/ 5 lbs of grain so I'll not go crazy with the distilled for now. What are you using?

I have three one gallon water jugs that I picked up at the local "Water Store". They are a higher quality plastic, so they should last a good long time (I'm only doing 5 gallon batches for now). When i'm ready to brew, I sanitize the jugs and swing buy a water filter machine on my way home from work, $0.25 per gallon for triple filtered water. Throw the three jugs in the fridge. I boil my wrort with tap water from the kitchen sink. 2.5 gallons. (give or take for boil off) Once the wort is chilled to a reasonable temp, i pull the jugs from the fridge, pour them vigerously into the primary and follow with my cooled wort. Drops me to a good pitching temp and away we go. My "Basic Wheat" Is in the bottle right now and tastes sweeter then any brew I've had from the bar.

I use bottled water for my extract brews but only because I am way too lazy to boil then cool my top off water. (I use bottled to top off PMs too).

I use distilled for my extract brews, too.


TL

i use tap water to top off. never had a problem and it gives it nice aeration. i don't even use my pump anymore for small gravity brews.

I read that article this afternoon right before a brewing session and was surprised that I had never thought of or read about the minerals already in the extract. I considered going to get some distilled water but said what the hell. I will try it on my next brew and see if I can detect a difference in quality.


In Primary----Octoberfest (I know Late start)
Bottled -------West coast Ale
Kegged-------Belgian Wit
On Deck-----Black Dog Stout

I use tap/well water with my DME. It's already super saturated and has lots of minerals. I'm not sure how anyone could know(or even worry about) their water composition without knowing how the malt extract was made.

I usually purchase some sprint water from the supermarket - here in canada it is about 2.50 for 10 liters - costs a little extra but it always tastes very good.

I use tap water for the boil and to top it off. I usually add a gallon or so of water into the carboy, then add the wort once it's reasonably cooled down, then the rest of the water to get it to 5gal. That seems to introduce a good amount of oxygen.

I've been filling gallon jugs from my trusty Brita

My local grocery store, HEB, has a water vending machine for $0.35 a gallon of Reverse Osmosis, filtered, UV treated water. I use it to make a 5 gallon jug of StarSan solution that lasts forever. I'd bet it would be good for an extract brew too.

I use Lake Superior Artesian Well water From the deepest cleanest freshwater lake in the US