Are You Filtering Water for Extract Brewing

I posted a question related to my Pur water filter in another forum but after posting it I realized what the real question is.

I am doing extract with specialty grain brewing. I live in New York City. How important is filtering your water for extract brewing? If you are filtering, what do you use? Do you boil your top-off water?

I have a number of gallon jugs that I fill with PUR filtered tap water.

I place 4 of them in the deep freezer about 4-5 hours prior to brewing and use it for top off water. I do not boil it. I've been using this technique since 1994.

I've been doing mostly partial mashes this year and still put water in the freezer even though I have a wort chiller.

I filter mine, but I have a well and don't like the taste. If you're concerned about chlorine you can always do a full boil.

I have used a PUR filter also and it works pretty good. The county has been working on expanding the water service so for the las month or so the water has not tasted the same. I switched to distilled water for my extract brews just to try it out. According to a brew cast I heard, it stated LME/DME already has minerals from the water that was boiled off while it was made. I will see in two weeks if using distilled water makes a difference in my extract brews. When the county stops screwing with the water chemicals because of the expansion I will go back to using the PUR filter.

I filter 100% of the water I drink and especially to brew with. SWMBO got us a Big Berkey water filter about a year ago. We also use the 'Black Berkey' filters in combination with the PF-2 filters which take out over 95% of the fluoride as well. Not only does it remove all of the chlorine / chloramamine, it is so thorough it will take food coloring out of the water. It's actually classified as a water purifier, not just a filter. I highly recommend getting one if you don't trust your tap water or it has more junk in it than you want to consume. I saw a report that an individual did on the SE Michigan drinking water and it has over 160 chemicals, drugs, and unknown compounds in it. Ugh, to say the least.

Here is a link if anyone is interested:

http://www.berkeyfilters.com/

VApatriot said:

I filter 100% of the water I drink and especially to brew with. SWMBO got us a Big Berkey water filter about a year ago. We also use the 'Black Berkey' filters in combination with the PF-2 filters which take out over 95% of the fluoride as well. Not only does it remove all of the chlorine / chloramamine, it is so thorough it will take food coloring out of the water. It's actually classified as a water purifier, not just a filter. I highly recommend getting one if you don't trust your tap water or it has more junk in it than you want to consume. I saw a report that an individual did on the SE Michigan drinking water and it has over 160 chemicals, drugs, and unknown compounds in it. Ugh, to say the least.

Here is a link if anyone is interested:

http://www.berkeyfilters.com/

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Those are great filters. I know quite a few people that have them.

Bassman said:

I posted a question related to my Pur water filter in another forum but after posting it I realized what the real question is.

I am doing extract with specialty grain brewing. I live in New York City. How important is filtering your water for extract brewing? If you are filtering, what do you use? Do you boil your top-off water?

Click to expand...

If you already have a filter, go ahead and use it for your brews. We have a brita that attaches to the faucet. I use it for all of my batches. If you don't have one, how does your tap water taste? If it tastes ok, then just go with that.

I'm currently filtering using a Brita, as I do all my drinking water because I really don't like the smell of chlorine - I can easily detect it. However, after reading this thread https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/chloramine-removal-41018/ it seems that beer is more affected by chloramine, so I'm thinking of campden tablets instead. A search for Chloramine on this site will bring up a lot of info.

One interesting thing I found is that apparently a vitamin C tablet will remove the chloramine from water!!! That's seems the easiest and most economical way. However, the source for this is Wikepedia. YMMV
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloramine

I'm not sure what to think about RO/Distilled. RO is easily and cheaply available. Maybe it's better for extract brewing? Since the extract has minerals in it, when you add regular water you are doubling up on the minerals. Our local water is already pretty hard.

Geez, those Berkley filters are more than some 5 stage RO units you can get.

I never filter my water. I'm lucky that I get access to some of the best tap water in the world.

I just get lazy and go buy spring water. THe water in my town is pretty bad and heavily chlorinated. I just do not trust a little filter for my water for beer.

I got one of these things.

20,000 gallons and ZERO maintenance for $40...they had homebrewing written all over them! lol

http://home-solutions.hsn.com/clean-and-pure-20-000-gallon-countertop-water-filter_p-5518786_xp.aspx?web_id=5518786&ocm=sekw

I filter mine. But my tap water taste like chlorine..soo ya filter

I've been using only DI water lately. Before I read about all the minerals already being contained in the extract, I used store bought spring water. However, I personally think the beers I brewed with spring water tasted better than the ones with DI water so I'm thinking of changing back to entirely spring water and seeing if that really is the cause.

NYC water is the best right out of the tap just ask Bklyn Brewery I been using NYC tap water without filtering and it tastes just fine, thats why we have the best pizza,bagels ,bread , chinese food ect,exc. You live in NYC so you already know.

I spend 4 bucks on 5 gallons of spring water at Walmart

I'm too impatient to wait to filter water, so I go the grocery store route. I got some strange looks when I bought 6 gallons of water... and nothing but 6 gallons of water on Friday night for this weekends brewing.

I just take a couple of better bottles to the store and use their culligan water filling station. its like 20 cent a gallon. Fast simple and cheap. I get really strange looks if i had just rinsed the bottles with starsan. Don't fear the foam

nepatsfan1 said:

I just get lazy and go buy spring water. THe water in my town is pretty bad and heavily chlorinated. I just do not trust a little filter for my water for beer.

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I do the same thing

I have a under the counter filter system...don't recall the brand.
I boil my topoff water the day before and let it chill over night outsdie...covered. I don't brew in the summer...lack of time...So topoff gets chilly overnite.

My tap water has Chlorine and floride in it and proabably a bunch of other chemicals. I spend the 5$ and buy bottled water. since the water is only about 10 cents a beer I figure it's worth it.

When I do extract brews I use 50/50 tap water and RO water. My tap is a little too hard for my liking (ground water) so I like to diluted a little...

I've been buying bottled Poland Springs water. It's actually from Maine where I live, and not far from me at all, so it's basically a cleaner version of my water anyways.