Water question

Hello,

Having moved to Florida, I have water issues. I'm following the #1 rule of brewing water, if you don't drink the water, don't brew with it! We have a high end ($6k worth!) water filtration system on the house that effectively produces distilled water through a combination of resins and RO. Assuming mineral poor water, what would be a good combintation of salts to add? I've read and re-read the water section in Palmer's How to Brew but it always makes my head spin! I'd just like to get in the ball park without doing any testing. Is there a product out there designed for distilled water? Anyone out there in a similar situation?

Thanks!

A lot of LBS sell brewing salts. Get with them and they can sell you some additional minerals. BTW, it doesn't take much, so the minerals will seem pretty minimal.

ajdelange's water chemistry primer is fantastic, and it should serve your needs perfectly: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/brewing-water-chemistry-primer-198460/

If the water is RO and demineralized through cationic and anionic tanks, then you should be able to assume your water is free of all minerals. RO water typically has a small amount of minerals in it. Its relatively easy to add most minerals, but adding alkalinity is difficult unless you use the alkalinity producers other than chalk. Using a scale that measures down to the tenth of a gram is helpful too. Using teaspoons won't allow you to know how much you're adding. But if a brewer finds that adding known volumes of minerals with teaspoon measurement meets their flavor expectations, then at least the teaspoon measurement is repeatable.

The Primer mentioned above is quite good enough to get you started. If you want to take it further, download and use Bru'n Water.

http://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/ is a excel spreadsheet and on the water adjustment page you can set your water to 100% distilled or RO and then make your additions from there.

Barry