Water for the Brew

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McGreen

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In all the books I read it says to use distilled water. Is this nonsense?

I live in NY and the water here is hard and highly chlorinated. Should I be using just tap? All distilled? A mixture of the 2? What do you think?
 
If you use distilled water you should really treat it with minerals. I use tap water and some gypsum.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Water

Thanks for the link. It cleared up a ton! I use extract and in my primary right now I have all distilled water. Next time I think I will do a mixture, 2 gallons tap, 3 gallons distilled, 1 or 2 tsp of gypsum. How much gypsum do you ise and recommend?

Cheers!
 
Thanks for the link. It cleared up a ton! I use extract and in my primary right now I have all distilled water. Next time I think I will do a mixture, 2 gallons tap, 3 gallons distilled, 1 or 2 tsp of gypsum. How much gypsum do you ise and recommend?

Cheers!

My tap water is 30 ppm. I use 1 tsp of gypsum per 5 gallons.
 
In all the books I read it says to use distilled water. Is this nonsense?

I live in NY and the water here is hard and highly chlorinated. Should I be using just tap? All distilled? A mixture of the 2? What do you think?

I wouldn't use chlorinated tap water to make beer if you paid me.

If you're using extract, just use distilled water. If you want more hop "punch" then yes, a little gypsum in the boil (1 tsp) might kick things up a notch.

Water becomes much more important when you're mashing, but for now, your safe bet is distilled water or RO (Reverse Osmosis) water like you can buy from the grocery store machine.

Good luck.
 
I use a water filter that I pop onto the tap when I want to brew. It is supposed to remove most of the chlorine which can mess up your beer flavour.

B
 
When I was buying bottled water for brewing, I always bought spring water. At the time, though, I hadn't really thought it through -- the water used to create the extract probably had a decent mix of minerals.

Now that I'm all-grain, I use tap water from my well. Turns out a pretty good brew.

But you're right -- I wouldn't use chlorinated water.
 
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