How important is good water?

Hello,

My name is Justin, this is my first post so hello to all! Have been reading this site for a while now. Got alot of great tips and just have not posted yet as most of my questions have been answered by searching previous threads.

my question now is how important is the water i use? Do most of you use bottled water? I live in Northeast ohio. My city water I think is excellent, comes from a reservoir that does not allow fishing, boats or anything near the water (although some of us sneak out there to fish cause it amazing to fish there lol). I always drink from faucet water and the water taste great. I am on my second batch of beer which is a brewers best APA and have done cream ale and have an Imperial nut in secondaray, all brewers best kits from LHBS, And now have a DFH 60 clone in the secondary that was not made from a kit. Think I am rambling now. Anyways Im getting an off flavor, it is hard for me to describe. But have been thinking that it might be the water.

I do sanitize pretty well using a powder no rinse.

Describe your brewing process if you can. Sounds like you're doing extract brewing. Generally, RO or distilled water is best when brewing from kits.

Disagree with Wiezer on the distilled water comment. You aren't supposed to use distilled water for extract kits from what I understand. Bottled water or purified water is fine as there are some additives in it that you need when combining with an extract. If your water tastes good to you when you are drinking it straight from the tap, then it's okay to brew with. Now if you get into all-grain you'll need to know your water profile and get more specific with your batches. Describe the off-flavor?

Since your water is from a reservoir it has most likely been treated with chlorine or chloramine, you want that out. Other than that I feel, just IMO, you are fine with your tap water if you think it tastes good, although I would probably filter it. Honestly I think RO and distilled leave beer a bit lifeless. Water is the majority of the ingredients in you beer, the base of what your beer is built on, it is very important IMO.

An off flavor can be caused by many things though.

Water quality is critical. The good news is, if it tastes good when you drink it, then it's good to brew with...

Now, having said that, there are styles that are probably more suited to brew with your water. In other words, some styles will be better with your water than other styles.

If you're fairly new and make good beer, don't worry about it. If you're gaining experience and want to work on a new challenge, then learn about water reports and quality.

I doubt your off taste is from the water but probably from somewhere else in your process. What brand sanitizer do you use and do you use a cleaner first?

i use the ld carlson cleaner and one step sanitizer.
Just cracked another one that sat for an extra two days before i put it in the fridge. Taste is not as bad, it is kinda sweet mabe just needs a bit longer, sat 2 weeks primary , 1 week secondary and bottle about alitte over two weeks now.

Meander Reservoir, perhaps? Yes, that is great water. And a great name for your next brew! Meander Reserve. Sounds catchy. Don't get caught by the rangers!

I had some bad off flavors from my first 3 brews that I can only attribute to my tap water. I switched to store bough water and my next brew was one of the best IPAs I've ever had

jb, does your tap water have those flavors off the tap or do they only manifest when you brew with it?

Saying that if your water tastes good to drink then its ok to brew with I am thinking is only true some of the time. Everywhere I move I think the water tastes bad at first but after a year or two of drinking it I start to like it. If this happens then the water may be bad but you may not know it since its what you are used to. I am in Findlay Ohio , and our city water comes from the local reservoir but is treated at some point and may contain trace amounts of chemicals as well as all the minerals and who knows what else from the Blanchard river. I have brewed 3 batches of beer so far which tasted ok except for this strong bitter aftertaste which was the same in all 3. Its not a hops or grain type of bitterness but something else , and its not enough to ruin the beer necessarily but since it was in all 3 I am thinking it has something to do with the water. There might be something in the water that is reacting with the ingredients or yeast or even the alcohol in the finished product that causes the flavor. Im definately gonna start using bottled water for now on when possible.

ThePearsonFam said:

jb, does your tap water have those flavors off the tap or do they only manifest when you brew with it?

Click to expand...

We drink it through the filter built into the fridge, and it's okay to drink that way. But there is definitely a lot of chlorine and chloromine in the water. If you run the faucet, it smells like bleach water. Those first 3 brews, I didn't treat the water with campden tablets either, maybe if I had done that, it would have turned out better. It was really the only logical answer to the off flavor that I was having, as my processes stayed the same, I just switched to different water.

how old is this beer? Is it still green? My guess is give it more time. Dont go blaming anything really if you havent givin it enough time .YOu can describe the taste and we can evaluate that but your brewing process has alot to do like the temps you pitched and fermented.....

unionrdr said:

I live in Sheffield,OH,& our water comes from Lake Erie through a treatment plant right on the lake. In hot weather,it tastes a bit like flat alka seltzer. So I started using natural spring water from southern Ohio (well,south from me). The beer def tastes better. They say spring water has trace elements in it that are good for the yeast. So I'm going with that.

Click to expand...

I haven't noticed the flat taste myself, but I think that a water filter is definitely in the future to try and mitigate the chlorine in our water.


If you want to find out what is in your water, your city/county should have a water resource. Also, If there is a homebrew club in your area they may have the data on a website or you can ask them.

Preluder said:

i use the ld carlson cleaner and one step sanitizer.
Just cracked another one that sat for an extra two days before i put it in the fridge. Taste is not as bad, it is kinda sweet mabe just needs a bit longer, sat 2 weeks primary , 1 week secondary and bottle about alitte over two weeks now.

Click to expand...

Two weeks in the bottle is pretty early, what temps are they being stored at?

For most lower gravity beers 2 weeks probably got you fully fermented but if you're not taking gravity readings it's hard to tell. A sweet taste would tend to indicate fermentation was not quite complete. I'd probably leave it in primary 3 weeks and bottle from there if you're not going to do hydro readings.

An inline or tap mounted carbon filter should help with the chlorine and help reduce any minerals starting to come out of solution, in case you are a long way from the waterplant or on a dead end line. You should get a consumer confidence report each year from your municipality describing the water quality and what is used in treatment. If not, it should be available online. The EPA mandates that any public water system does this annually ( I run a water plant in northwest Ohio).
Inline filters can be picked up for $10. Cheap improvement to better your beer.

So is there a comparable chart for certain beer styles that I can compare my water analysis report to? The numbers don't mean much to me if I don't have a comparable baseline. For example, is chlorine at 1.15 a high value, low value or what?

From a safe water standpoint, it is very good. 1.15 is in mg/L, or parts per million. The EPA requires a minimum 0.2 mg/L free cl2 everywhere throughout the distribution system.

A tap style carbon filter will remove that, or you can simply fill some 5 gallon containers a day or two early, and let the chlorine dissipate into the air. If your treatment is a lime softening plant, letting it set will also bring down the pH which is probably leaving the plant at 9.2-8.5. Boiling the water will do the same thing for the chlorine, but could possibly lead to an aftertaste if the chlorine reacts to your pots.

Also watch for any news of algae blooms in the source raw water previous to using. This can cause off tastes in your water (special note to the Lake Erie water guys; blue green algaes are getting bad in the summer heat on Erie). Filters help this as well, but don't remove dissolved organics as well. I typically blend waters. I use some city water that has set pre boil, then finish with some DI water that can be corrosive on it's own.

I am new to brewing, so my area is just the water. I still am reading on it for all grain.

I have to chime in here too to echo that the common phrase of, "if your water tastes good to drink, then it is good for brewing" isn't necessarily true. After a terrible first few batches following that phrase, I looked at a water report and found out I have hard, alkaline water. Tastes great out of the faucet, but can't brew with it unless it is about 80% diluted. I'm still trying to nail down the right water balance to get tasty brew. SO even for a beginner with extract, if you have off tastes, a water report is a good place to start.....even if your tap water tastes great to drink

I've used bottled water for all of my brews so far. I usually pickup the gallon jugs of spring water and all of my beers have tasted great. If in doubt about your water quality, I don't think you can really go wrong with bottled water from the store. If you want to be really picky you can boil the bottled water, but in my opinion it isn't necessary

You may have chemicals in your water that don't show up when you taste them, but will show up after fermentation. Or you may have high alkalinity, which is good for dark beers, not good for light beers. Ok for the inbetweens.

And I've heard from several sources that I trust that it's best to use distilled water for extract because the extract already contains the minerals that the yeasts need to do their thing (it doesn't get taken out during the extraction process) and adding your own minerals may unbalance the amounts or overdo it on one or more. I think it's more important with lighter styles.

That's not to say that you will always make bad beer using tap water by any means. It's just unnecessary and could cause your beer to be less than it could be.

Don,

Check this link out. I have very low mineral, low hardness water. Good for making Pilsners and Ales, not so much for stouts.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-2.html

Allow me to qualify my statement about being okay to brew with if it tastes good...

Generally speaking, that's a true statement... Notice that I quickly followed that up with a note about there being styles that'll taste better depending on the water quality/contents.

People have been brewing beer for a VERY long time and they had to experiement with the beer to determine which styles were best for the location. That's why you have light Pilsner beers from Pilsen and porters from the Brits. The single biggest reason for that is the water they had to brew with... Could the Brits brew a light lager and drink it, absolutely! Would it taste as good as the Porters, no way!

If you're not happy with the beer you've brewed and think that water might be the cause, either;
1) try distilled or reverse osmosis water
2) try a different style at the other end of the SRM scale

I'd advise against spring water since you don't know what the mineral content is and might end up at the same place you started. RO or DI water are probably the best options for extract kits if you're using something other than the water from your faucet and are going to go buy it.

So it seems there are some who say spring water is the way to go since it still contains some minerals good for brewing and DI is not good, some day DI water is the way to go as the spring may contain stuff detrimental to brewing. Thoughts?

On a side note I just received some extra values from the public works dept. that were not included on the original water analysis report. Anybody have thoughts on how these values measure up for brewing?

Alkalinity as CaCO3. 108 mg/l
Hardness as CaCO3. 142
Calcium. 36.5
Magnesium. 10.9
Potassium. 1.4

if you can find the sodium (Na), chloride (Cl) and sulfate (SO4) values, then you can do a thorough analysis of your water.

TH made a great spreadsheet to help determine water additions. Find it here: www.ezwatercalculator.com/

DI/RO water for extract is fine since the brewers that made the extract kits typically use water additions. Listen to the Water-ganza on Brew Strong. Find them here: http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/Brew-Strong/search/water Just listen to the four part podcast.

donshizzles said:

So it seems there are some who say spring water is the way to go since it still contains some minerals good for brewing and DI is not good, some day DI water is the way to go as the spring may contain stuff detrimental to brewing. Thoughts?

Click to expand...

Spring water is generally ok for AG brewing because you need the minerals that are in there. However, you don't know how MUCH of what is in there either, so it's probably no better than untreated tap water TBH.

I think distilled is better for extract since the extract already contains minerals from when they made it. Adding more of your own is likely not going to help make a better beer, simply because you still don't know how much of any of that stuff you have now.

On a side note I just received some extra values from the public works dept. that were not included on the original water analysis report. Anybody have thoughts on how these values measure up for brewing?

Alkalinity as CaCO3. 108 mg/l
Hardness as CaCO3. 142
Calcium. 36.5
Magnesium. 10.9
Potassium. 1.4

Click to expand...

You'd need more for a complete analysis, as has been said, but I think it look pretty normal as far as alkalinity. Probably best for middle of the medium color beers.

Water analysis is a whole nuther area of brewing. It can be fun, but pretty geeky too. I think 80% of the science aspect of brewing comes into play here.

ThePearsonFam said:

if you can find the sodium (Na), chloride (Cl) and sulfate (SO4) values, then you can do a thorough analysis of your water.

TH made a great spreadsheet to help determine water additions. Find it here: www.ezwatercalculator.com/

DI/RO water for extract is fine since the brewers that made the extract kits typically use water additions. Listen to the Water-ganza on Brew Strong. Find them here: http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/Brew-Strong/search/water Just listen to the four part podcast.

Click to expand...

Thanks!!!! That spreadsheet is great

Yes it is the meander reservoir! Like the idea of the beer name. Will try bottled water next time. Water about the water you can get at walmart from there osmosis machine? will be a bit cheaper. Thanks for everyones in put. Have not done any testing of the water. And i am sure it is fine to use my tap water. Gonna try the bottled water tho just to try and notive any differnce.

unionrdr said:

I think some folks on here are confusing natural spring water with well water. Well water is ground water,where you just dig down deep enough for it to fill a stone-lined hole in the ground. They are usually very mineraly.
Natural spring water you have to drill for,just like oil. It's contained in pockets in the bedrock. In some places,it comes to the surface. Or near enough to the surface of the bedrock where you don't have to drill down very far. But it is generally much cleaner tasting than well water.
I grew up with well water,I can tell you it's not always pleasant. You can really get a good idea of what mineral taste is drinkin that stuff every day.

Click to expand...

Well water and spring water are both from the ground and are typically unprocessed... pump it up/let it flow up and then bottle. Both may be from the ground and taste great, but both of them may have minerals in varying quantities. I'd recommend, if you're interested in using spring/well water, get the water tested by Ward Labs (http://www.wardlab.com/FeeSchedule/WaterAnalysis.aspx - get test W-6). If you're buying spring/well water from a commercial company, then ask for a water quality report from that company. If you buy RO/DI water, assume it has negligible minerals and make additions to get the water you want/need for that style. If you're using city water, get the water report from them. The have to give the report to you and it's often found online.

Preluder said:

Hello,

My name is Justin, this is my first post so hello to all! Have been reading this site for a while now. Got alot of great tips and just have not posted yet as most of my questions have been answered by searching previous threads.

my question now is how important is the water i use? Do most of you use bottled water? I live in Northeast ohio. My city water I think is excellent, comes from a reservoir that does not allow fishing, boats or anything near the water (although some of us sneak out there to fish cause it amazing to fish there lol). I always drink from faucet water and the water taste great. I am on my second batch of beer which is a brewers best APA and have done cream ale and have an Imperial nut in secondaray, all brewers best kits from LHBS, And now have a DFH 60 clone in the secondary that was not made from a kit. Think I am rambling now. Anyways Im getting an off flavor, it is hard for me to describe. But have been thinking that it might be the water.

I do sanitize pretty well using a powder no rinse.

Click to expand...

Did you try doing a new batch with bottled water?

Preluder said:

Yes it is the meander reservoir! Like the idea of the beer name. Will try bottled water next time. Water about the water you can get at walmart from there osmosis machine? will be a bit cheaper. Thanks for everyones in put. Have not done any testing of the water. And i am sure it is fine to use my tap water. Gonna try the bottled water tho just to try and notive any differnce.

Click to expand...

Using the Walmalt RO machine is perfect! It's perfect for extract AND AG brews as well. In an AG brew, the thing you'd need to add to RO water is maybe a bit of calcium chloride. But for an extract brew, or a partial mash brew, it's perfect!

My dad lives in Youngstown, and while the water tastes great it's NOT good brewing water. Way too much in the way of chlorine taste/smell. I'm not sure if his source uses chloramine, but I wouldn't brew with it.

unionrdr said:

I think some folks on here are confusing natural spring water with well water. Well water is ground water,where you just dig down deep enough for it to fill a stone-lined hole in the ground. They are usually very mineraly.
Natural spring water you have to drill for,just like oil. It's contained in pockets in the bedrock. In some places,it comes to the surface. Or near enough to the surface of the bedrock where you don't have to drill down very far. But it is generally much cleaner tasting than well water.
I grew up with well water,I can tell you it's not always pleasant. You can really get a good idea of what mineral taste is drinkin that stuff every day.

Click to expand...

That's not necessarily so. Some spring water is bad, too. Water from the ground is water from the ground, whether you use a pump to get it out or it comes out on its own.

There's a water company in my county called "Crystal Spring" water. They bottle it and sell it all over as spring water.

It comes from the Crystal Falls, Michigan city tap. That's right- they bottle the city tap water and call it "Crystal Spring" water. Now I agree that it's going tasting water, but it goes to show that bottled water isn't necessarily better than what comes out of your tap. In fact, in my area, it's the SAME water.