Water question

I have horrible tasting tap water with a chlorine content that varies. Sometimes you can even smell it in the shower. It also has added flouride. For my first brew, I used store bought Purified Water with Minerals added to taste. Don't know what the mineral content is. The beer came out tasting great and I felt comfortable enough to use it in my second batch. The biggest problem I am having is clearing the beer. Both are ales. One is the Amber Ale from Brewer's, the second is Fat Tire Clone from Austin Homebrew. I've tried Gelatin and Cold Crashing on the Fat Tire clone, and it didn't turn out very clear. I'm sure it'll taste fine, and I'm bottling it tomorrow.

My question is, am I missing out by using bottled water? Is there anything I can add to it to get the right hardness, and am I being too picky about my tap water?

are you brewing extract or all grain? water is much more important to all grain brewing because of the mash pH. there are also many other aspects of your process that can play a role in clarity before i would suspect water. cold break, fermentation temperature, time, yeast strain, etc. all of that can play a role.

Try to get a (tap) water report from your supplier. Sometimes they have values for the minerals you are interested in, Ca, Mg, Na, CaCO3, SO4, Cl, etc. Then post that here. There are some very knowledgeable people on this board who can help. If it is just chorine, and not chloramine, you can boil it off. You can also contact your bottled water company for their analyis on their product. I'm afraid without this information, there is no easy, pat answer to your question.

Here is my tap water report.

I had to retype it because the format won't easily let me copy and paste.

Microbiological Contaminants
Total Coliform Bacteria 1.7%

Radiological Contaminants
Alpha Emitters 6.2pCi/L
Radium 0.9pCi/L
Uranium 0.25pCi/L

Inorganic Contaminants
Arsenic 3ppb
Flouride 0.64ppm
Nitrate 0.12ppm
Sodium 56ppm

Stage 1 Disinfectants and Disinfection Byproducts
Chloramines 3.2ppm
Holoacetic Acids(5) 25.14ppm
TTHM (Total trihalomethanes) 45.33ppm
N-nitroso-dimethylamine (NDMA) 2.1ppt

edkittley said:

Here is my tap water report.

I had to retype it because the format won't easily let me copy and paste.

Microbiological Contaminants
Total Coliform Bacteria 1.7%

Radiological Contaminants
Alpha Emitters 6.2pCi/L
Radium 0.9pCi/L
Uranium 0.25pCi/L

Inorganic Contaminants
Arsenic 3ppb
Flouride 0.64ppm
Nitrate 0.12ppm
Sodium 56ppm

Stage 1 Disinfectants and Disinfection Byproducts
Chloramines 3.2ppm
Holoacetic Acids(5) 25.14ppm
TTHM (Total trihalomethanes) 45.33ppm
N-nitroso-dimethylamine (NDMA) 2.1ppt

Click to expand...

No help there, none of the important minerals were tested, except Na. And you have chloramines, which negates the boiling. You might be better off using bottled water. Call the company, they can tell you what is in the bottled water, or they should be able to. But on the bright side, you have enough radium and uranium so you won't lose your carboy in the dark

Campden tablets will help with the chloramine.