question on water in san diego

i am about to just do my 2ed all grain and i am trying to make a high gravity wort. I have 16 pounds of grain and 10 gallons of water. But i did not realize i need five gallons for my strike water and 8 for my sparging. Do you think i would be ok to use tap water for the last 3 gallons? I live in san diego just on the out skirts of downtown near little italy.

I live in San Diego also... as of the last health report for US water (that I was able to obtain), we have the "worst" tap water in the country (average across a number of variables).

I haven't looked into a water report to really get the details, but when you're consistently one of the worst (if not THE worst) cities in the country for tap water, I personally avoid it at all costs.

16lbs of grain for a 10 gallon batch is not that high- what kind of beer are you making?

The general rule is- if the water tastes good to drink, it'll make good beer. If there are off flavors in the water coming out of your tap, they'll likely show up in your beer.

As for the water chemistry- I wouldn't even bother if you're just getting started with all grain. It's just one more thing to worry about at this point, and you can make good beer without messing with it.

I use the water here, but I run it through a filter to get the chlorine out. But hearing that we have the worst water in the country.....I'm second guessing it. I need to look up the water quality results. I hate buying store bought and wasting all that plastic.

One of the references I cited is the following:

US Tap Water Database - San Diego

That's way too many pollutants for my taste, especially if you compare it to other cities in the US.

You can see here, at the bottom of the page, CA is the worst state in the country for water.

Personally, I don't want that in my beer...

I've been brewing with SD tap water for several years now. It tastes like crap, but for beer it's has a really neutral chemistry .I did for a while only use bottled water,but now I just use tap water. I don't taste a difference.

One good thing to do is like what telebrewer does is the Carbon filter to remove some of the Cl. But for the most part we have good brewing water here in SD.

I've been brewing with SD water for quite some time, however, you do have to remove the chloromine which is used to treat the water. you can do this with 1 crushed camden tablet per 5 gallons of water, stored overnight uncovered. I keep around a few 5 gallon water bottles just for this use, filling them up the night before and placeing the camden in there.

I've been brewing with the tap water here for about a year and a half or so. The poor quality water really shines through in smaller beers i've noticed

I just brewed my first AG on Wed and I didn't do anything to the tap water. My fermentation is running strong, so I'll let you know how it turns out in a few weeks.

kman

I've brewed many ag beers w/ SD tap water and no treatment. The beer tastes fine and I have never noticed any off flavor due to the water. I wouldn't hesitate to use the carbon filter or camden tabs mentioned above, but if you don't have those items, your beer will turn out just fine right from the tap.

I use a charcoal filter if I'm using our tap water (you can build one or buy one pre-fad at home brew mart-same price either way). I talked with a couple guys from Ballast about water, and they said that this what they do. I use this method for most american styles, have done it with belgians with good results too. But for most european beers, I'll build a water profile. In you're case, without a filter, I would try to get some bottled spring water if you can, or at least boil the 3 gals of tap water for about 20 mins to remove some of the added chemicals.

I'm in Ocean Beach. Our tap water tastes like it was filtered through sand from Dog Beach, and it takes too long to fill up ten gallons from the filter, drag it downstairs, etc.

I just stockpile the 2.5 gallon jugs from Costco and use those.

So it's more out of laziness than fear of the water per se.