Boiling Spring Water

I generally buy gallon jugs of Spring Water from our local Wal-mart for my brew. I've been operating under the premise that bottled water doesn't require boiling. So far, so good... but is this true?

Inquiring minds want to know...

I also use bottled spring water and I boil whatever is going into the wort/beer. Better safe than sorry.

before I made a wort chiller, I used chilled gallon jugs of Walmart spring or drinking water to help cool the wort before yeast pitching. didn't have any infection problems.

It's fine to add directly to the wort. When I was doing extract brews, I did it all the time with no problems.

Wicked Daddy said:

Better safe than sorry.

Click to expand...

That's really what it boils down to (do not excuse the pun)

if you don't boil it...its an increase in risk for infection. Not a big risk though, and you'll find a hundred guys on this forum that have never had a problem with not boiling their top off water...even when it comes from their tap!

after all most 'spring' water comes from a spigot somewhere not too 'spring like'. for example, New Jersey.

So you can boil if you like, or you can skip it and likely never have a negative effect.