Well Water with a slight sulfur smell?????

So I moved and the place I am at has a well and the water has a slight sulphur smell. If I boil the water first will this get rid of the smell. The water tastes fine and the smell is not as bad as other peoples well water I have had in the past. I am sure it is safe I just don't want my beer to smell like it???

Get one of these and a carbon filter for it. Should help quite a bit.

I would definitely run your water though a charcoal filter and possibly have it tested to see what is in it. In the end I would use a more reliably source of water.

if half my beer smells like rhino farts while its brewing anyway, I assume the fumes will kidnap hte offending hell-spawned wafts, and jet em out with the rest of the riffraff into the blow off tube.

a little pre-carbon, and you should be goood to go to the faire.

I would have it tested. It really isn't that expensive. In fact if you have a company around your neck of the woods that sells water treatment systems, they sometimes do it for free to try to sell you the solution. You may need on of those ultraviolet light things to kill any bacteria and then a carbon/charcoal filter to get rid of smell.

Usually well water with a sulfur smell results from a natural mineral content; not from bacterial infection. However, it can't hurt to test your water. Infected wells are not unheard of. I don't know the hydrogeology of your area, but north of where I live in OH used to be called "The Black Sulfur Swamp. All wells in the area have varying degrees of a black sulur mineral content. Taste varies from vaguely unpleasant to undrinkable unless you were raided there.

I know that smell, had a friend with parents that had an upstate house. It's minerals in the water, and yeah... it stinks. You can filter the water, but boiling it will not make it go away as the minerals are too heavy to get boiled off with steam.


Rev.

Around here it is not uncommon to encounter the rotten egg smell in well water caused by a a bacterial infection in the well, plumbing or water heater. Google "shock treat well" for the procedure to disinfect your well and plumbing. It basically involves pouring household bleach in the well, running it out the taps and leaving it sit 24 hours before flushing everything out. Some people I know treat their well once a year.

Actually i think there is an older treatment I forgot the name but its a cheap way to treat water,it can also give this smell.

i hate to dredge up an old thread, but i have a similar situation. i dont mind going to RO water to brew, and build it up with required salts, but what about using well water with some occasional sulphur smell to be used with PBW and Starsan? anyone have any experience with this? i'd hate to use RO to brew, only to have my beer still smell/taste bad because i used the well water to sanitize my bottles...

thanks!

After an hour of boiling I seriously can't imagine you'd have any sulphur smell left.

So you suggest boiling any water I'm going to use for sanitizing?

I don't think for sanitizing water it will make that much of a difference to be honest. I think the sulphur smell will off gas and go away quite quickly.

OK great that's what I'm hoping. Brewing for the first time at new home and don't want to wreck it!

One of my old places had a well that threw nasty smelling water. We had a big old 5 gallon crock sitting on the kitchen counter. We would fill it up at night and by the next morning, the water smelled and tasted like spring water. It out gasses and the minerals settle pretty quick. Bet yours would too.

My sister will not drink our well water...says there is "stuff" in it. I can't drink her city water because it has even more stuff in it, like chlorine and fluoride...I can't get past that smell!

I hear ya...even when we lived in the city we didn't drink city water....thanks!

Just thought I would share what my father in-law and I do given he has well water and I have city supplied tap water...

I have city water (although not in a big city) that is fine to drink and what not. I use that water for cleaning and sanitizing. When I brew, I buy bottled spring water from Walmart (or anywhere else) since it's like $0.80 per gallon. Plus I can fill the empty jugs with tap water to freeze for the next batch of beer to cool the wort. In a pinch (for brewing or topping off the fermentor) I would use my tap water but I would get it from the fridge dispenser where it goes through the carbon filter.

My father in-law has well water that has a strong sulphur smell to it. They do not drink the water, they have a water delivery service that brings in 5 gallon jugs for their water dispenser. He does not use his well water to brew, clean or sanitize his equipment. He too buys water from the store for this. He figures for the little expense it is to buy bottled spring water, why risk the chance of ruining the beer in any step of the process.

We've lived on wells with sulfur smell. Boiling will not remove it. A carbon filter will do the trick though.

lump42 said:

We've lived on wells with sulfur smell. Boiling will not remove it. A carbon filter will do the trick though.

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Just what I was going to suggest. Just put in a whole-house filter and put a charcoal filter in there. It'll cost a little bit of money for the plumber to come out and install it (unless you're the handyman type, I'm not!) Also, have to change the filter every month or so, but it's not too bad. Those filters aren't that expensive.

I imagine a carbon filter will also do more good than just remove sulphur smell! Something I'll definitely have to consider! My main concern for brewing this weekend....is to sanitize with well water or not! Thanks to everyone's input thus far!

xpops said:

I imagine a carbon filter will also do more good than just remove sulphur smell! Something I'll definitely have to consider! My main concern for brewing this weekend....is to sanitize with well water or not! Thanks to everyone's input thus far!

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Yeah. I doubt a charcoal filter will remove much that you'd want in the way of minerals and such, but it should help with the sulfur.