good ole tap water

I've been brewing for a long time and this keeps coming up and just plain bugs me.
why is everyone always worried about tap water contaminating your beer?? Anyone who rinses out sanitizer...what do you rinse with??? Tap water. We all will set a glass of tap water in front of our children without batting an eye.
Anyone have any valid reason other than chloramines? Why do you folks that do it boil your tap water prior to adding as topup water???
Many times I've seen "never use straight tap water without boiling first" and then the instruction to rinse out the iodophor solution with a bottle washer attached to your tap
Just a curious brewer here

I'm also extremely bored right now....may put the question into perspective

Well, when I was doing extract brewing, I never boiled my water. I have excellent city water with no chloramines and no noticeable chlorine smell or taste. If I had water that I was unsure of, I'd boil. If I had bad tasting tap water, I'd buy bottled spring water.

I'm with you- if I can drink it, it's good enough for beer. I also would never rinse a no-rinse sanitizer.

I'm using store bought spring only because my city water uses both chlorine and chloramine depending on time of year. Apparently they switch to chlorine in the summer time to better cleanse the lines???

Anyways, I just didn't want the possibility of offtasting brew because of that, otherwise I trust my water system.

I don't think it's the chloramines that people are worried about, it's little bacteria and/or wild yeast that might be hanging out on your faucet or in your pipes or at some point between the water treatment plant or well and your wort. And believe me, there are plenty of bacteria and wild yeast that are perfectly harmless to your children, but will infect your beer like it was its goddamned job.

My theory is some people are just germ/bacteria freaks. Your right tap water is not going to infect your beer - if it tastes good to drink then use it. Some people are very scared of bacteria and go that extra mile for a peace of mind.

Basically if you use common sense and are pretty good with sanitization you will be fine. For instance some people sanitize beer bottles in advance and lie them upside down in the box with a clean papertowel on the bottom. Which is sound practice and you wont get an infection. Some people like to go that extra mile and put steralized tin fil over the bottles - personally i think thats crazy - but they do it for a peace of mind - so in that sense it is good for them.

On the other hand I knew a guy whos idea of sanitizing his bottles before use was filling it up with hot water - putting his thumb over the top and shaking it good. He says he has never had an infected brew......

Guess what im saying is alot of people sanitize at a level that makes them feel comfortable - just do what feels right to you and chances are your beer will be just fine

I made my last batch with peelet hops, dry yeast and tap water as an experiment to see how good beer can be without the high end ingredients. It came out fantastic.

I am far more worried about most bottled water than I am tap water, they seem to continually fail the same EPA standards that tap water has to live up to.

Just found out they are going to start flouride treatment of our local water after years of not doing so.
Now I can drink my homebrew and not worry about my teeth rotting out.
AP

Evan! said:

I don't think it's the chloramines that people are worried about, it's little bacteria and/or wild yeast that might be hanging out on your faucet or in your pipes or at some point between the water treatment plant or well and your wort. And believe me, there are plenty of bacteria and wild yeast that are perfectly harmless to your children, but will infect your beer like it was its goddamned job.

Click to expand...

Exactly.

While a conamination may not ever happen to your beer in your particular circumstances, other people may not be as lucky. I just don't take the chance, and I'm told I have the cleanest water anywhere.

In my case it is taste (Florida). I am sure my tap water is sanitary enough (full boils anyway). After the 1st of the year I am going to build a filter and go back to tap water anyway.

I only rinse sanitized items with boiled water. My tap water smells hideous- like chlorox. I don't even drink it without running it through a Brita filter. Further, my city has had numerous problems with wells in the area being contaminated with heavy metals and bacteria. When I brew, I purchase the jugs of drinking water from the market.

Do lots of you AGers introduce tap water into post-boil sanitary conditions? Now that I'm doing AG nothing ever touches tap water after the boil.

Why would you rinse a no-rinse sanitizer like Iodophor?

I've been using filtered tap water for years and years...

I use tap water right from the faucet, it's always fully boiled and I never add water post-boil. That's not because I fear my tap water just because I've not found the need to do so. I don't care overmuch if I'm over or under gravity and don't care if my volumes are dead on.

I use Star-San, it's no rinse, so I'm good there too.

Chlorine and or chloramines are the main concern I have with tap water. Chlorine can be filtered out or boiled off, chloramines are tough, I have seen some filters that are rated to remove chloramine but its easier to use a dash of potassium metabisulfite wait a couple of minutes and your good to go. As far as bacteria its always a possibility they are tough little buggers but I'd think that would be more of an issue with people using untreated well water.