Using bottled water to brew.

i'm about to brew my fourth batch and was wondering about bottled water.. i'm reading dave millers home brew guide and i'm in the water chapter. a lot of the things i'm reading are not quite sinking in just yet because of my noobnis.

anyways, was using sodium free purified water in gallon jugs. only my first batch turned out good. is there some other bottled water i should use? maybe spring water or something?????

oh yeah, i ordered the summit ipa from AHBS.

I was also curious about this..what water are people using? I read that as long as your household water doesn't taste like chlorine your O.K.

I have an excess of Poland Spring water since I signed up for monthly deliveries and it has worked fine for me so far. I am into my 7th batch with it.

I generally follow the adage that if it's good enough to drink, it's good enough to brew. I have used tap water, well water and jugs of spring water...all made great beer. Course, this can change when trying to duplicate specific water conditions or mashing.

Yep, water really depends on the beer you are making. I would steer-clear of anything sodium free as that sounds distilled. Get spring water and mix in some of your own water. I do 50/50 for light beers. I'd suggest this as a good starting point if your water isn't all that great.

I live in Florida where there is an uncanny amount of sulfides, iron and even with processed water, pretty high chlorine traces. I always buy brewing water....

What about Pure (as in brand name) water filters.

Like many have said, if your water from your sink faucet is good enough to drink, make coffee or other food items, it's probably good enough to brew with. If you have doubts, filter is fine. I just buy it, it's like $0.59 a store brand gallon in my local grocery, it's worth the investment for 5 gallons every couple weeks. If your brewing five'ers every two weeks or brewing ten gallons often, then I'd look into some other means....

I just boil the snot out of my tap water the morning I am planning on brewing and I store 3 gallons or so in my primary. Then when I am ready to brew I keep a couple gallons of boiling/sterile water handy while I fire up the brew kettle. In the brew kettle I use tap again figuring I am about to boil it so I will kill any undesirable additives & flavors, then when I add my wort to my already boiled/chilled primary I have the additional two gallons to top off my batch of brew (if necessary). Honestly I think my tap water is pretty good here in PA so maybe I'm just lucky.

My water doesn't taste good from my tap. In San Jose, CA the water just has something weird in it. Considering that the beer you're brewing is mostly water, it makes sense that flavors in your water can appear in your beer.

Therefore, I choose to use bottled water. I wouldn't think twice if I lived in Lake Tahoe or somewhere the water tasted very pure, as it would probably make great beer as well.

unless you think your water is pretty awful, you should at least experiment with a batch using tap water...you don't want to have to buy bottled water every time if you'll be perfectly happy with tap water beer

plus playing around with things is part of homebrewing, especially when it could eliminate one of you brewing costs

Ive used my tap water and it has made great beer. I have a water softner, on a well in my yard. I have read that soft water isnt as good in stouts and such, but dont know a whole lot about if its true or not.

Ive also ran that through another filter. My last few batches ive bought bottled water. $.84 a gallon for meijer spring water. One thing to me is that it is convenient. Water is pretty much premeasured. If beersmith says use 1.73 gallons. I estimate 1.75 gallons and call it good.

Yeah I know I could just refill these to measure, which i do sometimes. But if im at the store already a day or two before brew day, Ill usually just buy 7 gals. of water.

They always look at me kind of funny for buying so much water.

Here in St Pete Florida we have them adding chloramine in the system, so I get the "spring water" from Wal-Mart which is actually water from our own famous Silver Springs just up the road a few hours.

Spring water is supposed to be better because it retains minerals, and distilled the worst because it has nothing.

When I was doing extract brews, I would buy 1 gallon jugs of distilled water for like 87 cents each. Mainly because I was going to top off the wort with three gallons of cold water (that hadn't been boiled). THe jugs also made it easier to chill the wort because I'd place them in the freezer at the start of the brewing.

My water tastes fine out fo the tap and since I now do full 5 gallon boils, I'm not concerned with water contamination.

I've always used fresh spring water. when I lived in Seattle I had a local spring that I would fill my jugs at. Here In ct I get water from Olde Burnside Brewing Co. They are also an ice company and have one of the deepest and purest aquifers in new england. when in doubt i use bottled spring water. never distilled