Bacteria in Water Supply

[sjkrebs]

I've noticed a difference in my brews but I'm not sure if its the water, the temp my brews are fermenting at, or something that has contaminated my keg lines.

For now lets stick to the Water as this is the Science section.

I recently moved to an area where the wells contain small ("acceptable") amounts of Iron and Sulfur reducing bacteria. In running water these don't harm much, but I've found in water that gets to sit, like the tank on my toilet, they create a nasty slim. So far There hasn't been a nasty slim in my fermentor, but something is certainly off about my beer.

Does anyone know how these bacteria will affect brewing?

I am extract brewing and haven't been doing full boils, so yes it is probably present in my fermentor.

I will stop here and hope for help, so I don't tangent off into other topics.

Thanks for any information you can share.

 

[giraffe]

I doubt they are in significant numbers in the couple of weeks it takes to make beer. But they could raise the ph, which would mess with things, do you smell rotten eggs during fermentation?

 

[sjkrebs]

I haven't noticed a rotten egg smell during fermentation, but once I attach my fermentation lock, I don't really go near the carboy for a week or two.

 

[Talgrath]

Well, if you're concerned you can either boil the water before you add it to your boiled wort for dilution, or you can use bottled water of some sort. A minimum of 1 minute of boil should kill bacteria, or 3 minutes if you're at a higher elevation, but to be thorough 10 minutes is probably your best bet. Option two is to just let things go and see how they do, your wort shouldn't have a lot of iron or sulfur in it outside of whatever is in your water so it shouldn't throw things off too much.

 

[giraffe]

n/m

 

[sjkrebs]

Thanks for the input. Maybe on my next brew day I will boil all my water and see if that makes a difference. If not, then I can just go back and look for some other reason things are tasting off.