Top Up Water

[guitarmikeb]

So.....I think I may have wasted some time this evening. I had the bright idea that I would boil up some top up water a few days ahead of my brew day. This would allow me to cool this "clean" water and have it ready to top up my wort after my brew day this friday. So i boiled up 5 gallons of water with the intentions of transferring it to my carboy to place in the cooler. I let it boil for approximately 10minutes, removed it from the heat, then prepared to transfer it to the carboy. I'm not sure what the hell I was thinking, but I placed my auto-siphon in the water with the tube in my carboy and proceeded to allow it to transfer (while water was still close to boiling temp). I walked out of the room, and came back only to find that the water was no longer transferring. I peeked inside the boil pot, and the auto-siphon was warped from the heat and actually had a small hole in the side of it.

I understand I ruined a perfectly good auto siphon, but the question is did I ruin the top up water also?

 

[JeepDiver]

I wouldnt use it with whatever was leeched from the plastic. Also you only sanitize your carboy, you dont sterilize it. The water sitting in a carboy several days is only marginaly better than tap water. And for the record in my extract days I usually used bottled water to top off but have been known to use straight tap water

 

[joecheberline]

I wouldnt use it, not worth the worry to me.....

 

[guitarmikeb]

Thanks for the advice guys. Down the drain it goes. Any need to worry about gallon jugs of bottled water going in as top up water?

 

[JeepDiver]

Thanks for the advice guys. Down the drain it goes. Any need to worry about gallon jugs of bottled water going in as top up water?

Nope that is your easiest source. Stick a couple of gallons in the fridge the night before and then the freezer as you start brewing. You top up and cool down in one step

 

[MarcusKillion]

I almost always use tap water straight from the tap . If your tap water is so bad you cant make beer with it then your pipes have a major problem. Good enough top drink = good enough to make beer.
How ever melted plastic , even food grade , may leech something into the water . Not enough going to come out to hurt you . taste it . does it taste good ?
but then it is just water . boil some more . If you need it cold for some reason then add in some liquor store ice from the bag .

 

[guitarmikeb]

I just wanted the water cold to help with cooling down the wort in preparation for pitching the yeast. But now that I think about it, i'll probably want to add the top up water after the siphon the wort off the trub/hopbreak material right?

 

[Setesh]

Nope that is your easiest source. Stick a couple of gallons in the fridge the night before and then the freezer as you start brewing. You top up and cool down in one step

+1 to this. Works excellent.

 

[BigEd]

So.....I think I may have wasted some time this evening. I had the bright idea that I would boil up some top up water a few days ahead of my brew day. This would allow me to cool this "clean" water and have it ready to top up my wort after my brew day this friday. So i boiled up 5 gallons of water with the intentions of transferring it to my carboy to place in the cooler. I let it boil for approximately 10minutes, removed it from the heat, then prepared to transfer it to the carboy. I'm not sure what the hell I was thinking, but I placed my auto-siphon in the water with the tube in my carboy and proceeded to allow it to transfer (while water was still close to boiling temp). I walked out of the room, and came back only to find that the water was no longer transferring. I peeked inside the boil pot, and the auto-siphon was warped from the heat and actually had a small hole in the side of it.

I understand I ruined a perfectly good auto siphon, but the question is did I ruin the top up water also?

Did you ruin the water? Probably not although you may have leeched some plasticizers from the PVC tubing. However, this begs the question: Whe would you want, need or use top up water in all grain?

 

[guitarmikeb]

Did you ruin the water? Probably not although you may have leeched some plasticizers from the PVC tubing. However, this begs the question: Whe would you want, need or use top up water in all grain?

I was using beersmith and had the idea of brewing a 10gallon batch (allgrain), and using 1 gallon of water as topup. My only intention on doing this was to give me a bit of headspace in my brew kettle. If using top up water with all grain is not a good idea, what would the reasons be?

 

[Setesh]

It's not that it isn't a good idea necessarily, but it is different. What you are basically doing is called 'high gravity brewing'. The more concentrated your boil is the higher the percentage of proteins that will drop out, the lower your isomerization will be, and your melanoidin production tends to increase. This will result in a different beer than what a full boil will have made. The more concentrated the batch the more different the resulting beer if no recipe changes are made. High gravity brewing is useful if you have a pot smaller than what it takes to boil the batch size you want. As long as you understand what you are doing and take the differences into account then you should get the intended results. That's really all it comes down to....getting the beer you wanted. I suggest you search for "high gravity brewing" and read up on it. It's yet another tool for your brewing tool belt I see that you used beersmith and it may have automatically changed your recipe to try and account for the top up. I haven't used brewsmith so I don't know how it would handle the change.

 

[Mikethepoolguy]

I can't believe that nobody has mentioned the bigger issue of filling a carboy with boiling water. Do not do this! Consider yourself lucky at the loss of an autosiphon and 5 gal of water. You could have ended up in the ER.

 

[Yooper]

I can't believe that nobody has mentioned the bigger issue of filling a carboy with boiling water. Do not do this! Consider yourself lucky at the loss of an autosiphon and 5 gal of water. You could have ended up in the ER.

That's the only thing that I noticed! Do NOT ever let really hot water touch a glass carboy, please.

Even with cleaning my carboys, I don't use the hottest water out of my tap. Thermal shock will break a carboy and serious injuries can occur.

Always let boiling water/wort/must (any liquid) cool before putting in glass!

 

[guitarmikeb]

Thanks for the warning about the hot water and carboy. Definitely won't be doing that again in any situation.

Anyone know if beer smith automatically corrects recipes for use of top up water?

 

[MarcusKillion]

If you need to put hot water in glass then you must put the glass in water and heat it up . does not have to be as hot as the water being added but needs to be hot . Just read up on any home canning website about canning jars.
Also keep in mind that all glass is not created equal . A carboy may not be able to with stand being heated up beyond a certain point like say a coffee pot or a Snapple bottle . Which by the way if you ever need to get a glass container very hot both of these are the best right up there with a beaker .
do not quote me on this but I do think beersmith does allow for top off . Ttry looking here for a good explanation of all items in the beersmith menu http://beersmith.com/equipment-setup/