Using bottled water for everything

[AlecMoody]

The place I live now is on a private well and the water is terrible. Its got a very high mineral content. Enough so that it stains surfaces red very quickly, and when I cleaned my 4 week old humidifier last night I found a large hand-full dime sized of brown metallic chips around the heating element. I'm also unsure if its full of life (I don't drink it).

Has anyone tried doing 5 gallon extract batches with bottled water and doing all their sanitation with bottled water as well? It seems like the combination of sanitizing bottles, carboys, and instruments would require too much water and be nearly impossible. Kegging might be doable but I don't have any of that setup and would rather bottle condition.

Any thoughts?

 

[Rowdy]

i use bottled water for my ingredients however i use filtered tap water and star san for my sanitation.

 

[JohnTheBrewist]

There are quite a few brewers here who use bottled water. More specifically RO water from the grocery or water store. These are typically the type where you bring your own 5 gallon container and refill it, and are cheaper than buying branded water.

With branded water, there are less controls than your typical municipal water supply, so you rarely know the water's make-up. With RO or distilled water, you know that it is quite free of mineral content and can add back in salts etc. as necessary for your particular recipe.

 

[AlecMoody]

I guess the title should have been "using bottled water for sanitation"

 

[ongreystreet]

If you're water is safe to drink, I would assume it's safe to use for sanitation of basic brewing equipment.

 

[theonetrueruss]

I'd think that if the water is so bad that the sanitizer doesn't clean it up then you should be talking to some health agency about the bad water... The mineral content shouldn't be too much a problem for the sanitation.. or leave too much behind to matter a whole lot. Its not like you're going to put a quart of sanitizer in your fermenter with the wort or something.

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

You can probably use the water for sanitation. The sanitizer should kill any bacteria coming up from the well. However, sanitizer (at least starsan) works when the ph is correct for sanitation. The mineral content may be high enough that it prevents the sanitizer from reaching that low of a ph level and then you would not be sanitizing anything. You might need to get that water tested and see if a filtration system is feasible -- even a faucet attachment -- or go to bottled water for everything.

 

[NorthRiverS]

I use bottled water all the time. If you are not comfortable with your tap water, by all means use bottled water. It's not too expensive and the results are good.

NRS

 

[Christafer11]

I started out only using distilled water for everything would usually buy 7 gallons for a 5 gal brew. Seemed to be fine but after reading more and understanding more and moving from sacramento ca (bad tasting water) to gardnerville nv by s.lake tahoe and carson city the water here is much better tasting, I have not done any testing on either water but taste better here. I just use tap water now and boil I have brewed about 40 gallons with the distilled and never had a bad batch or problem but over time it does bring up the cost of your beer at least $1.00 a gallon seems little but brew 100 gallons a year and you could have brewed an extra 3 batches on the wasted money for water. For the sanitizer I used starsan in a empty gall bottle and just used it where I needed it but no problems.

 

[beninan]

At my old apartment, the water tasted great and I used tap water for everything.
Now at my new apartment, the pipes are all old copper pipes, and the water tastes like city water. I buy regular, cheep, grocery store brand bottled water (in 2.5 gallon jugs) to use for everything. I don't bother with boiling it to sanitize. Even if I don't know what's exactly in it, I figure its probably better than my tap water.