Well Water

[BeerBastard]

I'm on well water ( no chlorine ). After I sanitize bottles, can I safely rinse them with this water?

Thanks!

 

[BrewBeemer]

Good question, I use well water to brew with but use tap water with starsan to clean all the equipment. To be safe I would not use it straight as a rinse unless you had it tested. It might be ok. JMO.

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

Yeah, I would definitely go with a no-rinse sanitizer.


I'm on well water too.

 

[menschmaschine]

All water, well or municipal, has some microorganisms in it. Especially by the time it flows out of your faucet. They are rarely pathogenic (or at least not in enough quantity to be), but could infect your beer. It's a risk I wouldn't take.

I'm on a well and any water that comes into contact with post-boil wort or related equipment/vessels gets pre-boiled. An electric kettle comes in handy for this. Out of ~20+ 10-gallon batches, no infections yet and I plan to keep it that way.

 

[Bernie Brewer]

I've never brewed with anything but well water. I use it to rinse with, and when I used to do partial boils I used it for top-up water. Nothing to worry about. If you are really concerned about it, get it tested for nasties, but that's up to you.

 

[broadbill]

I brew with well water too, and I don't worry about any contamination in any rinses I do. I haven't had any problems whatsoever.

As Mensch points out, there are probably some microorganisms in it, but since I also drink my well water...my homebrew would be the least of my worries if I had significant amounts of bacteria in my water.

I figure it this way....sure, some bacteria could end up in my unfermented wort, but they'll be competed out by the millions of yeast cells I drop in there shortly thereafter.

In addition, that beer will be long gone (consumed) before any of those bacteria, should they survive the yeast invasion and the inhospitable conditions they produce (3-8% alcohol), before they can make a comeback and spoil the beer.