wine kit chlorine question

[mcwarhammer]

Hi there,

I purchased my mother a wine making kit as a gift and I'm reading through the instructions so I can help her get started.

During the Yeast Prep phase it says to dissolve the dry yeast in 50 ml of warm water... "ensure to use ONLY chrlorine free water (not distilled or spring water)."

When I used dry yeast for beer making, I just used tap water... is this suggesting I use filtered water (brita?) for the yeast? Should I be concerned for all of the water, or just the yeast prep?

So far everything else I've read seems pretty straight forward. Thanks in advance.

 

[Emerald]

Chlorine kills live critters that like to live in water that is why they use it to sanitize water. If your tap water has too much of it in there it will inhibit or kill the yeast that you are trying to get to multiply.
A safe way of using your tap water is to run off as much as needed for your wine and cover it with a towel (paper is okay) and let it sit for at least 24 hours to dissipate the chlorine out. I had to do that for my fish tanks when I lived in the city. Always made me mad that if fish couldn't live in it, why would I want to drink it!
Probably why they don't want you to use it for re-hydrating your yeast. I am not sure how it would affect the whole batch, might just slow it down.

 

[summersolstice]

I use tap water. I think you'll be fine unless there's an obvious chlorine smell to your water.

 

[cbw]

Go buy some gallon jugs of Walmart "Spring" water (Not distilled, not drinking, but Spring) and use it to make the wine. Works for me

 

[mcwarhammer]

thanks a lot! I'm going to try the tap water sitting out over night for this batch... should it be boiled or anything first?

 

[summersolstice]

Just plain tap water.

 

[mcwarhammer]

great, thanks!

 

[malkore]

since my local water is hard, alkaline, and treated with chloramine, my good wines and meads always use spring water from the store.

for my beers I usually treat my water with a campden tablet to neutralize the chloramine.

chlorine and chloramine shouldn't hurt yeast in normal tap water concentrations.