How shall I prepare top-up water for brewing?

I am wondering how people prepare top-up water for brewing?

I know everything has to be sanitized...so I guess tap water (even bottled water probably) has to be boiled for, say, 10 minutes, right? But what happens then?
I need the pot for the brewing so this is something I need to do a day before brewing.
So...how can I that top-up water sanitized? Shall I just boil it, lid of the pot, let it over night and in the morning I pour it into a sanitized fermentor where it sits for 6 hours while I am brewing....is this an okay process?
How do you people prepare top-up water when BIAB brewing and only one pot available?

 

I've never done anything to top up water. Simply used a sanitized pitcher and filled it up and dumped it in.

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Hopefully someone will chime in, but my understanding is its fine to just dump it in

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I think it is fine to dump it into a pot of boiling wort...that would sanitize it. This is the 1st time I am doing this....so I am as clueless as you are.

 

Elysium- your proposed method of boiling it the night before and letting it cool down in the fermenter is fine.
However, think about it- do you really need to boil it? Water coming out of the tap should be pretty sanitary, unless you have really groaty faucets. If you are using bottled water, even more likely it's sanitary.
It's been about a year now since I moved up to full volume boils, but for the year plus that I did partial boils, my top-off water was always directly from the tap.
However, if you are on a municipal water supply, make sure you do something to treat the Chlorine/Chloramine 1st.

 

I did this for years. Boil it, put into sanitized containers and put in your freezer the night before - tops-up and cools down the wort at the same time.

 

This is a really good idea.....but there is one little problem: not big enough freezer to do so....so it will be at room temp.

 

I'm on a well. Our water tastes only so-so out of the tap. We use a Britta pitcher for drinking water. I usually need a gallon or so to top-off my fermenter and I always take it right from the tap. I'm up to 80 batches now and I haven't lost any due to the water.
I think it was "How to Brew" that said if water is good to drink, it's good to brew. Just mind the chlorine.

 

The issue with tap water isn't so much unwanted critters as it is chlorine and possibly chloramine causing off-flavors in your brew. Do you know what your supplier treats with?

 

some folks will say foul, but buy a bag of ice right before you start brewing and keep it in a cooler. Use it for top up and cool down. You do run a risk of infection if the ice you buy is not clean, but as others have said "if you can drink it, you can brew with it".

 

Boiling and letting it cool is definitely the safest bet, but here in Atlanta, we have pretty good water, and I've always topped off directly from my sink faucet. Never had an issue. If your water doesn't taste good, or if there are a lot of chemicals, you may not want to go that route. You could also buy bottled spring/filtered water.