Adding Cool Water to Caribou Slobber Brew

[Panthro63]

Hey guys, new brewer here. And a week into my first fermentation, I fear I may have made a rookie mistake.

While nothing seems off right now, and my stopper was bubbling for a couple days, now calm, I remembered that following the recipe it told me to add 2 gallons of cool water to the fermenter before pouring in my now cooled wort.

"8. Fill primary fermenter with 2 gallons of cold water,
then pour in the cooled wort. Leave any thick sludge in
the bottom of the kettle.
9. Add more cold water as needed to bring the
volume to 5 gallons."

I didn't boil or distill that cool water - it was simply from the tap.
Will the chemicals in the tap water ruin my batch? Or will I be OK?

 

[Hello]

If you did it then now just wait. Otherwise, I'd use bottled water.

 

[seckert]

It depends on how your tap water is. Might be ok or not, if your water tastes good from tap then I would think it will be ok. Just going to have to wait and see!

 

[eelgerg]

If be careful about adding anything afterwards. Especially if it is not boiled water - you could do that, boil water and add it but you risk introducing buggies to your wort and really messing with the beer.

I brewed a moose drool clone as my very first AG and first beer brew session ever, and under-shot the total boil volume by about a gallon! So I think I ended up with a higher OG than planned (1.060 vs. 1.054) but my FG was bang on 1.012. End result = good thick brown ale with a bit more of a kick!

I've legged and drank about 1/3 of the keg and so far it is AWESOME!!!!!

My vote = leave it be. Enjoy what you have!

 

[Panthro63]

Thanks guys - sounds like I should be OK. And I woulda thought the recipe kit would warn me if using normal tap water would ruin the batch during that step.

Plus, I'm in STL - supposedly we have some of the best beer-making tap water in the country!