adding gypsum or anything else to water??

[ethangray19]

I live in a place with extremely hard water so I use distilled water to brew with. should I add anythin to the water i use???

I am just making pale ales, and ipa's
thanks for any info

 

[FlyingHorse]

For extract brewing, you're probably OK.

For AG, you'll need to make some additions to get your mash pH right, among other things.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter4.html
http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15.html

 

[Newfermenter1]

I am new to this stuff, and it seems that water chem is one of the more technical aspects of brewing, and I am not really sure how much it all matters for the 5 gal batch brewer (Note to pros; dont slap me if I am way off here! ) J Palmer has some info on the subject. Check it out, mayhaps it will help . . . I am working on trying to understand this as well, for now, I use 4 gallon jugs of bottled water, and add some calcium sulfate, its inexpensive.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-4.html
Oops, bike n brew beat me to it!

Calcium Sulfate
(CaSO4*2 H2O)
a.k.a. Gypsum 61.5 ppm
Ca+2
147.4 ppm
SO4-2 4.0 Lowers pH Useful for adding calcium if the water is low in sulfate. Can be used to add sulfate "crispness" to the hop bitterness.

 

[ethangray19]

thanks for the good info