Distilled Water & Starters

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Slim M

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When using pre-canned wort for starters like proper & such the directions say to dilute with distilled water. How clean is distilled water from a jug? Doesn’t need to be boil d prior to mixing with wort?
 
How clean is it? Well if you don't test it in some way you really don't know.

If someone in the house likes to drink distilled water directly from the jug. Then it might not be sanitary anymore.

But for the most part, I'd trust it to be clean and sanitary up until the day that I got a infection and was able to determine it was the water. Though that might be hard to prove definitively. Unless I still have the jug of water and tested it.

If you don't want to take the risk, then just boil it the day before and let it cool with the lid on. But for the most part, bottled water of any sort should be clean and sanitary. But mistakes happen!

Especially if someone in the house likes to drink distilled water directly from the jug.
 
How clean is it? Well if you don't test it in some way you really don't know.

If someone in the house likes to drink distilled water directly from the jug. Then it might not be sanitary anymore.

But for the most part, I'd trust it to be clean and sanitary up until the day that I got a infection and was able to determine it was the water. Though that might be hard to prove definitively. Unless I still have the jug of water and tested it.

If you don't want to take the risk, then just boil it the day before and let it cool with the lid on. But for the most part, bottled water of any sort should be clean and sanitary. But mistakes happen!

Especially if someone in the house likes to drink distilled water directly from the jug.
Yeah I’ve not used it before and didn’t realize it needed dilution, if I got to boil something might as well do it the old fashioned way with dme probably save a few bucks.

Doesn’t seem like much of an advantage or time saving or anything unless you’re are willing to gamble that your bottled water is sterile enough.
 
I have used the canned starters, would again. They're convenient for sure, and sometimes I'm rushed and that's nice, sometimes I don't need it. I've only ever added tap water.

I suppose boiling that water is best practice but tap water's pretty clean in general, w/ the chloramines and such in it. I don't recall any spoiled batches that might be from the water. And that includes like a decade of adding it directly to my fermenter when I still used DME and LME.
 
If I'm using liquid yeast at home , it's always canned starter and either distilled or RO water . Never boiled the water prior and never been an issue.
 
Inside my crazy mind my thoughts are the distilled water itself wouldn’t be risky I guess it would come down to if the jug was clean enough prior to it being filled on the line.
 
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