Distilled water

[flexfit115]

I just did my first batch of home brew, and I was trying to be very sanitary so I decided to use distilled water. I just bottled that batch and then discovered that I should not use distilled water. How is this going to affect my batch ?

 

[brtisbuck]

It will make your beer taste like gasoline.

It will be fine, really.

 

[Grinder12000]

Distilled water is not a bad thing if you are using extract . . . in fact it's a good thing.. Remember extract is wort without the water. So if you use regular tap water you will bate twice the amount of minerals in your brew. Using distilled water will have less minerals which is fine because the extract has all you need.

For my mini mash's I use a couple gallons of distilled and tap water that has been filtered (we get 100% softened water here).

 

[flexfit115]

I saw somewhere that distilled water did not contain the proper nutrients for yeast to thrive. Thanks for the help!

 

[unionrdr]

That's true,no trace minerals & such. I used spring water in my brews before,& it worked quite well indeed.

 

[jonmohno]

I saw somewhere that distilled water did not contain the proper nutrients for yeast to thrive. Thanks for the help!

You could get yeast nutrient. I think its mostly known not to use distilled water for starters,storing washed yeast,or even hydrating.There should be enough in the extract ,but you could use trace minerals also, to add to your water, i was using that to drink r/o filtered water for a while but kinda forgot about it

 

[mcaple1]

I saw somewhere that distilled water did not contain the proper nutrients for yeast to thrive. Thanks for the help!

Well yeah, of course there are no minerals/nutrients in distilled water....but like an earlier post said, it is the malt extract that will contain the nutrients neccessary for yeast health.

 

[unionrdr]

That would depend on the water & it's profile used by the maltster. Not always good to depend on what you don't know,& can't find out.

 

[flexfit115]

I guess I will find out in two weeks, if it was a disaster or not.

 

[jonmohno]

I would worry more about your yeast pitch and control your fermention temps.What temp do you have it,its the only thing you really can do to controll anything after you pitched the yeast. With an extract batch it should be good to go.What yeast did you use?

 

[flexfit115]

Just regular dry brewers yeast that came with my kit. It stayed at a constant 70 degrees.

 

[flexfit115]

The brew turned out just fine. Thanks for all your input!