Hello! (And a question about water)

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hanshananigan

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Richmond, VA
Hi!

I brewed a bit with a friend several years back, and recently bought the equipment to start up again. I've had the equipment since THANKSGIVING and JUST got the wort goin' yesterday! Sooo, 30hrs later, and no big bubbly goodness, yet. Not worried, yet. BUT, it got me thinking, "did those gallon containers of Ukrops spring water have chlorine?" I noticed another brand was actually Richmond VA tap water in a bottle. Can someone hip me to the best way to know if a bottle has chlorine or not? (I searched for an answer first, of course, but there are SO many threads, I couldn't fine tune what I was looking for).

Thanks!
Hans
 
Hans, I'm new to this but read somewhere that if your water smells like chlorine (like my tap water does), don't use it. if you can't smell it, you should be fine.
 
I don't think that "bottled" water would be chlorinated or retain the chlorine in solution.

what temp did you pitch at and what is the temp of the fermenter now?

RDWHAHB!
 
Pitched at 79F degrees (pale ale, kit, but I forget the brand). The temp has decreased to 77F. I opened the top (food grade 6.5gal container), which I know is a no-no to check, and it is foamy, just not ruckusly bubbling like I would expect.
 
Pitched at 79F degrees (pale ale, kit, but I forget the brand). The temp has decreased to 77F. I opened the top (food grade 6.5gal container), which I know is a no-no to check, and it is foamy, just not ruckusly bubbling like I would expect.

Foamy (krausen) is good. I'm not sure what you mean by ruckusly bubbling, but you usually only see a few bubbles popping on the krausen when it is fermenting (but you shouldn't be opening the fermenter anyway). It won't look like boiling water or anything. I'm sure everything is fine and the beer will be great.
 
I doubt there is anything wrong with your fermentation. I'm sure it is on track. Some fermentations are more active than others. You said "no activity" but you saw krausen so that means it's fermenting. Give it a week and check the gravity.

I did a kolsch batch a few weeks ago that almost blew the top off my fermenter and I had to quickly set up a blow off. A week later I made a batch of brown ale and it was so quite I almost forgot I even brewed it. It fermented very slow and quite, but it eventually reached its proper FG and from early samplings, is going to be an excellent brown ale.

As for water, I can't imagine that any bottled water would be chlorinated. That's the whole reason bottled water exists is for people trying to get away from all the chemicals. Besides, you said you used spring water and spring water is just that, water directly from the spring. Perhaps filtered a little but nothing added.

Dennis
 
Well thanks! I feel better. Yeah Dennis (and all), my limited experience has been with blow-the-top-off fermentation. Maybe I have a slow burn. The temp is down to 70F, so the yeast may go inactive if it goes any lower, so that's another concern... maybe it's time for the electric blanket treatment!

Oh, and bottled water... I saw gallon containers of "drinking water" that were labled as "Richmond city municipal water supply." I couldn't imagine they aren't chlorinated. Caveat emptor!
 
Oh, and bottled water... I saw gallon containers of "drinking water" that were labled as "Richmond city municipal water supply." I couldn't imagine they aren't chlorinated. Caveat emptor!

That's interesting. It was possibly a promotional stunt by the city. When I lived in Grand Rapids, MI the city bottled a bunch of the city water and gave it out at local events in an attempt to promote city water over bottled. I thought it was creative.
 
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