Intro and a water question

[62belair]

Hi all, I've wanted to get into brewing and wine making for quite some time and I think I'm about to take the leap. I'm planning on going to a local brew supply that's about 45 mins from me to pick up some equipment this weekend.
My question is does anyone use actual spring water or well water for the cold water part of the process? I have gravity fed spring water that runs from the spring head/550 gal reservoir/into the house. I'm just curious if there are any safety concerns or if I should boil it all and refrigerate it?

 

[karljrberno]

Smell good taste good
Its good
A wise man once told me

 

[Pedo Viejo]

Hi Guys, I just now happened to find this forum and I haven't yet learned how
to find my way around. I see that the post I am replying to is an old one, so I
may be hidden from most people. Anyway, the topic I just found is about water and is a very interesting subject to me, maybe the most important item
to consider when attempting quality brewing or wine or distilled beverages. It's like the Bible says, make your building on a solid foundation, or it will fall.
That is certainly true when attempting to make quality beverages, even if it is only the water we wish to drink. Nature provides us with the purest form of water in the form of rain. However, with all the pollution in the air,
even rainwater is no longer pure when it reaches the earth. So, when the water does reach the earth it is already contaminated, but it has a negative
charge and is slightly acidic. That means that the water is "hungry" and looking for minerals with a positive charge. Those minerals are easy to find
in the form of calcium carbonates, metallic oxides and sodium chloride, etc.
Some things are better for us because they are natural in occurrence and
are not some form of man made poison or something otherwise perverted by man. Not so with water. Nature did provide us with pure water, but we
have so polluted our earth that our water, once it has fallen to earth is no
longer pure and is not fit for human consumption.
Once you realize and accept this fact you should understand just how very
dangerous it is for us to consume any form of water that has not been
purified in the same manner that nature purifies water for us. There is no
known way to purify water and make it fit for our use than to separate it
from all contaminants by turning it into a vapor and then condensing it. No
filter, additive or simply boiling the water will remove all the contamination
from water and make it pure.
So, what is the danger of non-poisonous inorganic minerals that saturate
even the expensive, filtered bottled water? The answer is that our bodies
can not use inorganic minerals. When we consume inorganic minerals such
as calcium carbonate (limestone rock), it enters our bloodstream and sticks
to the inside of our arteries and veins, clogging them until they can no
longer allow the blood to flow. This leads to a heart attack or death.
And so far as using contaminated water for beverage making, you will not
obtain the best possible results, and you will not be doing anything to help
maintain your presumably good health. On the other hand, by consuming
pure water, or beverages made with pure water, those "hungry" water
molecules will enter your bloodstream and leach out the inorganic minerals
from your body and help prevent heart attacks, strokes and stiffening joints.
Many years ago, when I first became interested in brewing, I bought a
beer making kit and followed the unfamiliar instructions which said that I
could use any form of "potable" water, as long as it had no foul odor. My
well water was delicious, cold, saturated with calcium carbonate and iron,
and kept me buying scale remover to clean the bathtub. My first batches of
beer were actually better than my otherwise favorite Drewrys brew. My Dad
drank his share of brew, but he died with clogged arteries. He was not an
old man and was a hard worker. I wanted to know just why he had to die. I was not a medical man or particularly worried about my health, until my Dad
died. It didn't take long for me to realize that our delicious water was killing
us. I bought a one gallon, automatic cutoff distiller and started using pure
water for drinking, cooking, brewing and wine making. I even learned how to "structure water" to make my pure water even more beneficial and to
improve my beverages. More about that later.
My point here today is this: Pure water is all important to the human body
and is more important for brewing, etc., than most people realize. If you do
not realize this today, perhaps you will remember this post when someday
you require an ambulance, if not too late for that. Happy brewing!

 

[MaxStout]

If you're not certain what's in your water, you can get it tested for about $40 at Ward Labs. Then you can decide what you need to do next. Here's a primer on water additions for brewing. If it's unsuitable for brewing, you have a few options. Buy jugs of filtered or distilled water at the store and add minerals, based on what beer you are brewing. Or you can buy a reverse-osmosis (RO) system and generate your own filtered water.

 

[Pedo Viejo]

You are totally missing the point that I was trying to make. There is only one way to be able to start with PURE water. Distill the crappy water. There is NO need to test pure water, unless you want to test it AFTER you add ORGANIC
minerals. Maybe the term PURE water is confused with water that has been
filtered by whatever means, ie, carbon filter, reverse osmosis, etc. To be very
clear about the difference, you can distill the water you have filtered and
is clean, and you will discover a nasty mess in the bottom of your distiller.
Now where do you think all that crap came from? RO does take out the most
of the sodium chloride. But distilling takes out everything, even dissolved
pesticides, fluorine, chlorine and ammonia, if it is very diluted. You can distill urine and remove all the salts, uric acid, creatinine, etc., but your distillate
will be ammonia water. That would be good for plants, but not for much else.
The point here is that your distilled water would be perfectly clear, just like
your filtered water, but it would be heavily contaminated with ammonia. If
not for the pungent odor of ammonia, you might also consider your recently
distilled water to be pure.
I agree, running to some store to buy distilled water would be a chore. But
once you have the distiller, the cost of using it would be less than the price
you pay at the store, and without the gofer chore. I keep about 50 gallons of
pure water on hand all the time. That's the only water I drink or cook with. I
don't wait until I need more water to distill it. I usually charge my distiller at
night before I go to bed and have a fresh gallon before I get up in the morn.
Anyway, I am 75 years of age and I have been using pure water only for at
least 40 years. My resting blood pressure stays about 125/75 so I know that
my blood system is not clogged from the inorganic minerals that are found
in all impure water. I know, some will still not get the point. But try distilling,
or simply boiling away a quart or so of filtered water. See that residue in the
bottom of your pan? If you had consumed that water before you boiled it,
that residue would be adding to the plaque you have in your arteries. Seeing
should be believing. Happy brewing!

 

[MaxStout]

I have no idea what you are trying to say in your posts.

Can you focus a bit and elaborate on how this all ties in with brewing water? Is there a question in there somewhere? Help us help you.

 

[Pedo Viejo]

I have no idea what you are trying to say in your posts.

Can you focus a bit and elaborate on how this all ties in with brewing water? Is there a question in there somewhere? Help us help you.

 

[Pedo Viejo]

I have been trying to explain to everyone the things I have learned during my years of study
about how to live a healthy life and do the things I love to do with perfection.
One of the basic things I have learned is that we, as humans, need to stop killing ourselves
by drinking and cooking with contaminated water. Contaminated water is any water that is
not PURE. Filters, of any kind, form or fashion can not remove the dangerous inorganic
minerals that are dissolved in water. RO comes the closest, but does not remove everything
and is more expensive and troublesom than simple distillation.
How does this information relate to brewing or wine making? Simple. If you don't start with
pure water, your end product will contain all the harmful inorganic minerals that were i9n the
water that you started with. And whoever drinks a beverage that was made with impure
water will almost certainly suffer from clogged arteries, heart attack and/or stroke.
What is so difficult about understanding this simple lesson? You can eat a sandwich made
with the lead contaminated paint that had peeled off you house. You can ignore the warning
issued about the dangers of ingesting lead. But the lead is cumulative and will be deposited
in the marrow of your bones until you die from lead poisoning. Do you think that people do
not die from the calcium plaque deposits that accumulate in your arteries? Some people will
simply ignore health warnings as long as they appear healthy.
I have outlived most of my friends and family and watched them die because of things they
could have prevented if they had only known of, and accepted the truth.
I started out making beer and wine about forty some years ago and I used the hardest
water that Michigan could produce. It was very cold deep well water and it was clear and so
delicious. My father used and drank that water for almost sixty years. He died with arteries
clogged by the calcium carbonate that saturated our water. It didn't take me very long to
wise up and start distilling my water. My beer and wine improved and so did my health.
I have outlived my father by fifteen years, so far, and I do not have clogged arteries.
If everyone would start using pure water for drinking and cooking, the plaque that they
have accumulated thus far would be leached from their bodies and help insure that they
would never suffer from circulatory problems.
Please inform me if you are able to understand the relevance of my warning to your
health and to your beverage making. Or, maybe you don't understand the difference
between inorganic minerals and organic minerals. Please understand that your body must
be nourished with organic nutrients. That means food that comes from plants/animals.
You do not eat rocks and sand/dirt because that is not food and does not benefit you in
any way. Well, the water contains rocks in the form of calcium carbonate and other
inorganic minerals. Our bodies cannot use the rocks that are dissolved in the water. But
when this inorganic material is ingested, it sticks to the walls of our arteries. The plaque
is easy for us to ignore, but our bodies can only tolerate the clogs for so long.
I'm sorry if I use too many words and make my post too long. My intention is to make
you understand why we all need to consume pure water. Pure water is relevant to life.

 

[Pedo Viejo]

I have been trying to explain to everyone the things I have learned during my years of study
about how to live a healthy life and do the things I love to do with perfection.
One of the basic things I have learned is that we, as humans, need to stop killing ourselves
by drinking and cooking with contaminated water. Contaminated water is any water that is
not PURE. Filters, of any kind, form or fashion can not remove the dangerous inorganic
minerals that are dissolved in water. RO comes the closest, but does not remove everything
and is more expensive and troublesom than simple distillation.
How does this information relate to brewing or wine making? Simple. If you don't start with
pure water, your end product will contain all the harmful inorganic minerals that were i9n the
water that you started with. And whoever drinks a beverage that was made with impure
water will almost certainly suffer from clogged arteries, heart attack and/or stroke.
What is so difficult about understanding this simple lesson? You can eat a sandwich made
with the lead contaminated paint that had peeled off you house. You can ignore the warning
issued about the dangers of ingesting lead. But the lead is cumulative and will be deposited
in the marrow of your bones until you die from lead poisoning. Do you think that people do
not die from the calcium plaque deposits that accumulate in your arteries? Some people will
simply ignore health warnings as long as they appear healthy.
I have outlived most of my friends and family and watched them die because of things they
could have prevented if they had only known of, and accepted the truth.
I started out making beer and wine about forty some years ago and I used the hardest
water that Michigan could produce. It was very cold deep well water and it was clear and so
delicious. My father used and drank that water for almost sixty years. He died with arteries
clogged by the calcium carbonate that saturated our water. It didn't take me very long to
wise up and start distilling my water. My beer and wine improved and so did my health.
I have outlived my father by fifteen years, so far, and I do not have clogged arteries.
If everyone would start using pure water for drinking and cooking, the plaque that they
have accumulated thus far would be leached from their bodies and help insure that they
would never suffer from circulatory problems.
Please inform me if you are able to understand the relevance of my warning to your
health and to your beverage making. Or, maybe you don't understand the difference
between inorganic minerals and organic minerals. Please understand that your body must
be nourished with organic nutrients. That means food that comes from plants/animals.
You do not eat rocks and sand/dirt because that is not food and does not benefit you in
any way. Well, the water contains rocks in the form of calcium carbonate and other
inorganic minerals. Our bodies cannot use the rocks that are dissolved in the water. But
when this inorganic material is ingested, it sticks to the walls of our arteries. The plaque
is easy for us to ignore, but our bodies can only tolerate the clogs for so long.
I'm sorry if I use too many words and make my post too long. My intention is to make
you understand why we all need to consume pure water. Pure water is relevant to life.