Poll: What kind of water do you use

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What type of water do you prefer in your fermenter

  • Boiled

  • Bottled spring water

  • Tap water

  • Other


Results are only viewable after voting.

Brewno

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What is your preference for water added to your fermenter while cooling wort and topping off? Boiled, bottled spring water straight from the bottle, tap water straight out of the faucet or other, such as bottled but not necessarily spring water, or anything else you creative folks may use.
 
I have well, which makes the water a bit on the hard side, but is great for the yeast.

I plan to make a lager over the winter and will take the water off my softener.
 
I have a well with a whole house filter. I then boil it.

I have not made any beer without boiling it, but I am thinking of trying, just to see what happens.
 
Like HB said. Tap with carbon filter. But, doing AG it all gets boiled in the end...
 
I use tap water that's filtered through activated carbon (or charcoal). Then I use Wardley's Chlor-Out to remove the chlorimines, 5 drops per gallon, neutralizes chlorine and chlorimines. I add this directly to primary bucket.
 
I used to use commercial Spring water , till I realized it was the most expensive thing in my brew. Now I use tap water but I do full boils, and NEVER add to the wort, I just make sure I have enough to start with. My two cents worth
 
I just use tap water as is, but we have pretty soft city water and no chloramines. However, I think I'm at the point where I might be able to improve some of my beers by paying more attention to mineral content. I'm also going to pay a bit more attention to mash pH with some of the lighter beers I've been brewing with Pilsner malt lately.
 
I use bottled spring water. There is a huge taste difference between any of those (I use what is on sale, but I am careful to make sure it is spring water, not just someone else's tap water) and the tap water I have. If I can taste the difference in the water I assume it will also affect the beer.
 
Only having brewed 2 batches so far I don't really have experience enough to have a preference. I've used bottled spring water on both and they were both the cheapest brand (supermarket brand), but "spring water." However, I personally don't believe those labels and have seen reports of that water coming from taps.

I find it interesting how many purify their tap water for use in their brew. My water is very hard and is run through a softener which makes it much better. However it tastes like crap (to me). Maybe it's the salt? I'd rather stick with the spring water. I was surprised how few boil the water but felt comfort in the fact that it may be an indication of the safety (or at least the perception of) of tap and bottled. After I get more experience and a few more batches under my belt may chance my tap water.

Thanks for the replies

Tommy
 
I use bottled water.
I really don't like using the tap water to cook with.
I think I need to take some samples to be tested before I use it for brewing or drinking.

It's the only common link I can find between thementally insdane people in my neighborhood. There are quite a few back in this little area. I've got a neighbor that is on so many meds she can't be employed.

I'm just playing it safe.
 
I'm surprised at how many people use tap water straight up too. I have used bottled water for the makeup water on two of my batches, mostly because I knew I had less time to do the brewing. I've used a boiled tap water on the other batch. All my tap water gets run through a Brita pitcher filter before I use it in the boil or as makeup. I'm definately using the Brita for all my water on my next beer since it is going to be a Czech lager, which are supposed to be brewed with soft water. Wish I had a Berkey water filter, but Iowa is the only backwards state to not allow people to buy personal water filtration devices that haven't been run through the bureaucratic wringer at the Dept of Public Health.

The nitwits that plumbed the building that I live in were too lazy to run a hard-cold line to the kitchen so I get softened water on tap all the time. Its one of the few rental buildings I've ever seen that has softened water though. Its weird, knowing that most outfits run hard cold to the kitchen because most people don't like the taste of softened water and it has sodium in it.
 
Softened and then three stage filtered tap water. I did and intend to do full 5 gallon boils so I'm not concerned. I have to collect the filtered water in few hours advance because filtration system handles 2 gallons at a time and it takes some time to refill the holding tank.
 
I use filtered tap water from the refridgerator. It's great tasting water. When I didn't have that, I use to get my water from a Reverse Osmosis filtering machine at my grocery store. You bring your own 1 gallon bottles or buy them. It was $.59 a gallon, not bad, and it's great water for brewing.
 
.....I'm beginning to think I'm wasting time boiling 3 gallons of top-off water and cooling it in an ice bath. I've doing it since I started, I guess the sanitation stuff everywhere got drilled very deeply into my head. Maybe I should just fill up my 3 gallon pot with cold water right out of the bath tub. Is there any advantage to boiling besides sterlizing? Does it drive off any cholorine?
 
uwmgdman said:
Is there any advantage to boiling besides sterlizing? Does it drive off any cholorine?

yes, boiling will drive chlorine out of your water. It will not drive off chloramine, but it will get rid of regular old chlorine.

Anyway... when I do partial boils, I use bottled drinking water to top it off. When I did a full volume boils for my first AG, I used tap water right out of the garden hose for the mash and sparge.

This means I need to answer two different ways, so I'll flip a coin.

...

It came up "BOILED".

-walker
 
I use water straight out of the hose in the backyard, but I am doing all-grain, so I guess it all gets boiled. I thought about trying to filter it, but haven't had any problems so don't really see a reason to.
 
I really bet I’m going to sound like the red-neck here but I personally love charcoal filtered water. For my first batch I used some from my grandmothers but since I don't want to run across town and since her filter is three days younger then Moses, I’m going to experiment with making my own.

I’ve found an article written by a ranger that writes survivalist articles that shows how a filter can be made from a few lumps of charcoal and a couple of socks (I would presume that you would want them to be clean :cross: ) and a sacraficed pop bottle...

Quite a functional site......almost funny, I really like the one where he showed how to make a grill from a surplus ammo box......then there a picture with him, standing with the grill and a beer cooking burgers I believe.....
 
I had to pick "Other" since all my batches come from my well water. We've got some of the best tasting water straight out of the ground here where I live.
 
It really sounds like there is nothing to worry about using straight tap water as top-off water. But when I think about using straight tap water (not boiling and cooling it) the angel pops up on my shoulder and says, 'If it isn't broke, don't fix it'.......then the devil on the other shoulder says.....'Don't listen to him, you're wasting your time and money boiling and cooling.'

I think the devil is right here, but I'd hate to end up with a batch that isn't as good b/c of the lack of a chlorine boil off or whatever, or even worse a bad batch, but it sounds like that's not really a concern.
 
i use tap water to boil and then top off with bottled spring water
 
Well I punched in my vote before really reading the question. I use tap water treated with campton to rid the water of chlorimines, but I DON'T top up my wort in the fermenter. What I get after the boil is what I ferment.
 
What I have done is the day before brewing is fill up my carboy with tap water ...either from the kitchen sink or from the hose bib outside ( no funky hose water for me) the night before and loosly cover it with some plastic wrap.

That seems to do the trick here, I would practic filtering water if I thought it neded it, but for the most part we have some decent water here.

I have become more agressive as of late with keeping my wort "hydrated" i.e. adding almost the entire 5 gallons into the boil and keeping only a gallon or so set aside to rinse any grains I used. (steeped grains mind you)

Being how it was 8* outside this weekend when I brewed cooling the wort was no trouble I didn't need to mix in any cold water to lower the temp. :D
 
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