RO vs Distilled Water

[madnetter1]

I have never really played with water chemistry before and figured I would try with a Czech Pils I am going to make since it seems pretty simple. The recipe calls for adding 5g of CaCl2 to the RO water.

My question is if I cannot find RO water would it make much of a difference if I use distilled water?

 

[Yooper]

I have never really played with water chemistry before and figured I would try with a Czech Pils I am going to make since it seems pretty simple. The recipe calls for adding 5g of CaCl2 to the RO water.

My question is if I cannot find RO water would it make much of a difference if I use distilled water?

No, they are basically interchangeable.

 

[brewerdoc]

I have never really played with water chemistry before and figured I would try with a Czech Pils I am going to make since it seems pretty simple. The recipe calls for adding 5g of CaCl2 to the RO water.

My question is if I cannot find RO water would it make much of a difference if I use distilled water?

For all practical purposes they are the same thing. Most RO setups/filters can not completely remove all of the ions from the water which leads to a water profile of not completely H2O, there are maybe a few ppm of Ca or Mg etc... RO works by water being pushed through a series of filters that are so small that the ions can not pass, only H2O is left but as you can imagine by chance maybe a few ions will pass by which leads to not 100% pure water. Distilled water is boiled to a temp that water is converted to steam, that steam is pure water with no additives and is then siphoned off and collected in another jar. This leads to pure water being obtained.

Distilled water can be 100% H20 without any impurities. In the grand scheme of things the difference between 0 and 1-5 ppm of calcium in your water is non existent and has no effect on taste or brewing in any way. That is why many times people say that they are basically the same.

 

[Troutchaser]

I was wondering the same thing. I have no idea where to get RO water.

 

[Spinout]

My local Walmart sells it for $0.37/gallon. Or, you can buy jugs of it from them, 1-5 gallon containers.

 

[slym2none]

I was wondering the same thing. I have no idea where to get RO water.

Most large chain grocery stores/supermarkets have a machine you can use to fill your own containers. We have Glacier-branded water machines around here, and you can get either 1-gallon or 5-gallons dispensed for like, 39¢ a gallon.

 

[Qhrumphf]

The figure I see is that RO water contains ~3% of the ion concentration of the original water. So even if a given ion's concentration is 400ppm in the source water, that's only 12ppm in the RO water, which for brewing purposes is fairly insignificant. Most water sources won't be near those levels, so in reality it's only a few ppm of any given mineral (as mentioned already), which would have a negligible (less than could be tasted or measured) impact on the beer.

It's not technically the same as distilled water, but when it comes to beer flavor and mash chemistry, they can be treated the same.

 

[madnetter1]

Ok, thanks everyone. Interesting discussion. I am going to try and get RO but I am not going to stress if I can't find it.

 

[srice]

I was wondering the same thing. I have no idea where to get RO water.

I used to buy brewing water from a pet shop. This shop specializes in fish and has a major RO system. I simply took in 5 gallon jugs and had them filled up. Fish people obsess as much as brewers about water chemistry. It eventually became too much of a PITA and I bought an RO system from Bulk Reef Supply.

 

[copper2hopper]

Follow up ? To this thread then for when using EZ water calc or Brun.....what should I be plugging into the "source water fields" all zero's with a ph of 7?? Is that the general approach everyone does here? Been using walmarts spring water which they were so very nice to provide the water profile for but what about their distilled or RO water? Really wanna get into this water chemistry and build my own waters.

 

[copper2hopper]

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1437407499.324274.jpg
For anyone who's interested. And I just answered my own question for pH...It's 5.4 but I still would like to know what everybody plugs into the other fields. Would it be acceptable to go with all zero's and build up from there?