Tap Water

[Larkin989]

Aye!

About to make my 2nd batch, this time I'm brewing a Scottish ale. For my first batch I made, I used five gallons of distilled water from the store and it turned out just fine.

My question is, will brewing with tap water be alright? My tap water is not from a well so it seems pretty clean. I'm just curious if using it will make an impact on my brew!

Any input helps! :rockin:

 

[stpug]

It WILL make an impact on your beer. Possibly helping, possibly hurting. Most cities/towns/villages/etc post a water report (sometimes called consumer confidence report, CCR) that you can use to get a ballpark idea of what you're dealing with. Depending on levels of certain minerals, pH, alkalinity will determine how your water might be useful in brewing. Some regions of the USA (I don't know what country you're in) have really soft water that is an ideal jump-off point for brewing, while others are so hard/alkaline that it's simply not suited for brewing at 100% usage - and then there's everything in-between. Finally, chlorine/-amines are frequently used in tap water to keep pathogens at bay, and that should be dealt with using either a low-flow carbon filter method or quarter tablet of campden tablets per 5 gallons of brewing water.

 

[JonM]

Definitely look up the water report for your municipality and if it's not online, give them a call - I bet they'll be helpful.

The things you're looking for are calcium, magnesium, sodium, sulfate, chlorides and hardness.

Definitely use the campden tablet trick if your water has chlorine/chloramines because the combination of that stuff with malt is NASTY! The campden neutralizes it.

ETA: if you find those values, post them here and we and others can take a look and make recommendations.

 

[bucketnative]

I would be in the camp that says... "For your second brew ever, don't worry too much about water chemistry... there are other fundamentals that will have a bigger impact on your beer quality. With the exception of one thing... Chlorine/chloramines." (Edit - maybe that's technically two things?)

@JonM gave good advice about the campden tablets as a way to rid your water of chlorine/chloramine. One tablet is usually enough to treat 20 gal of tap water. It dissolves better in hot water than in cold, so I typically heat about 1 qt of water with 1/2 tablet (crushed) in it until the powder dissolves. I then add that to approximately 8 gal (for a 5 gal batch). Stir it around for a bit and let it sit for 10 minutes. It's amazing how quick the smell of chlorine will dissipate from the water.

As far as the other trace elements in the water, I would worry about those later, once you have the fundamentals of brewing technique nailed down. That's my $0.02, and others may disagree.

 

[frozengator]

I have well water and had no problem with fermentation so far...... knock on wood. Lol

 

[Biscuits]

Are you brewing all grain or extract? If it is extract, you are probably better off with the distilled water since all of the nutrients/what-have-you are already in the extract....if you're brewing all grain, add a cambden tablet (1 per 20 gal) and brew on...don't overwhelm yourself with water chemistry on your second brew.

 

[Nodak_Brewer]

If I were you, I'd get a good milligram scale and some K-meta powder, not tablets. I do small batches, so it's impossible to weigh out the required amount unless I make a solution and "part it out," which wastes chemical. The powder and scale make it mucho easy.

You can boil/aerate out free chlorine, but chloramines must be removed with activated charcoal or k-meta. The scale and powder are a cheap but incredibly good way to make your beer even better. Distilled water lacks all minerals that give water character; for example, with distilled water a Guinness Draught wouldn't taste like it should without their hard water, and a Samuel Smith Nut Brown would be totally lacking. If it's good enough to drink, it's good enough to brew with but you should definitely remove the aforementioned chlorine/chloramine.

FWIW, I just sampled the Nut Brown clone I brewed a while back and the hard water here in Fargo made it taste amazing. Sometimes a mineral twang is absolutely necessary, and other times it's not. In those cases, I just cut my tap water with RO water.

 

[Larkin989]

Thanks for all the answers! I know on my second batch it may be a little ridiculous worrying about water chemistry lol, but I want my brew to taste as good as possible! I'm currently brewing five gallon batches, so would I just cut a camden tablet into fourths?

As for my tap water composition here in the Saginaw Bay region of Michigan, it comes out as this:
Fluoride - 0.69 ppm
Barium - 0.01 ppm
Chlorine - 0.72 ppm (highest found)
Trihalomethanes - 46 ppb (highest found)
Haloacetic Acids - 20 ppb (highest found)
Copper - 0.440 ppb
Lead - 3 ppb

No mention of chloramines, but there is some chlorine so would a camden tablet neutralize it?

Maybe I am just over thinking this whole thing since it seems even well water can work well. I remember someone saying that tap water can contaminate a batch so I was just curious. Thank you all

 

[modelflyer2003]

A gallon of spring water at Wal-Mart is $0.98. No hassle. No worry. I buy seven gallons when making 5 gallons of brew. Cheap. Not as cheap as tap water, but cheap enough.

 

[Hudini56]

Most water can work.. Some just not as well as others and vice verse depending on style of the beer. I'd second the idea, on batch 2, dont worry too much about your water. Your likely a little ways away from this. Add in the camden for the chlorine. And make your batch. Practice all the other brewing techniques, and when youve got that procedure an methods down, move on to water, and if youre like most of us that have brewed for a while, you will get into yeast.

Ive been brewing total of 7 years off and on. More frequently in the past 3 years. I switched my all grain setup to 15 gallon keggles, and restarted my learning process. Made about 7-8 before I got into yeast, an now 10 batches in I am into water profiles etc. Yes it makes a difference.

But relax! Brew a few batches, make them best you can without over complicating things! I bet your going to make beer, and it wont be bad at all! BTW you came to the right place here. Theres a lot of good helpful information!

Cheers!

 

[Nodak_Brewer]

Your water report doesn't mention alkalinity or hardness? Hardness is created by polyvalent cations, calcium and magnesium being typical. It's likely listed as mg/L or ppm. They're the same thing.

Also, that "cheap" wally world water isn't cheap at all. It's about 450X more expensive than using tap water depending on your location. At least here where it's only 0.002 dollars per gallon.

The scale and chemical will pay for itself being only $20 total, versus paying dearly for bottled water that's usually inferior to the nearly free stuff coming from the faucet.

 

[JonM]

Like someone mentioned above, the real question is whether you're doing extract or all grain. If all-grain, then this stuff is important. If extract, then all you need is distilled water from the grocery store. The short version is: with extract, someone else went to the trouble of handling the water chemistry to do the mash and make the wort, then they extracted pure water from the wort to make it into extract, meaning all you have to do is add pure, distilled water back in.

 

[TulsaTax]

Try the tap water. Keep brewing simple and you will brew more.