Water - from the tap

[eighteez]

Our tap water is pretty good.

So I'll be using that for brewing.

I have gathered that the water I'll be adding to top off to 5 gal should be pre-boiled to make sure its not harboring "nasties".

I guess I'll boil up 3-4 gallons prior to boiling the wort and store it in the bottling bucket or one of the carboys while I do my main boil. Then I'll have boiled (now room temp) water at the ready to top off the wort.

Is this a sound idea?

I dont see the need to buy spring water or anything like that at this point... I think our tap water will be just fine.

 

[ajf]

You can do that if you want to. Many people however just use fresh tap water for the top off. (I did this successfully for many years before going to full boils.)

-a.

 

[KayaBrew]

You can do that if you want to. Many people however just use fresh tap water for the top off. (I did this successfully for many years before going to full boils.)

-a.

Me too.

 

[Joelsyales]

If you can't do a full boil, I would think that is fine. Keep in mind you might want to use a water filter to get rid of the Chlorine (depending where you live).

 

[eighteez]

I'll plan on doing full boils, but I assumed I'd be topping it off at least a little bit.

Great info, thanks guys!

 

[Grinder12000]

Yea - tap water is fine and I don't boil it- I do make sure that my containers are sanitary before I put in my extra water.

 

[BriarwoodBrewer]

I used to buy distilled, but changed over to tap. I haven't had any issues.

 

[JJL]

I just run mine straight out of the tap to top off if I'm short after a full boil. But boiling won't hurt anything.

 

[stageseven]

I guess I'll boil up 3-4 gallons prior to boiling the wort and store it in the bottling bucket or one of the carboys while I do my main boil. Then I'll have boiled (now room temp) water at the ready to top off the wort.

I used to do this, but I noticed that I had a hard time getting the beer down to pitching temperature since the water I boiled would often be warmer than the wort I had put all that effort into chilling. If you put 3-4 gallons of hot water in a bucket, it takes a long time to cool down on it's own! If you do go this route though, make sure the vessel you store the water in is also sanitized. It defeats the purpose of sterilizing the water if you're going to put it in a bucket that's harboring bacteria. Personally I wouldn't worry about it.

Since you say you're going to be doing a full boil, you really should only need 1 or 2 gallons to top off at most. It's preferable in a full boil to just account for the amount of water you'd boil off ahead of time, but if your pot will only hold the 5 gallons for the batch you would need to top off a bit.