Water help: town draws from various sources

[bmbigda]

My towns main water supply comes from a series of 5 wells that draw from the same aquifer. ok great so I'll send that out to ward labs and be good to go.

problem is - the town has the ability to draw from neighboring towns, and have recently been doing so. most of the neighboring towns are also drawing groundwater, however one neighboring town does draw surface water. so my question is, without knowing specifically how much and how often they're taking the neighbors water...is this all in the noise? and I can proceed assuming the water is similar enough? I also could send another sample out in 6 months to compare I guess.

the town is Pembroke ma. http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/dep/water/drinking/swap/sero/4231000.pdf

 

[bigdongsr94]

My bro in life became so much easier when I switched to RO water.

 

[bigdongsr94]

Wasn't finished. Anyway I'm not sure who your grocery is but I use Kroger and you can get RO water for $.39 a gallon.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Option A- Buy a water testing kit, and test your water before every brew. If the source is constantly changing, the sources are different enough to be noticeable (whether flavor or mash pH), then this is the only way I'd be comfortable using that ground water.

Option B- Buy RO water.

Option C- RO filter your own water. Even with the changes between water sources, the resulting water shouldn't significantly change. Still minimal ion levels.

 

[akthor]

Can someone post a link to a testing kit and do they sell a kit to fix the water if its wrong?

 

[Qhrumphf]

I know that Northern Brewer sold one but I don't see it listed any more.

I know a mate has this one:
http://www.lamotte.com/en/food-beverage/7188-01.html

 

[Qhrumphf]

As for fixing water, if you don't want to get into water chemistry there's no "fix" unless you start from Options B or C (RO or distilled water. Even then for all grain brewing you still often need to add stuff back. For extract brewing just buy RO water and you're fine.

 

[bmbigda]

thanks for the replies. I have been building up from distilled for a while now and am just getting sick of buying the water for every brew.

I posted a couple weeks ago looking for ideas to buy RO in bulk in my area but had no luck.

 

[tjmac5071]

I had the same problem in North Reading, MA so I switched to using monadnock spring water. Nice mineral profile IMO and there is a .25 per gallon filling station in town. Great results so far and not planning to go back to filtered tap ever.

 

[bmbigda]

I had the same problem in North Reading, MA so I switched to using monadnock spring water. Nice mineral profile IMO and there is a .25 per gallon filling station in town. Great results so far and not planning to go back to filtered tap ever.

do you alter your water for each recipe? if the modadnock water chem is published somewhere and consistent source I can get that too.

 

[Spartan1979]

Our water system draws from two different rivers so I never know what I'm getting. Then a couple of years ago after a big rain up north the water tasted terrible. I finally bought an RO system. There are plenty on eBay for $100-125 so it seems like a small cost to know what I've got.

 

[tjmac5071]

do you alter your water for each recipe? if the modadnock water chem is published somewhere and consistent source I can get that too.

I emailed them and they sent me the water report right away and thanked me for considering them for homebrewing. Pm me and I will email the report or just email them

 

[urg8rb8]

My suggestion would also be to use RO. It's cheap, produces excellent beer with the right salts, and produces predictable results.

 

[Dirt_McGirt]

My municipal water draws from the creeks of several canyons, as well as the groundwater aquifer and some other sources. It varies week to week. It's useless to even send out for a water test in that situation.

My solution was I found a local spring-fed well that's open to the public, provides good tasting water, and even already has a chemical profile uploaded on Brewer's Friend. I just head up there and fill 6+ gallons worth whenever I plan to brew, and supplement with distilled and filtered tap water to top off.

 

[JoeHoffman]

My city mails me a yearly water analysis of the three drastically different sources it uses with all the stats on the minerals and such. Which water is coming to my house is mostly dictated by demand. When demand is low in winter we get the well water and when demand goes up in summer we get imported and treated water blends. So what I do is test the Ph which will pretty easily indicate which water profile I'm looking at and from there can predict what the mineral content will be from the posted ranges for that water supply. I don't try to fight against the flow, so to speak, I just brew a style I know will work with the type of water I'm getting at that time and it has always worked well for me.


Pleas excuse my dyslexia

 

[bmbigda]

I'm not surprised to see everyone confirming that i need to just keep buying RO. thanks

 

[Qhrumphf]

I'm not surprised to see everyone confirming that i need to just keep buying RO. thanks

As mentioned, you can buy the filtration unit and do it yourself. Will probably take a while to recoup the cost, but that's certainly an option, plus the convenience. Or maybe with the time it takes, perhaps not.

 

[BigFloyd]

How does your tap water taste?

If not so good, go the RO route.

What I do since our water tastes pretty good, unless the city is doing some kind of special treatment in the hot summer months, is run it through a drinking water hose into an inline RV carbon filter (http://www.amazon.com/Camco-40043-TastePURE-Flexible-Protector/dp/B0006IX87S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453170085&sr=8-1&keywords=rv+filter) and hit it with campden tabs since our city does use chloramine. Beers with this filtered/treated water have consistently turn out great.

 

[akthor]

I lived in Maine and had wonderful ice cold great tasting well water.

Moved to Minnesota and where I'm going to put my new 1bbl brewery our well has that sulfur rotten egg sewer smelling water. We wash and use it but don't drink it. Water test done for the mortgage says there's nothing
harmful in it. But we don't drink it or cook with it. It just smells awful.

Not brewing with it unless some sort of filtering can cure it.

Good drinking water is an issue in this part of MN. There are RO water stands in all the stores and even stand alone ones in most of the towns.

I've pretty much resigned myself that I'm gonna be shlepping water in 5 gallon jugs for brew days.

 

[Hanglow]

These kits are popular in uk brewing
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001EJ3DOG/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Means you can adjust to get correct mash ph easily and cheaply using acids. Or course you won't know what flavour salts you have, but you'll still make good beer. Or at least better beer than you would otherwise