Water!?

[David20Hersch]

Just about to brew a batch of AG but last thing is that I still haven't figured out is where to get the BEST water from. I know that there is probably another forum some where out there but couldn't find it

my tap water leaves white limy stains on everything and doesn't taste all that great anyhow. what other options do i have besides using tap water or trying to fix it with salts and such? bottled water? distilled water?

 

[jakenbacon]

Drinking water would probably be your best bet. If you used distilled you would have to add minerals back but I am sure your not there yet. Make sure the jug says drinking water, not spring water. Not that it will make a huge difference but that is usually what is recommended to make things easy. Good luck!

 

[Psylocide]

Bottled water will probably do you just fine.

 

[PGEduardo]

Water is a pretty complex subject, with each beer being optimized by a different water profile.

In general, just go buy some spring water from the store or reverse-osmosis/mineralized water that's cheap (I pay $1 for 5 gallon fills). It'll give you a good starting point and then you can tailor it once you reach that point in your brewing...

 

[JonM]

Here's a great place to start. It gives a ballpark for mineral additions and for acid additions (both very important for getting the water chemistry right) when you use RO distilled water. it's where lots of us first got acquainted with treating water.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/brewing-water-chemistry-primer-198460/

 

[unionrdr]

I've been using Ohio spring water for everything up to pb/pm biab. The lil yeasties seem to love it with the trace minerals in it that you can't really taste. I either use spring water from Giant Eagle or White House Artisian Springs. But JonM's suggestion is a good one if you wanna start learning the water additions.