Tap Water

[craigmtc]

I have been using tap water for home brew, although I am a newbie andonly made two brews. I spoke to another home brewerwho said that he used bottled filtered water.

Is tap water OK?

Any advice would be apprecited!

[randomdave]

Im on my 3rd kit atm an ive only ever used tap water. Ive never treated it either but as far as I know theres not much crap in our water so the brews have turned out fine. You can get info from your local water supplier website if you really wanna be baffled by science. IMO id just go with it an if it tastes ok dont worry about it.

[Lillywhite]

Im on my 3rd kit atm an ive only ever used tap water. Ive never treated it either but as far as I know theres not much crap in our water so the brews have turned out fine. You can get info from your local water supplier website if you really wanna be baffled by science. IMO id just go with it an if it tastes ok dont worry about it.

I was speaking to a guy from Anglian Water the other day when he was checking for leaks in the water main outside our house about chlorine in our water supply and he ask me to put a small amount of water from our tap in a plastic bottle and he dropped in a magic tablet which turned the water a pale pink colour. This indicated there was a small amount of chlorine in our water supply. However, there is no TSP taste to our water and so I aren't going to get hung up about it unlesss I notice a funny taste to my brews.

[randomdave]

Ive never checked our water tbh im in south yorkshire myself an as i said never had any grief.

If you havent had the tcp taste then chances are its not worth worrying about.

[frestonian]

I recently started kit brewing and I can only advise that you do treat your water or buy spring water. I boiled my tap water, but never treated it and thought I'd got away with it. I've only brewed Brewferms so far and as the beer matured (about the four week mark) this revolting chemical flavour crept into the beer (a friend described it as inhaling furniture polish). I don't know if any residual sweetness masked the flavour up until that point, but it was pretty galling to go along thinking it was fine and coming along nicely, only to find that after a period of time it became undrinkable. Now whenever I take a drink of water from the tap I can recognise the same chemical taste that the beers had, and I've never noticed it before. What's even more infuriating is that a mate eight miles away as the crow flies doesn't even have to boil his water and his brews are fantastic. My advice (not that it's worth much given my inexperience) however is not to chance it.

[JayBee]

I buy 5 litre stores own value brand water. My own tap water might be sound but for the sake of 85 pence for 5 litres why take the risk.

[THE EMBALMER]

hi al i just started a brew this evening and used lidle spring water 2 ltr bottles which i can refill with the ale in a weeks time, i think the water around here is good very soft no lime scale but for the sake of 20 p for 2 ltrs i went that option. did the same when i made wine but used mineral water from liddle as opposed to spring water this time(cheaper). but on looking at the bottled spring water the label says chlorine in it now is this natural or has it been added at source if so might as well have used tap water. our water every now and then tasted chloriney when having a cup of tea but very rarely thankfully but some places its terrible.

[Curious Brew]

I put a teaspoon of sodium metabisulphate in an empty 500ml coke bottle, fill with water and give it a good shake.

Then I just add a slug of the mix to a saucepan full of water before pouring it into my FV from height (to aerate). I aim to use half the bottle by the time the FV is up to the level.

Bit unscientific maybe but it works for me.

[craigmtc]

Thanks for some interesting repies. The water in our areas tasted abhsolutely fine. However if I am right in thinking one campden tablet sort thing either way it has to be worthwhile doesn't it.

It sound like even filtered wated has some chlorine in it????

Cheers

Craig

[craigmtc]

Today in Lidl I noticed some still bottled mineral water at 20p for litre, would this need any treatment?

[adodman]

Ordinarily, I have used tap water to make all my kit beers up until now.

I have often found in my beers there is this 'back taste', a chemical flavour or something like it. It has never put me off drinking the beer but it is a flavour I have always associated with 'home brew'. The home brew shop owner said it was due to my excessive use of chemical cleaners and not rinsing properly but now I'm not so sure.

Long story short, the last kit I have done is a Coopers stout, 1kg brewing sugar rather than 'Tate and Lyle', like I would normally use, and one pack of 'Spraymalt', the dark variety. I know this is more fermentable sugar than the kit suggests but it was the guy in the homebrew shop that suggested to try it. The key difference was my use of bottled water, 15 pence per two litre bottle from Somerfield. Fermented out and barrelled last week.

Sneaky peek taster last night, still a little yeast cloudy but the taste, OH MY GOD, it is even better than some of the beer on sale at my local and this is in its unfinished state. No funny after taste, good head, and really nice 'stout' bite.

Bottled water it will be from now on. 10 15 pence two litre bottles to each kit adds £1.50 to the total cost but the taste is o much cleaner. I wish I had started it a couple of weeks earlier so the beer would have had more time in the barrel before drinking at xmas. I'm sure it will be fine after two weeks in the cold conservatory.

After re-reading my post, I realise I have failed in my 'long story short' attempt, sorry.

Cheers
Andrew