Best bottled water for brewing pilsners?

[daf]

Hi

My brain freezes up when I see chemical values, numbers and ph CaCo alkanity levels, I get bad memories of Chemistry lessons in school.

However my water here is hard as nails, and I want to use cheap supermarket bottled water to replace it or just dilute it to a softer liquor for pilsner.

Can anyone give recommendations for the various 5l bottles of supermarket water? They're all about the same price like Tesco's Ashbeck - are Lidl/Aldi/Asda ones any good too?

[Mr. Dripping]

Tecso Ashbeck will work for a pilsner. It is what I've used in the past.
IIRC Asda Smartprice works too.....but I'm not 100% on that.

[daf]

Ta - Tesco's a bit of a drive for me so if the Asda one is okay that would be grand.

[Mr. Dripping]

Just done a little digging for you.
Tesco - alkalinity ~ 10ppm
Asda - alkalinity ~ 45ppm

The Asda water is a little too high IMO for a pilsner.
Do you have any acid for alkalinity reduction??

[daf]

Balls, I just bought 32l of Asda for a fiver.

What acid should be used?

[daf]

Ah, it was the Eden Falls I bought, not the Smartprice. Looking at this thread it's the same source, apparently:

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=64459

All systems go for pilsner tonight!

[Mr. Dripping]

Phew!!
Looks good to me.....have a good brew evening

[daf]

Ta....two brews on the trot, did one last night too!

[Dave S]

Ah, it was the Eden Falls I bought, not the Smartprice. Looking at this thread it's the same source, apparently:

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=64459

All systems go for pilsner tonight!

The problem with very cheap supermarket water, such as Smart Price and Tesco's Value is that they are changeable and often no lower in ions than tap water. A while ago I came unstuck using the latter based on a previous analysis. Turned out it was not much different from my own tap water. For a Pilsner you could also go for RO water and build it up a little, or mix it with a proportion of your own tap water.

I think the bottom line is; it's risky taking any water content for granted. Measure the alkalinity and get periodic analyses.

[Aleman]

Ashbeck and Eden falls tend not to be very variable.

Neil did an analysis of smartprice and it was reasonably low in alkalinity and was fairly stable.

I do agree with Dave though, it is always worth testing the alkalinity of your brewing liquor just to ensure that the alkalinity hasn't changed

[daf]

Aren't the cheapo cheapo ones, like Value/Smartprice etc, actually just tap water anyway??

[Aleman]

Smart price doesn't appear to be. Search on here for a post by wallybrew about ASDA smartprice

:Edit

Damn that used to be in a post by Chris-X1 which has been removed, like all his posts

[daf]

Couldn't be arsed mashing tonight, too tired LOL