Tesco Value Still Table Water.......

[johnbarleycorn]

Hello,
Thought I'd share my experiences on the above bottled water......
I live in a London Suburb near Bromley in Kent, so, I have to deal with the problem of Thames water. Getting hold of my water report showed what I can decipher as having a calcium level of 306 ppm ( Mmmm...nice) the insides of the kettle look like a snowdrift.
I was having lots of trouble getting good PH levels even after treating water by boiling, adding Gypsum etc as per GW book. I regularly hit 6.2 to 6.5 on the ph papers after a 5 min mash.
Well, I bought 40l (20 bottles) from my local Tescos - old fella on the till gave me a funny look.....I told him I used it to wash my hair with, ive got a #1 crop.
Well I brewed 25l of "tribute" and I got a reading of 5.3 on the ph papers. I used about 30l in the process and ended up 26 ish liters, so 15 X 17p = £2.55 for cracking brewing liquor. Some may think this is expensive, I'm bloody happy that I'm getting good beers at last.

[Pooky]

Hi I live in West Yorkshire, our water is suitable for brewing, but we always use bottled water usually Sainsburys basics I think it's about 17p for 2 litres, we found the taste of beer made using bottled water is far superior to the chlorined chemical water that comes out of our tap.

[guidomax]

Agreed.

I also use the Tesco Value water; mainly because I've not dipped my toe into water treatment yet and my area (Oxford) has awfully chlorinated water (which I could probably ameliorate with a campden tablet but I've not tried yet).

We also have no conveniently-situated-for-me Asda (there's a thread elsewhere which extols the virtues of Asda Smartprice water as a good brewing liquor).

So far I would recommend it - I've made some cracking brews (admittedly extract, not AG, to be rectified in due course!). Simple and easy. Doubtless with well-treated tap water I could probably make similar but the Tesco Value water gives me a repeatable result for not a lot of cash. The PET bottles it comes in are also very sturdy (nice big caps in comparison to the Asda PETs) if you're inclined to bottle in 'em. I tend to use cornies but a mate uses the Tesco PETs with good results.

[Naich]

Until you get your brewing technique sorted, it's a good idea to use bottled water. It's one less thing to worry about. But doing treatment with CRS, a Campden tab for the chlorine and salts, using Graham's water treatment calculator only adds about 20 minutes to the start of the brew. The CRS takes care of the hardness without having to boil and you don't have mess around with 20-odd bottles of water; it takes about 10 minutes to empty them all into the HLT.

[johnbarleycorn]

fair do's Chris but the London water I have coming out of me tap is as nasty as a bunch of hoodies in an underpass.... Plus Mrs Barleycorn dont moan at me for boiling water "for no reason...":-) I tried the GW water treatment/campden tablet etc route- It just dont work for me my PH readings were too high. I havent changed my brewing methods at all (apart from the story of my boiler tap.....) and by using the cheap Tescos (not Ashbeck) water and chucking in gypsum with the mash and the boil my PH readings are now spot on and me beers tasting good, I may try the Asda water, but as tesco's is hitting the spot I think I will continue using it.
Just out of interest Chris how would I find out the levels in the Tescos cheap water? the levels arent printed on the bottle; would I be right in thinking its just "filtered" tap water?

[johnbarleycorn]

Chris............

well I bit the bullet and bought a Salifert kit......It looks like ive got 4.95meq/l therefore 247.5 mg/l CaCo3 of nasty stuff......The kit was about £7.00 and the bottle of CRS about a fiver; so, for about £12.00 I can now take the guessing, worrying and trickery (not to mention the strange looks and questions from the till staff) out of my brew days.....

Damm you Chris-x1 !!!

Your ability to "suggest" something then let it develop in an individuals brain is clever!

Anybody wanna buy 6 bottles of tesco water goin' cheap......

Cheers.

[steve_flack]

Just remember you don't need to take out all the alkalinity in your water.