Best water for an agnostic brewer

[eltei]

As a follow up to my innocent thread regarding finings in beer,which spawned some very emotive posts and good discussions I would like to ask advice as to which water is preferable for me to use as an agnostic. Would I be better off using Holy water or Halal water? Or is plain old council pop out of the tap good enough....

 

[chthon]

 

[eltei]

On a serious note..any advice on how to "Burtonize" brewing water.

 

[eltei]

I once met some contractors doing some work at the school from Burton on Trent and asked them to fill up a brewing bucket with water from their home town. I thought I'd give it a go to see if it made an iota of difference...it didn't..but..i later found out the cheeky beggars had forgot to fill it so not to let me down had just filled it up at the school.

 

[fury_tea]

You often see homebrewers making the grueling pilgrimage to Burton on Trent in order to sample their famous tap water and take some back to cure their sick brews.

 

[GerritT]

It's harder water, so there's that. You could try buying a sixpack of 1.5 liters of water at the supermarket, the contents should be on the label.

 

[eltei]

Good idea. I remember once doing two brews of porter, one with spring water and the other with tap water. The tap water was by far the best.

 

[Linalmeemow]

There's a simple water additions calculator on this very forum, you know...

https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/pages/water-calculator/

But cheapo supermarket springwater, plug the analysis from the label on the bottle into the calculator and viola, there's your additions.

 

[Cwrw666]

I've got very acid low minerals water here - great for pale ales but rubbish for stouts. Currently got a brew boiling away - dry stout - but I've used Tescos Chase Spring water which has more or less the ideal mineral profile for stout and at 17p per 2 litres won't break the bank. Though you do get funny looks at the checkout...

 

[terrym]

I once met some contractors doing some work at the school from Burton on Trent and asked them to fill up a brewing bucket with water from their home town. I thought I'd give it a go to see if it made an iota of difference...it didn't..but..i later found out the cheeky beggars had forgot to fill it so not to let me down had just filled it up at the school.

You often see homebrewers making the grueling pilgrimage to Burton on Trent in order to sample their famous tap water and take some back to cure their sick brews.

The water that Burton breweries used to use for brewing (and may well still do) comes from deep wells sunk in the area, and this water has picked up calcium sulphate (gypsum) from the underlying rock structure giving traditional Burton beers their uniqueness, especially pale ales. Marstons (not Marsdens!) have named one of their beers after one of their wells, 61 Deep. So Burton water for brewing beer is not traditionally sourced from the mains (nor the River Trent), although modern brewing methods probably means mains water is just treated to suit the required water profile for the beer being brewed, especially since Carling lager is now brewed in the town.

 

[Scottyburto]

Greg Wallace - bbc - inside the factory series 4 - Beer

 

[Scottyburto]

This gist with carling is they pretty much use demineralised water and add a specific mineral profile to it. Factory could be in Timbuktu in regards to water.
Key takeaway for me was the minimal amount of hops. Think it was a needle of hops in a field of haystack!

 

[Northern_Brewer]

You often see homebrewers making the grueling pilgrimage to Burton on Trent in order to sample their famous tap water and take some back to cure their sick brews.

I happened to go past Lourdes once and as an agnostic had a look around just out of curiosity, the reality of how the water is dispensed is rather at odds to how I imagined it :

 

[eltei]

I'm an agnostic who works in a Catholic school, the water they use for mass is supplied in a generic 5litre plastic can, not at all special. When I was once asked to get it to top up the finger dipping things I spent ages looking for some grand looking container.

 

[eltei]

61 deep...cracking pint!