Bottled water debate

[Alimac019]

Hey guys,

I am doing two 23 litre batches at the weekend, it is worth mentioning they are just kit beers, so no full grain process.

I've gone out and bought 50 litres of bottled water as the tap water around me isn't so great.

I was wondering if there are any ingredients I should be wary of? I hear Chlorine is bad for beer, the bottles I got have 15mg of Chloride to the litre. I have no idea if this is too high or not, and if there are any other ingredients to look out for.

Let me know - I can pop into another supermarket on the way home for some 'cleaner' water!

Thanks

 

[chub1]

Hey guys,

I am doing two 23 litre batches at the weekend, it is worth mentioning they are just kit beers, so no full grain process.

I've gone out and bought 50 litres of bottled water as the tap water around me isn't so great.

I was wondering if there are any ingredients I should be wary of? I hear Chlorine is bad for beer, the bottles I got have 15mg of Chloride to the litre. I have no idea if this is too high or not, and if there are any other ingredients to look out for.

Let me know - I can pop into another supermarket on the way home for some 'cleaner' water!

Thanks

Where i live the water is pretty hard but i use it for all my brews ( kits, extract and now AG),never tried using bottled water and probably never will do either. I do know seasoned brewers will say there is a difference in the finished article with either soft or hard water.

 

[IainM]

Chloride should be below 150mg/l, so you're fine :thumb:

 

[Covrich]

Yep thats fine.. in genereal if the water is fine to drink brewing home brew kits is not a problem

 

[marlon]

Very hard water here down south. But I've found that filtering my tap water works for me. Got one of those stand-alone-third tap thingy's from B & Q with a filter under the sink.

 

[aamcle]

The water supplied to my house tastes bad and it has high Alkalinity as well but an under sink filter sorts out the flavour very well. I still have to buy water for some styles because of the alkalinity, a RO would be nice but £££ and wasteful so I'm going to continue to buy in as needed.

Unless your water supply tastes great Id recommend a standard 10" taste and odour filter and an extra tap, its easy enough to fit and even your cup of tea will benefit.

aamcle

 

[Poochops]

I'm fortunate our water tastes very neutral and we never have to descale anything so it's not overly hard (there's minor scale in the kettle) I used bottled water for my first few brews and tap water since and have found no adverse flavours in either. That said I only make kits so far and as I understand it people aiming for the upper echelons of quality in the hobby do consider their water chemistry and treat/adjust accordingly. I just want a nice pint though. You won't go wrong using your bottled water but at some point do try your tap water and judge for yourself, you might save yourself some money on future brews if it turns out ok

 

[Spoon]

For a kit I'd just ad a campden tablet to the bucket of tap water a few hours before making the beer, this reacts with any chlorine/chloramine in there. No harm in using bottled water though.

As a guide:
High carbonate levels need balancing with darker malts (London and Dublin water are high carbonates, hence being famous for porter and stouts) as carbonates are alkaline, and dark malts are acidic so ballance out the pH of the mash.

High sulphate levels enhance hop bitterness so make good IPA's and bitters (Burton on tent has incredibly high sulphate levels). You can go too far, but you'd have to be putting tablespoons of gypsum in your water to get there.

Chloride is good in beer in the levels you get in bottled water, but not at the levels you see in tap water so for the most part it's best to work on ways to reduce it (half a crushed campden tablet in 25l of water before use is plenty). Note that chloramines don't smell, that's why they're more common these days, but they still make beer taste like TCP if you don't remove them.

 

[GhostShip]

When I need to add tap water to my fish pond, I fill the bucket and leave it for 24 hours for the chlorine to naturally evaporate. Presumably, the same is true for beer? Fill your sterilised bucket with tap water, cover it and then leave it a day or so before using.

 

[Frogbrew]

Bottled water for me every time @17p a bottle from various supermarkets. I re-use half the 2ltr bottles too for the finished beer if its a lager.

 

[dad_of_jon]

When I need to add tap water to my fish pond, I fill the bucket and leave it for 24 hours for the chlorine to naturally evaporate. Presumably, the same is true for beer? Fill your sterilised bucket with tap water, cover it and then leave it a day or so before using.

that works with chlorine but not chloramine. :-(

 

[Fil]

unless your aware of poor water quality in your area and need to drink bottled water as a norm,
I would suggest brewing with it to begin with, generally harder waters are more suited to ales and bitters, while softer waters are generally better with lagers and lighter beers.

to overcome the chlorine and chloromides found in tap water simply mix in a crushed campden tab, iirc 1 tab will treat upto 50l of pre brew water. just mix it in well and the effect is immediate..

 

[Leemond]

Is a campden tablet still required if you use bottled water?

 

[foxbat]

Is a campden tablet still required if you use bottled water?

No.

 

[kelper]

Chloride is like table salt. 'Chlorine' is not a salt but either a gas or a compound that acts as an oxidiser like the gas. So the ppm of chlorine has no relation to chlorides. Boiling will drive off chlorine but not chlorides. Bottled water sometimes contains bacteria too. You could use a Brita filter to help but 15ppm of chloride is really quite low. My Highland water is 30ppm!

 

[dad_of_jon]

Hmm, this has be thinking (never a good thing ) - To use tap water i'd need to measure out my total water needed and then add a campden table - ok so far.

However I only use part of the water to dissolve the extract and part to boil hops. So this would means needing to treat 21 liters and keep it in a container. With bottled water I don't treat, and put some bottles in freezer to superchill / adjust wort temp for pitching. So using a campden i'd need another bucket or two, which just makes it a ball ache getting than past mrs DOJ. - interestingly enough if you are going to have your tap water analysed shouldn't it be done after you have added the campden tablet, because that is the water you are brewing with, not the pre-campden table treated stuff?

 

[An Ankoù]

Chloride is like table salt. 'Chlorine' is not a salt but either a gas or a compound that acts as an oxidiser like the gas. So the ppm of chlorine has no relation to chlorides. Boiling will drive off chlorine but not chlorides. Bottled water sometimes contains bacteria too. You could use a Brita filter to help but 15ppm of chloride is really quite low. My Highland water is 30ppm!

Quite so. But note that boiling won't drive off chloramine, which, for our purposes, is just as bad a contaminant as free oo loosely bonded chlorine. Half a Campden tablet in 10 gallons will kill it though.

 

[Frogbrew]

I now use half a crushed Camden tablet in 23 ltrs of water the night before brewing and notice no difference in the finished brew to using bottled water.