Can local water quality affect brew?

[blackdouglas]

Well I bought a couple of still ones for drinking and cooking today following the **** water incident, rest will be sparkling. I guess I'll find out...

 

[alanywiseman.]

Are you using the still or sparkling to brew with?

 

[blackdouglas]

I'm using the bottle to prime it. It was just a question. If my water turns yellow again I'll be using still bottled though.

 

[alanywiseman.]

:thumb:

Good luck with the brew. Only bottle your beer in bottles that have previously heald a fizzy drink and you will be fine.

 

[Smiddylad]

Does anyone know what the mineral content of the Tesco 17p bottles is. I live in a hard water area and so I am forced to use bottled water when making Pale Ales and the like. Recently I made a Pale Ale using Tesco water and when I took my pH reading at the end of the mash my pH was a little under 5.2. I added a tsp of Gypsum at the beginning of the mash, as usual, but I’m really working blind so knowing what the mineral profile of the water is would make it easier when it comes to making mineral additions.

 

[StevieDS]

You'll find the profile for the asda smart price water here if that's any good to you. It's also 17p for 2 litres :thumb:

 

[Smiddylad]

Awesome, I suppose I could always use this in a pinch as I assume both Tesco and Asda have very similiar processes for their bottled water :)

 

[pjc]

I live in a hard water area and so I am forced to use bottled water when making Pale Ales

My tap water is very hard and alkaline (349mg/l CaCO3). It is fine to use for pale ales if I treat it first with CRS.

 

[anthonyUK]

My tap water is very hard and alkaline (349mg/l CaCO3). It is fine to use for pale ales if I treat it first with CRS.

Me too. I use either CRS or Phosphoric acid depending on the profile I want.

 

[StevieDS]

My tap water is very hard and alkaline (349mg/l CaCO3). It is fine to use for pale ales if I treat it first with CRS.

Me too. I use either CRS or Phosphoric acid depending on the profile I want.

Yeah you can certainly do that, as long as you know your starting point. I've started using bottled water cos my water report wasn't very helpful. It gave min, max and mean values for each mineral but there was a big difference between some of them so it was impossible to tell mineral content with any accuracy.