Water treatment Yes or No

[badgerbrewer]

Hi
Returning to brewing after a long lay off. When i first started brewing from kits about thirty years ago you just lobbed in the kit with 2lb of sugar and waited. Now on returning I find people talking about half a cambden tablet added to the water and brewing sugars and spray malts. Simple series of questions, Does de-chloirinating the water make a noticable difference, same for the use of brewing sugars and how much spray malt should i use to prime a 5 gallon brew barrel. P.S. There were no forums back then either. lol

 

[Covrich]

I think it depends on how good your drinking water is out the tap. Here in the Midlands the water is pretty good to drink so I just use it as it is..

 

[Mark1964]

It's probably not worth it for kits but all grain is. If you make all grain get a water report from the local supplier. Then you can treat with whatever you need.

 

[DoctorMick]

I don't treat my water when doing kits and they turn out alright but I like my tap water. I will be treating it when I start AG tho.

 

[cheshirehomebrew]

I use grains combined with dry and liquid malt, and dont treat my water.

it's getting quite popular to 'burtonise' the water; but as I dont live in burton I dont want the beer I brew to resemble theirs, its brewed in cheshire with the water out of my tap (which either comes from the lakes or derbyshire).

 

[TartanSpecial]

There's no harm in adding 1/2 a tablet to 5 gallons of tap water before you start...it will remove any chlorine that's there. For kits I don't treat the water (other than campden tablet)....if the tap water tastes good to drink then it should be OK to brew. I'm doing all grain now and I do treat the water with carbonate reducing solution (mix of dilute hydroloric and sulfuric acids) to reduce reserve alkalinity and tinker with Ca Sulphate and Calcium Chloride. My water company (Thames Water) doesn't publish all the data I want (eg reserve alkalinity or Magnesium) so I sent a sample off to Murphy and Sons who will test your water for approx £22 and send you back a report, together with water treatment recommendations for different types of beer. Well worth the cost i.m.o. IF you are doing all grain.
You should be impressed with the quality of some of the kits available now...esp the 2 can all malt ones.

 

[mabrungard]

Almost all municipal water systems treat their water with a chlorine-based compound. Those compounds WILL create chlorophenols (bandaid) in your beer. Adding the campden is such a simple step that it is foolish not to do it. 1 tablet in 35 liters is the typical dose and you don't really have to worry about overdosing the water too much since any excess metabisulfite is destroyed during the wort boil. DO IT!