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crd0902

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Just have an idea about using better water for brewing. I know that tap water is not supposed to be any good but how can I get bulk quality water short of buying it. I thought of gettin those aqua bottles from work but they are a bit bulky to conseal. I don't want to spent 100s on a water filter for the tap so I've got a few ideas. What if I was to sterilise an empty aqua bottle about 15 litres I think they are and boil the kettle and keep topping it up till full and keep in fridge with a lid on. I chill the water I top the fermenter up with to drop the temp low. Would it stay nice and fresh and for how long. I'm brewing a batch every two weeks. Also I have a beer filter I no longer filter my beer what if I was to use that to filter the tap water. Cheers for any help.
Chris
 
Not sure why you think your tap water isnt any good (just about everybody else uses it for brewing). But if you want to improve it's quality then buy a water filter.
 
Tap water here is freakin supurb for brewing.
 
I bought a 2 stage water filter off ebay for $150 and installed it myself.


Now I have filtered water for brewing and for drinking. I don't know if it has made a difference but it's one more little thing to help with quality beer.
 
Not sure why you think your tap water isnt any good (just about everybody else uses it for brewing). But if you want to improve it's quality then buy a water filter.

I remember reading things about soft water hard water ect when researching pilsner. And people can tastes different tastes in water from different places/towns. What about chlorine and all those things that are added. Guess if it doesn't matter squat I won't bother. Cheers
 
I've got a natural spring that comes out at a beach near my place so sometimes I carry an empty fermenter down there and drag it back with 25L of spring water for brewing. It tastes so much better to drink as water than my tap water (chlorinated town supply) but to be totally honest, I couldn't notice any discernable difference between my extract brews brewed with that or tap water. I read that chlorine and chlorimines can create unwanted aromas so I started boiling my tap water and realised that because of the dodgy home made well I'm taking my spring water out of, I need to boil that too anyway. So the only difference is that I had to drag the spring water home and it tastes nice to drink what I don't use in a brew.

Best thing I did was move to brewing All Grain BIAB using Nick's 20L stovetop method because all my water is boiled in the process of making the beer so that way it makes no difference whether it's my local tap water or the spring water. While I'm doing the brew I just boil another pot of 10L of water which I use to top up my fermenter once it and the wort have no-chilled.
Hope that helps
 
I remember reading things about soft water hard water ect when researching pilsner. And people can tastes different tastes in water from different places/towns. What about chlorine and all those things that are added. Guess if it doesn't matter squat I won't bother. Cheers

You can adjust your water chemistry with additions to match different water profiles. Chlorine gets boiled off, so no worries there.

That's if you're brewing All Grain. If you're brewing kits then there's a lot more other things in your list to improve your beer than the quality of the water.
 
There's a thread on here about water make up for various localities.

If you can't find it, do what I did, and write to your local council, and ask for a analysis of your local water.

The particular details you need to know are in ppm (parts per million) or mg/L (milligram per litre) (ppm and mg/L are the same) of these components:
Calcium
Magnesium
Bicarbonate
Sulfate
Sodium
Chloride

Then you can use one of the water tools in a brewing program such as BeerSmith or EZwater Calculator to see what needs doing.

Or, you can do what I do, and that's to use rainwater, which in my area is essentially a blank sheet for practical purposes, and just add brewing salts as needed.

I'd venture to say, worry about other things in your process before worrying about water manipulation. It should be one of the last things you want to fine tune. Get all else right, and you'll make good beers with most tap water available in Australia.
 
Thanks for that. I guess I'm not actually too worried about it. Hasn't bothered me last 5 yrs so was just wondering if the kettle idea would work. As for improving my brews, I pretty well got most of them goin as for temp control, yeast, malts,extracts, boiling hops and about to venture into steeping grains so anymore improvements you can add me are welcome. Thanks
Chris
 
I buy my water from the supermarket at about $0.50/L, but I'm from Adelaide and out water is just awful.
 
Also I have a beer filter I no longer filter my beer what if I was to use that to filter the tap water.

You can get block carbon cartridges for filtering water that fit into your beer filter housing, for probably $50. I totally recommend it.
 
You can get block carbon cartridges for filtering water that fit into your beer filter housing, for probably $50. I totally recommend it.

Might look into that thanks. I stopped filtering my beer. Failed to see the point. So may as well use it for something
 

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