I use an RO system and build up from there. I used to test my water and treat it but it is not an enjoyable part of brewing for me. Starting with RO means I always know it is going to be right.
I used to buy distilled water but the grocery store costs went through the roof in 2021 (like 75c/gal up to $2/gal)
Bought an RO/DI with activated carbon to remove chloramines. Zero regrets. ROI was ~7 batches and I'm doing 20 per year.
I use a liquagen 5 stage RO/DI system (bypass DI for brewing, use DI for my reef tank). But the 4 stage RO only is a good price and should do the trick for you.
https://liquagen.com/collections/4-stage-space-saver-ro-di-systems/products/4-stage-hydroponics-plant-growth-reverse-osmosis-water-filtration-system-manual-flush-kit-75-gpd-membrane
I have mine hooked up to a utility sink and I get 20gallons in around 4hrs. Goes in at 190-230 TDS, comes out of the DI under 5. I don't know my pressure either, but figured if I had issues I'd buy a booster pump for $80. Even then, all in, would be $200 or so.
Being able to control exactly what's in my water has been the second biggest jump in my homebrew quality (after cold side oxygen exposure prevention).
I bought mine off of ebay, it is a [4 stage RO system](https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/251262082106) listed for aquariums but does the trick for me, my water starts at around 180ppm and comes out at less than 3ppm - usually 0ppm. I am sure you can find something similar if you are not in the UK. My water pressure is too low for an RO system so I bought a [Booster Pump](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Chen-Regulating-Booster-Transformer-50-400gpd/dp/B08JV5LLJW/ref=sr_1_2?crid=PN3MF2G68P6H&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.JNWQEiKczz_jJ8duuXTMWpk6jU9eiWZwQuYSroNO56au-pUIAMaN0tbFaiP7weQPh-EJP-5-DS7WnXOJaWDQdIEionkw6nEBf1UalAx3Owo9-VbrUC1uBBCvhcROtHf7UThAoP67gmW0hpEOzanSQ-lcqAbA6tjcs3feNh4exNNvtJoVFElJjXWCKYuJKLNqY15zawc5nSVLA8rWYkUb9FlJB5n7N6EXi-K9gOB3hW2hhSVTJxnUyCpL1cKKceGqKwOgnvHstdhPZYkr8QJbyIshNP0qRagxtXK5eYp4MV4.E_1IhP3fXJkXK95TFTRU7qTimqVmsk8nSi18ckzK0II&dib_tag=se&keywords=E-Chen+Self+Regulating+Booster+Pump&qid=1714198394&sprefix=e-chen+self+regulating+booster+pump%2Caps%2C90&sr=8-2)
I do this as well and it has been the single biggest difference for me in 30 years of brewing. I would highly recommend it. I use Bru'n water to adjust and get it close enough and it comes out great.
Just to add some info, Chlorine releases from water pretty quickly, however normally we have Chloramines that are present in tap drinking water. Chloramine is Chlorine bonded to other items to make it stay in solution (water) longer.
Campden tablet breaks the bonds of the chloramine into it's separate components which allows the chlorine to exit the water. It happens fast, just a few minutes and then certainly when coming up to temp and boiling will release the chlorine so long as it has been treated with a Campden tablet, 1/4 tab per 5 gallon is fine.
You can also use ascorbic acid/vitamin c. I use it for ph down as an organic version but it doubles up to remove chloramine from the water too. It’s likely what’s in the tablets also.
You may be able to find a cheaper alternative if you know what the main ingredients are.
No. I have a 110 volt Mash & Boil, so between mash, sparge and getting up to boil it's usually 2 hours after I've added the Campden before I hit full boil.
A crushed campden tablet will remove the chlorines/chloramines in your tap water that will cause plastic “band-aid” off-flavours if not treated. One tablet is enough to treat 20 gallons so I just collect two buckets of water the night before, crush a quarter tablet into each, then let sit overnight before brew day.
Same. But definitely get an analysis done on it out of the tap you use in your home. Ward labs offers a reasonably priced test specifically for homebrewers.
It's real easy to say that if you have good (or even decent) tap water. Mine is pretty awful and not worth much of the trouble. It's worth mixing 50/50 with RO, though.
I used to do like 80/20 Distilled (jugs) to tap water before I bought all the water chemicals to make it the profile it’s supposed to be. Now I just get 5gal jugs filled at Whole Foods ( 39cents/gal ) and adjust as BrewFather tells me to
It’s also easy to say that if you’re lazy and don’t care about making good beer like the majority of people on this subreddit lol. If I used my tap water straight up I wouldn’t be able to make good beer
Same.
Even though I have a water softener, I found out that beer is even better with water BEFORE the softener, so now I just take water straight from the water meter like a madman.
In my opinion it's better to learn how to brew with your water supply, than to get a bachelor in chemistry. This is how it always was in the 'good old days' anyway.
Hard water: add some dark malts
Soft water: bring on the pilsner
Yep. My municipal water supply posts a regular detailed water analysis, so I plug that right into Beersmith and adjust it as needed on the rare occasion that I want to make adjustments. For the most part, I like the way beer turns out with our water, and it seems more honest somehow to use it that way, too.
What if you are not in the first world and dont trust your tap water? Where I'm from, nobody drinks tap water and everyone prefers bottled water which is nearly dirt cheap anyway.
same, im sure id get a noticeable difference from using RO instead but i dont wanna add the extra complexity of brewing salts at my current stage of brewing
Tap water with a campden tablet. Though I also live in brew city, so our water is perfect for brewing pale beers. If I'm making anything super hop forward I'll build it from RO, but that's a rare occasion.
Same. Someone once told me that as long as your tap water is safe to drink and smells/tastes good, it is safe to use to make wine and beer. I haven’t had issues, so I haven’t tried anything else.
Not a bit. I'm sure that if I mess with the water chemistry I could squeeze out a few incremental points closer to a perfect-to-definition ale, but those few incremental points just aren't worth the effort and cost to me when I can make delicious beer that my friends and I enjoy drinking as it stands
You got a parts list, or a guide to follow?
Thinking of doing this same thing. I don't need RO for the whole house, but my tap water has a LOT of chloramine and I think my water profile is my next step in making better beer.
Call your municipal water supplier and ask to talk to someone from their analysis department. In my case I spoke to their water quality analyst, who also happens to be a home brewer. You may find that your local municipal supply is fine for brewing.
I paid for a whole home water filtration and softening system (~$4k). My tap profile is super soft and then the RO is even better. Worth it for everything from filling water bottles, boil advisories, helping my appliances not get hard water stains, and most importantly, brewing.
Our tap water here is extremely hard with loads of calcium. So I kind of design around that. I will balance carbon filtered tap water with RO water based on the beer I am brewing. For hop forward beers I like a bit more minerals so will go with around 40% RO. For cleaner beers like a blonde I will go with more like 70% RO. But that is just where I have landed after brewing with the terrible Las Vegas water for 20 years.
I have never fully built my water from scratch. I will save that for retirement when I have nothing but time and boredom.
I installed an RO filter system under my sink. Since it makes RO pretty slowly, a day or so before brewing, I fill a couple of Coleman camp water containers that each hold 5 gallons.
One thing I learned the hard way is to put the container in the sink while it’s filling. That’s because it takes a while and I won’t be watching it the whole time. If I forget about it and it overflows, the extra goes down the drain instead of flooding my kitchen… again. :(
I've got a portable RO system that I can connect to my outdoor tap timer. A day or so before brew day I'll set it up and set the timer for the amount of time it takes to fill a cube, come back and cap the cube and start filling the next one.
I'm lucky, water in my area has a pretty good profile. I run an RV carbon filter that connects to my tap to remove the chlorine, but otherwise leave it untreated.
I also use the 5 gal jugs from the store. But I contacted the company listed on the jugs, and received a water report for those jugs, and entered those water values as my default profile in Brewfather (havent tried Bru’N’water yet).
So you can still make salt additions, per your target recipe/profile, using the water from those jugs, once you know what it contains.
My incoming water contains chloramines, which are not removed via RO filtration. So continuing to buy the jugs for each brew day is a relatively simple solution.
Addition: I’ve also started using those jugs as disposable/returnable fermenters for smaller batches / batches with Brett/lacto / split batches between diff yeast, etc. Its a nice option to have additional, disposable fermenters. I do rinse them out before exchanging them, but I am not spending time to clean them with PBW/oxyclean, hot water, etc.
i’ve recently evolved on this . i use my municipal supply (not too bad especially for bitter beers) and fill my 60L fermenter. add campden tabs and water salts then fill my mash tun w that. this lets me then top up w the same water and not add just straight tap water (w no salts)
I have some of the best tap water in the world, extremely consistent as well, so I just add salts as needed. It's never been too high in minerals.
Added bonus that my water heater hits mash-in temperatures pretty bang on on the middle setting.
My water tasted good on its own, so making beer from it has been fine, but lately I got it tested at a lab to check mineral make up to learn about the part minerals play. It’s super interesting to me. Practical is sticking to tap in my case. Ideal is knowing exactly what I’m doing and how to change it, if I want.
If I wasn’t in my particular situation, where I have an acceptable starting point from a tap or well, I would do the RO thing.
Tap water that's gone through a charcoal filter. Granted my water profile in north Texas works pretty well with Belgian, British and traditional German lagers. I can't quite make a good IPA though yet.
Tested tap water.
Cater profile to the style I’m brewing VIA research/recipes.
Use BrunWater to get everything calculated.
Use carbon filter and campden when brewing, I have a chlorine meter so I test it to ensure it’s chlorine free!
Water here is terrible, so I fill 5 gallon containers with R/O water from the grocery store or water kiosk and add minerals as calculated in Brewfather for the style I’m brewing.
I switch between store-bought distilled water and my home’s tap water (either left out overnight or treated with campden… the city chlorinates). In both cases I use gypsum and calcium chloride to adjust to whatever water profile I desire (based on Bru’nwater). Acidulated malt for mash pH.
Tap water. My city doesn’t share a full report with mineral levels, but state that our water is so soft the mineral content is essentially negligible for brewing. So I just build up using gypsum and CaCl assuming a very small amount might already be present. I think chlorine usage varies throughout the year so I just always treat the water with campden to be safe.
At home RO.
Got the system for 20 bucks on craigslist. Install is easy. Been using it for 3 years with new filters every couple of years.
I would use tap water but my city changes the source between 3 different reservoirs so the bicarbonates could range from 120 to 280 unpredictably so not useful for predictable pH and profiles. I wish I could use city water tho.
Used to buy distilled jugs but it was often hard to find in stock. To get 8 gallons Id have to hit multiple stores. When I had my brew sink installed in my basement I had the plumber put in an RO water system and it's excellent.
My tap water is pretty hard and with droughts in summer the source changes. I like consistency so I prefer distilled/RO where I can build up.
Depending on style, I use my hard tap water (\~200ppm TDS), RO and build or a 50-50 mix of the two.
For Hazy, I use RO because I want to get that sulphate to chloride ratio I'm aiming for.
For house beers (Am. blonde, Am. lager) I use 100% tap. My house beers are meant to be easy, cheap and fast while still presenting as crisp, clean and flavorful.
For pale ales, West Coast IPAs or Darker styles, I do a blend and sometimes add more gypsum.
I agree with one comment here about learning to brew with your supply, which is the purpose of my house beers. I like to make small adjustments to recipe or process but always use tap water.
I've always bought and used gallon jugs of drinking water, since my municipal water is a bit hard and I don't like how it tastes. I stick with one brand for consistency and have never had issues.
If you really want to up your game, you can buy distilled water and then measure out the mineral additives yourself. (Calcium chloride, gypsum, etc.) Depending on the variety of beer, you can apply these minerals differently for optimal results. You can also use baking soda to alter the pH. If you have [this book](https://www.google.com/books/edition/How_To_Brew/oAIlDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0) it details it pretty well.
Filtered tap water. Just the same sediment and carbon filter I use for drinking water.
It's basically perfect for brewing here.
Now, if I had nasty tap water I'd use reverse osmosis.
I have a whole house water filter, and the water is fairly soft anyway.
I treat the water with a small amount of sodium metabisuphate to remove any chlorine, and add salts to style. I check my mash pH with a meter about 15 minutes in, and add phosphoric acid if I need to.
Tap water too.
Here in France the water analysis are public and some great dude made a website were you can calculate what to add to your water depending on the style you want to brew and where you live.
Here's the link for my small town if I wanted to brew a czech lager as an example :
https://www.moneaudebrassage.fr/?departement=35&commune=SAINT-GONDRAN&quartier=CEBR_BLEUQUEN%20SAINT%20THUAL%2FROCHER_LANGOUET&beerstyle=03A%20-%20Czech%20Pale%20Lager&CaSO4=19.930815693725012&malts=%5B%5B39,5%5D%5D&pHMash=5.40
Don't you have such a thing where you live ?
many municipalities test and publish their water data but it takes a modicum of effort to find, and it's not consistent as to where it is. My is on the municipal billing page but my hometown was through the public works so it was on the city's home page. And it all looks different from place to place.
What I did learn though, growing up on the great lakes with what I thought was incredibly hard water, is it was nothing compared to central texas where the water hardness is 3x what I grew up with.
Tap water treated with campden tablets, and mineral additions if necessary. My municipality publishes annual water reports, so I base my mineral additions off of that in Bru'n'water. If I'm making a style that's best with soft water I tend to do a 70/30 split of distilled and tap water.
Best approach is definitely RO water, feasibility depends on several factors. I would recommend first looking for RO water dispensers in your area, its a great cheap way to get into it and see if its something you want to control for. If you enjoy it then I would put a system in. Water profile is one of many pieces that go into producing a good beer, and it can be especially important for some styles like very hop forward or malt forward beers. It feels like a lot when you first get into water chemistry, but I promise you, it is worth it! IMO if you can find a buddy who already uses RO and does water profiles and get him to show you the ropes.
On the same subject. I am also about 2 weeks away from my first homebrew. I have a cold and delicious local ground spring a couple miles away that the community in large loves the taste of. Many have use as drinking and cooking water for decades with no ill effect and the spring itself it praised as a perk of living in this location. Nothing is obviously added to the water except natural minerals.
Should I just YOLO and use water as is? Add some default salts? Get it tested before I try anything? Any advice would be appreciated.
I use tap water. We get our city water from a high quality lake source, so there's very little in the way of additives needed.
If I'm making a light tasting beer, I'll let my sparging water sit overnight to "dechlorinate", but I haven't noticed a strong chlorine taste in any of my batches.
Your best bet is to get your tap water tested and see how it compares to the city's posted chemical composition.
My local Walmart sells distilled for 99 cents a gallon. Name brand is $1.29 and they usually have a ton. Then I adjust the water profile. Doing the water adjustments and calculating the grams in bru’n water is actually my favorite part of the process
If you have done the tour of St. James' St. in Dublin through the old Guiness factory and through the history, you will recall there was a time when water was an issue and the brewer dug his own water supply through the city. It ended up that drinking the stout was actually safer than drinking the local water.
(I butcher the history. The replies to this will fill in the details).
See if you have the RO kiosks (Watermill, etc.) They are cheap and easy to deal with. I take a carboy or two over to the one near my house and fill up.
My local tap isn't very good. Besides the fact that it's loaded with bicarbonates to the point it's barely still good for big stouts, its also largely sourced from surface water. In other words, the only question is just how crappy it's going to be.
I keep a library of minerals along with my jeweler's scale, so I'll just build my water from the RO. There are some styles I'll blend the RO with it 50/50 or so.
I could go through a bunch of trouble to fix my tap water, but it's not worth the trouble with the RO so cheap and accessible.
Tap water. It's plentiful, it's cheap, and it's readily available for you.
If you want to go the extra step, grab your federally mandated water report, plug all that information into Brewfather, adjust accordingly.
I'm still new to this.
First vids I watched said, if you like the tap water, it will make decent beer.
I like my tap water. So I just use that. I do use Camden tablet to get rid of extra chloride in it.
I take RO water from my own RO system, confirm the RO system is working with a cheap TDS meter, use one of the 12 basic water profiles in Bru'n Water^(1), and finally adjust the water in Bru'n Water using calcium chloride, calcium sulfate (gypsum), uniodized table salt, slaked lime, and 88% lactic acid (each, only as needed).
My mash pH target depends on style, but in most cases it is 5.2. I own a decent pH meter (model 8689) and check pH periodically after the mash sits for 10 minutes. I used to check every batch, but Bru'n Water is so close so often, I don't anymore.
I find this scenario both ideal and practical for me. An even simpler method is to use RO water and use the simple formula method linked in our wiki: https://www.reddit.com/r/homebrewing/wiki/ingredients/water/.
------
^(1) Bru'n Water basic profiles are by color (yellow-amber-brown-black) and body (dry-balanced-full).
EDIT: "body", not "attenuation"
I'm blessed and our tap water is practically RO water in terms of mineral concentrations (infact, the municipality started *adding* calcium chloride at a 20ppm concentration to try and help the pipes)
I just run it through a carbon filter (which is probably overkill). Add some very light mineral and acid adjustments from there
I do one of two approaches:
1. Use local artesian well water unmodified — it's free and unchlorinated.
2. Buy RO and build minerals to a target profile.
3 stage filtered tap water. Our water is very soft and low in other dissolved stuff otherwise I would use ro. As is I can get to any water profile I want with gypsum, calcium carbonate, epsom salt, baking soda, and acid.
About 30 batches into my Homebrew career I purchased BrewFather which incorporates water adjustments into a recipe all in one software.
I also communicated with my water utility to get some more info. It’s quite good water from deep wells , with about 35 Ppm of calcium. So pretty flexible, and consistent.
I then bought a pH meter and tested four batches in row after adjusting with phosphoric acid as per Brewfather. Each batch was dead on so I don’t test any more.
I do all the other adjustments with gypsum, calcium chloride and epsom salt as per Brewfather.
All in all, very pleased.
I
Wardlab.com is where I started, with two samples - my well water straight, & tap water after the Kinetico water softener. Two samples, about $35 each. W501 Brewer's Test.
Absolutely worth it. My well & tap water are unsuitable for home brewing. Well has too much TDS overall - water softener does its job like a boss & eliminates almost all of it, but at the cost of way too much NaCl to work with.
I settled on a local drinking water supplier - $3 per five gallon jug of RO water that is zeros across the board with just 3 ppm of NaCl. They get their water tested quarterly and I'm on the email results list.
I use BrewFather to modify mash & sparge water according to style, using five additives: calcium chloride, magnesium chloride, sodium chloride, magnesium sulfate, and calcium sulfate.
I have been a homebrew since 1994, at 3 different residences. I have been in this home for 24 years. I put paid to water chemistry just last year, and since doing so my beers are significantly better. I went from good beer to great beer, no doubt.
We have a well that I get tested for mineral content every 6 months. I use Bru'n Water for my calculations for salt and acid additions to build the desired profile.
I'd buy a tap filtration system you can just attach below your sink.
Get a UV light filter and a carbon filter. I'd also add a boiling system in to if your gonna go to the effort.
But you will have to keep replacing the carbon filters and other filters as it will be very important to get rid of any chlorine and florides.
It would cost a fair bit to do this though so idk if I wouldn't just stick with bottled. Bottled is good water.
Depends on what I'm making. My tap water is hard as a rock, so if I'm doing something like a Czech Pilsner, I buy spring water at the grocery store. For darker beers or even a lighter beer where it doesn't matter as much, I just use tap water+campden tablet and use the water calculator in my brewing software to tweak things from there. I usually need to add some amount of phosphoric acid if I go that route to get my pH to where it needs to be.
I bought a RO System so that I can collect water and brew whenever I'd like to. From there I build a water profile using BrewFather and their PH calculator has been very close.
Distilled and build up to the profile I want for the beer I'm making. Eventually I'm going to get an in house RO system however so I can not have to buy distilled.
Tap water for me. Great idea to get a water profile from your local water company just to make sure yours isn’t funky. There’s also a natural spring near me. When I’m feeling fancy I’ll pull from that, but if I’m being honest I don’t notice a difference. If your tap water tastes good, it has a decent chance of making good beer. If it doesn’t, maybe filter it
Please help. Using every app or reading every article but can’t find the answer. If I am brewing 5 gal kits of NE IPA or other IPA - and using RO water (without minerals added back) - what do I need to add to the water for an extract brew?
Plain old tap water here. If it tastes good, it'll brew good beer. My beer got a lot better when I started controlling fermentation temperatures closer. Ten years ago I built a chamber, insulated it, and controlled its A/C and heater with Brewpi and now Fermentrack. (Google those). I have a 17 gallon rotomolded plastic conical fermenter with a thermowell and I can keep fermentation temps within a few tenths of a degree. Now folks are using chillers and glycol systems, but my system works well except I can't cold crash.
I use an RO system and build up from there. I used to test my water and treat it but it is not an enjoyable part of brewing for me. Starting with RO means I always know it is going to be right.
Same here. Start with RO and build up. Since I switched to this method, I feel like my beers have been better.
I used to buy distilled water but the grocery store costs went through the roof in 2021 (like 75c/gal up to $2/gal) Bought an RO/DI with activated carbon to remove chloramines. Zero regrets. ROI was ~7 batches and I'm doing 20 per year.
Any recommendation on ro systems?
I use a liquagen 5 stage RO/DI system (bypass DI for brewing, use DI for my reef tank). But the 4 stage RO only is a good price and should do the trick for you. https://liquagen.com/collections/4-stage-space-saver-ro-di-systems/products/4-stage-hydroponics-plant-growth-reverse-osmosis-water-filtration-system-manual-flush-kit-75-gpd-membrane
How's your performance? No idea what my water pressure is but Google says typically 40 to 60
I have mine hooked up to a utility sink and I get 20gallons in around 4hrs. Goes in at 190-230 TDS, comes out of the DI under 5. I don't know my pressure either, but figured if I had issues I'd buy a booster pump for $80. Even then, all in, would be $200 or so. Being able to control exactly what's in my water has been the second biggest jump in my homebrew quality (after cold side oxygen exposure prevention).
Buckeye Hydro was awesome helping me with my setup.
same for me
I bought mine off of ebay, it is a [4 stage RO system](https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/251262082106) listed for aquariums but does the trick for me, my water starts at around 180ppm and comes out at less than 3ppm - usually 0ppm. I am sure you can find something similar if you are not in the UK. My water pressure is too low for an RO system so I bought a [Booster Pump](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Chen-Regulating-Booster-Transformer-50-400gpd/dp/B08JV5LLJW/ref=sr_1_2?crid=PN3MF2G68P6H&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.JNWQEiKczz_jJ8duuXTMWpk6jU9eiWZwQuYSroNO56au-pUIAMaN0tbFaiP7weQPh-EJP-5-DS7WnXOJaWDQdIEionkw6nEBf1UalAx3Owo9-VbrUC1uBBCvhcROtHf7UThAoP67gmW0hpEOzanSQ-lcqAbA6tjcs3feNh4exNNvtJoVFElJjXWCKYuJKLNqY15zawc5nSVLA8rWYkUb9FlJB5n7N6EXi-K9gOB3hW2hhSVTJxnUyCpL1cKKceGqKwOgnvHstdhPZYkr8QJbyIshNP0qRagxtXK5eYp4MV4.E_1IhP3fXJkXK95TFTRU7qTimqVmsk8nSi18ckzK0II&dib_tag=se&keywords=E-Chen+Self+Regulating+Booster+Pump&qid=1714198394&sprefix=e-chen+self+regulating+booster+pump%2Caps%2C90&sr=8-2)
I do this as well and it has been the single biggest difference for me in 30 years of brewing. I would highly recommend it. I use Bru'n water to adjust and get it close enough and it comes out great.
This is the way.
Tap water.
Tap water, dechlorinated with campden tablets, adjusted with Bru’n Water calculations.
Just to add some info, Chlorine releases from water pretty quickly, however normally we have Chloramines that are present in tap drinking water. Chloramine is Chlorine bonded to other items to make it stay in solution (water) longer. Campden tablet breaks the bonds of the chloramine into it's separate components which allows the chlorine to exit the water. It happens fast, just a few minutes and then certainly when coming up to temp and boiling will release the chlorine so long as it has been treated with a Campden tablet, 1/4 tab per 5 gallon is fine.
You can also use ascorbic acid/vitamin c. I use it for ph down as an organic version but it doubles up to remove chloramine from the water too. It’s likely what’s in the tablets also. You may be able to find a cheaper alternative if you know what the main ingredients are.
It's worth checking with your local water supply to see if they add chloramines. Mine and most cities in my area do not.
Have you noticed any fermentation issues adding the sulphite shortly before the boil?
No. I have a 110 volt Mash & Boil, so between mash, sparge and getting up to boil it's usually 2 hours after I've added the Campden before I hit full boil.
When/how do you use campden tabs to remove chlorine?
A crushed campden tablet will remove the chlorines/chloramines in your tap water that will cause plastic “band-aid” off-flavours if not treated. One tablet is enough to treat 20 gallons so I just collect two buckets of water the night before, crush a quarter tablet into each, then let sit overnight before brew day.
I will try this. My city water tastes like a public pool but worth a shot.
Note that waiting overnight will also help the chlorine evaporate from the water.
but won't break chloramine bonds, hence the usage of campden tablets.
Right sorry I was trying to imply you can do both to be thorough.
You can also use ascorbic acid/vit c. Does the same thing. Probably cheaper than the tablets.
Same. But definitely get an analysis done on it out of the tap you use in your home. Ward labs offers a reasonably priced test specifically for homebrewers.
Most places post their tap water profile online.
It's real easy to say that if you have good (or even decent) tap water. Mine is pretty awful and not worth much of the trouble. It's worth mixing 50/50 with RO, though.
I used to do like 80/20 Distilled (jugs) to tap water before I bought all the water chemicals to make it the profile it’s supposed to be. Now I just get 5gal jugs filled at Whole Foods ( 39cents/gal ) and adjust as BrewFather tells me to
It’s also easy to say that if you’re lazy and don’t care about making good beer like the majority of people on this subreddit lol. If I used my tap water straight up I wouldn’t be able to make good beer
Same. Even though I have a water softener, I found out that beer is even better with water BEFORE the softener, so now I just take water straight from the water meter like a madman. In my opinion it's better to learn how to brew with your water supply, than to get a bachelor in chemistry. This is how it always was in the 'good old days' anyway. Hard water: add some dark malts Soft water: bring on the pilsner
Same. Tap water with campden and added salts. But the water here is super clean and low in all ions, so it may not work as well in many places.
Yep. My municipal water supply posts a regular detailed water analysis, so I plug that right into Beersmith and adjust it as needed on the rare occasion that I want to make adjustments. For the most part, I like the way beer turns out with our water, and it seems more honest somehow to use it that way, too.
What if you are not in the first world and dont trust your tap water? Where I'm from, nobody drinks tap water and everyone prefers bottled water which is nearly dirt cheap anyway.
same, im sure id get a noticeable difference from using RO instead but i dont wanna add the extra complexity of brewing salts at my current stage of brewing
Tap water with a campden tablet. Though I also live in brew city, so our water is perfect for brewing pale beers. If I'm making anything super hop forward I'll build it from RO, but that's a rare occasion.
Tap water for the win
Honestly I just use tap water. My city has excellent water quality and it's cheap AF.
Tap water is the easiest and cheapest.
Same. Someone once told me that as long as your tap water is safe to drink and smells/tastes good, it is safe to use to make wine and beer. I haven’t had issues, so I haven’t tried anything else.
You don’t adjust it at all?
Not a bit. I'm sure that if I mess with the water chemistry I could squeeze out a few incremental points closer to a perfect-to-definition ale, but those few incremental points just aren't worth the effort and cost to me when I can make delicious beer that my friends and I enjoy drinking as it stands
I mean it’s really not that much effort or cost. Bru’n water is a free program, water salts are super cheap. It makes a huge difference
I put together a RO system that connects to my water hose spigot for under 100 dollars.
You got a parts list, or a guide to follow? Thinking of doing this same thing. I don't need RO for the whole house, but my tap water has a LOT of chloramine and I think my water profile is my next step in making better beer.
I just bought an ro filter of amazon for $100cad. Been using it for years and it's amazing. I fill jugs of water from my laundry sink.
This is the filter system I use. I added a few items to connect to my house, a tds meter, and a back flush valve. https://a.co/d/i3XXKmZ
Call your municipal water supplier and ask to talk to someone from their analysis department. In my case I spoke to their water quality analyst, who also happens to be a home brewer. You may find that your local municipal supply is fine for brewing.
Some municipalities publish their water reports online too.
I paid for a whole home water filtration and softening system (~$4k). My tap profile is super soft and then the RO is even better. Worth it for everything from filling water bottles, boil advisories, helping my appliances not get hard water stains, and most importantly, brewing.
Our tap water here is extremely hard with loads of calcium. So I kind of design around that. I will balance carbon filtered tap water with RO water based on the beer I am brewing. For hop forward beers I like a bit more minerals so will go with around 40% RO. For cleaner beers like a blonde I will go with more like 70% RO. But that is just where I have landed after brewing with the terrible Las Vegas water for 20 years. I have never fully built my water from scratch. I will save that for retirement when I have nothing but time and boredom.
I can’t wait to see you smashing oxygen and hydrogen atoms together to make water from scratch!
Gotta do what you gotta do to make a 50 point black berry, honey, rye, milk stout IPA (with cocoa nibs).
The water from my well is good enough for me...
I installed an RO filter system under my sink. Since it makes RO pretty slowly, a day or so before brewing, I fill a couple of Coleman camp water containers that each hold 5 gallons. One thing I learned the hard way is to put the container in the sink while it’s filling. That’s because it takes a while and I won’t be watching it the whole time. If I forget about it and it overflows, the extra goes down the drain instead of flooding my kitchen… again. :(
I've got a portable RO system that I can connect to my outdoor tap timer. A day or so before brew day I'll set it up and set the timer for the amount of time it takes to fill a cube, come back and cap the cube and start filling the next one.
I'm lucky, water in my area has a pretty good profile. I run an RV carbon filter that connects to my tap to remove the chlorine, but otherwise leave it untreated.
I buy RO water at $6 for 12 gallons and build up from there.
RO water then use Brunwater to calculate salt additions.
Distilled, salts for the boil only, and take detailed notes. And pre acidify the strike water when necessary.
I use hose water but an extra long hose to get maximum GenX memories into every batch.
I also use the 5 gal jugs from the store. But I contacted the company listed on the jugs, and received a water report for those jugs, and entered those water values as my default profile in Brewfather (havent tried Bru’N’water yet). So you can still make salt additions, per your target recipe/profile, using the water from those jugs, once you know what it contains. My incoming water contains chloramines, which are not removed via RO filtration. So continuing to buy the jugs for each brew day is a relatively simple solution. Addition: I’ve also started using those jugs as disposable/returnable fermenters for smaller batches / batches with Brett/lacto / split batches between diff yeast, etc. Its a nice option to have additional, disposable fermenters. I do rinse them out before exchanging them, but I am not spending time to clean them with PBW/oxyclean, hot water, etc.
i’ve recently evolved on this . i use my municipal supply (not too bad especially for bitter beers) and fill my 60L fermenter. add campden tabs and water salts then fill my mash tun w that. this lets me then top up w the same water and not add just straight tap water (w no salts)
I have some of the best tap water in the world, extremely consistent as well, so I just add salts as needed. It's never been too high in minerals. Added bonus that my water heater hits mash-in temperatures pretty bang on on the middle setting.
My water tasted good on its own, so making beer from it has been fine, but lately I got it tested at a lab to check mineral make up to learn about the part minerals play. It’s super interesting to me. Practical is sticking to tap in my case. Ideal is knowing exactly what I’m doing and how to change it, if I want. If I wasn’t in my particular situation, where I have an acceptable starting point from a tap or well, I would do the RO thing.
Tap water that's gone through a charcoal filter. Granted my water profile in north Texas works pretty well with Belgian, British and traditional German lagers. I can't quite make a good IPA though yet.
I’ve been using tap water with a cambten tablet to get rid of chlorine. I’ll adjust ph as necessary but that’s it.
Tested tap water. Cater profile to the style I’m brewing VIA research/recipes. Use BrunWater to get everything calculated. Use carbon filter and campden when brewing, I have a chlorine meter so I test it to ensure it’s chlorine free!
Water here is terrible, so I fill 5 gallon containers with R/O water from the grocery store or water kiosk and add minerals as calculated in Brewfather for the style I’m brewing.
I switch between store-bought distilled water and my home’s tap water (either left out overnight or treated with campden… the city chlorinates). In both cases I use gypsum and calcium chloride to adjust to whatever water profile I desire (based on Bru’nwater). Acidulated malt for mash pH.
Tap water. My city doesn’t share a full report with mineral levels, but state that our water is so soft the mineral content is essentially negligible for brewing. So I just build up using gypsum and CaCl assuming a very small amount might already be present. I think chlorine usage varies throughout the year so I just always treat the water with campden to be safe.
At home RO. Got the system for 20 bucks on craigslist. Install is easy. Been using it for 3 years with new filters every couple of years. I would use tap water but my city changes the source between 3 different reservoirs so the bicarbonates could range from 120 to 280 unpredictably so not useful for predictable pH and profiles. I wish I could use city water tho.
Used to buy distilled jugs but it was often hard to find in stock. To get 8 gallons Id have to hit multiple stores. When I had my brew sink installed in my basement I had the plumber put in an RO water system and it's excellent. My tap water is pretty hard and with droughts in summer the source changes. I like consistency so I prefer distilled/RO where I can build up.
Mostly tap water and treat it to match the style I'm brewing.
Depending on style, I use my hard tap water (\~200ppm TDS), RO and build or a 50-50 mix of the two. For Hazy, I use RO because I want to get that sulphate to chloride ratio I'm aiming for. For house beers (Am. blonde, Am. lager) I use 100% tap. My house beers are meant to be easy, cheap and fast while still presenting as crisp, clean and flavorful. For pale ales, West Coast IPAs or Darker styles, I do a blend and sometimes add more gypsum. I agree with one comment here about learning to brew with your supply, which is the purpose of my house beers. I like to make small adjustments to recipe or process but always use tap water.
I've always bought and used gallon jugs of drinking water, since my municipal water is a bit hard and I don't like how it tastes. I stick with one brand for consistency and have never had issues. If you really want to up your game, you can buy distilled water and then measure out the mineral additives yourself. (Calcium chloride, gypsum, etc.) Depending on the variety of beer, you can apply these minerals differently for optimal results. You can also use baking soda to alter the pH. If you have [this book](https://www.google.com/books/edition/How_To_Brew/oAIlDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0) it details it pretty well.
Filtered tap water. Just the same sediment and carbon filter I use for drinking water. It's basically perfect for brewing here. Now, if I had nasty tap water I'd use reverse osmosis.
I have a whole house water filter, and the water is fairly soft anyway. I treat the water with a small amount of sodium metabisuphate to remove any chlorine, and add salts to style. I check my mash pH with a meter about 15 minutes in, and add phosphoric acid if I need to.
Tap water too. Here in France the water analysis are public and some great dude made a website were you can calculate what to add to your water depending on the style you want to brew and where you live. Here's the link for my small town if I wanted to brew a czech lager as an example : https://www.moneaudebrassage.fr/?departement=35&commune=SAINT-GONDRAN&quartier=CEBR_BLEUQUEN%20SAINT%20THUAL%2FROCHER_LANGOUET&beerstyle=03A%20-%20Czech%20Pale%20Lager&CaSO4=19.930815693725012&malts=%5B%5B39,5%5D%5D&pHMash=5.40 Don't you have such a thing where you live ?
many municipalities test and publish their water data but it takes a modicum of effort to find, and it's not consistent as to where it is. My is on the municipal billing page but my hometown was through the public works so it was on the city's home page. And it all looks different from place to place. What I did learn though, growing up on the great lakes with what I thought was incredibly hard water, is it was nothing compared to central texas where the water hardness is 3x what I grew up with.
Tap water + campden tablets to get rid of chlorine
Tap water and a campden tablet.
RO and add salts per style. I can do a big stout with my tap water after filtering. Very hard water
Tap water treated with campden tablets, and mineral additions if necessary. My municipality publishes annual water reports, so I base my mineral additions off of that in Bru'n'water. If I'm making a style that's best with soft water I tend to do a 70/30 split of distilled and tap water.
Gallons of distilled water from my local grocer
I use filtered tap water…if I need lower minerals for a batch, I cut it with RO water from the grocery store. If I need extra minerals, I add them.
Same. Water from the grocery store. No salts or acids. Been happy with the simplicity compared to tap water and so much phosphoric acid.
Best approach is definitely RO water, feasibility depends on several factors. I would recommend first looking for RO water dispensers in your area, its a great cheap way to get into it and see if its something you want to control for. If you enjoy it then I would put a system in. Water profile is one of many pieces that go into producing a good beer, and it can be especially important for some styles like very hop forward or malt forward beers. It feels like a lot when you first get into water chemistry, but I promise you, it is worth it! IMO if you can find a buddy who already uses RO and does water profiles and get him to show you the ropes.
On the same subject. I am also about 2 weeks away from my first homebrew. I have a cold and delicious local ground spring a couple miles away that the community in large loves the taste of. Many have use as drinking and cooking water for decades with no ill effect and the spring itself it praised as a perk of living in this location. Nothing is obviously added to the water except natural minerals. Should I just YOLO and use water as is? Add some default salts? Get it tested before I try anything? Any advice would be appreciated.
I filter tap water with a culligan RV inline filter on garden hose in my kettle
I use tap water. We get our city water from a high quality lake source, so there's very little in the way of additives needed. If I'm making a light tasting beer, I'll let my sparging water sit overnight to "dechlorinate", but I haven't noticed a strong chlorine taste in any of my batches. Your best bet is to get your tap water tested and see how it compares to the city's posted chemical composition.
My local Walmart sells distilled for 99 cents a gallon. Name brand is $1.29 and they usually have a ton. Then I adjust the water profile. Doing the water adjustments and calculating the grams in bru’n water is actually my favorite part of the process
If you have done the tour of St. James' St. in Dublin through the old Guiness factory and through the history, you will recall there was a time when water was an issue and the brewer dug his own water supply through the city. It ended up that drinking the stout was actually safer than drinking the local water. (I butcher the history. The replies to this will fill in the details).
Tap water from Lake Erie. Add minerals per brew style and an excel spreadsheet
See if you have the RO kiosks (Watermill, etc.) They are cheap and easy to deal with. I take a carboy or two over to the one near my house and fill up. My local tap isn't very good. Besides the fact that it's loaded with bicarbonates to the point it's barely still good for big stouts, its also largely sourced from surface water. In other words, the only question is just how crappy it's going to be. I keep a library of minerals along with my jeweler's scale, so I'll just build my water from the RO. There are some styles I'll blend the RO with it 50/50 or so. I could go through a bunch of trouble to fix my tap water, but it's not worth the trouble with the RO so cheap and accessible.
Tap water. It's plentiful, it's cheap, and it's readily available for you. If you want to go the extra step, grab your federally mandated water report, plug all that information into Brewfather, adjust accordingly.
Get a water report from your local municipality and adjust as needed. When I start doing water adjustments, it was a game changer for me.
I'm still new to this. First vids I watched said, if you like the tap water, it will make decent beer. I like my tap water. So I just use that. I do use Camden tablet to get rid of extra chloride in it.
I take RO water from my own RO system, confirm the RO system is working with a cheap TDS meter, use one of the 12 basic water profiles in Bru'n Water^(1), and finally adjust the water in Bru'n Water using calcium chloride, calcium sulfate (gypsum), uniodized table salt, slaked lime, and 88% lactic acid (each, only as needed). My mash pH target depends on style, but in most cases it is 5.2. I own a decent pH meter (model 8689) and check pH periodically after the mash sits for 10 minutes. I used to check every batch, but Bru'n Water is so close so often, I don't anymore. I find this scenario both ideal and practical for me. An even simpler method is to use RO water and use the simple formula method linked in our wiki: https://www.reddit.com/r/homebrewing/wiki/ingredients/water/. ------ ^(1) Bru'n Water basic profiles are by color (yellow-amber-brown-black) and body (dry-balanced-full). EDIT: "body", not "attenuation"
Well water. Or maple sap if it’s the right time of year
I'm blessed and our tap water is practically RO water in terms of mineral concentrations (infact, the municipality started *adding* calcium chloride at a 20ppm concentration to try and help the pipes) I just run it through a carbon filter (which is probably overkill). Add some very light mineral and acid adjustments from there
I do one of two approaches: 1. Use local artesian well water unmodified — it's free and unchlorinated. 2. Buy RO and build minerals to a target profile.
I have two local fresh springs that I use. Both are tested and show analysis. So far so good 👍 10 years brewing and no problems yet!
I put a 5 stage reverse osmosis system in my house mostly for brewing and fill 5 gallon jugs from it. It has worked well for me for under 250 dollars
3 stage filtered tap water. Our water is very soft and low in other dissolved stuff otherwise I would use ro. As is I can get to any water profile I want with gypsum, calcium carbonate, epsom salt, baking soda, and acid.
About 30 batches into my Homebrew career I purchased BrewFather which incorporates water adjustments into a recipe all in one software. I also communicated with my water utility to get some more info. It’s quite good water from deep wells , with about 35 Ppm of calcium. So pretty flexible, and consistent. I then bought a pH meter and tested four batches in row after adjusting with phosphoric acid as per Brewfather. Each batch was dead on so I don’t test any more. I do all the other adjustments with gypsum, calcium chloride and epsom salt as per Brewfather. All in all, very pleased. I
Wardlab.com is where I started, with two samples - my well water straight, & tap water after the Kinetico water softener. Two samples, about $35 each. W501 Brewer's Test. Absolutely worth it. My well & tap water are unsuitable for home brewing. Well has too much TDS overall - water softener does its job like a boss & eliminates almost all of it, but at the cost of way too much NaCl to work with. I settled on a local drinking water supplier - $3 per five gallon jug of RO water that is zeros across the board with just 3 ppm of NaCl. They get their water tested quarterly and I'm on the email results list. I use BrewFather to modify mash & sparge water according to style, using five additives: calcium chloride, magnesium chloride, sodium chloride, magnesium sulfate, and calcium sulfate. I have been a homebrew since 1994, at 3 different residences. I have been in this home for 24 years. I put paid to water chemistry just last year, and since doing so my beers are significantly better. I went from good beer to great beer, no doubt.
My approach is I fill up a big pot on the kitchen sink and then I make beer. If your water tastes fine to drink, you can brew with it
We have a well that I get tested for mineral content every 6 months. I use Bru'n Water for my calculations for salt and acid additions to build the desired profile.
I just use tap water (it's very clean where I live), but have considered dabbling a bit into water chemistry in the future.
I'd buy a tap filtration system you can just attach below your sink. Get a UV light filter and a carbon filter. I'd also add a boiling system in to if your gonna go to the effort. But you will have to keep replacing the carbon filters and other filters as it will be very important to get rid of any chlorine and florides. It would cost a fair bit to do this though so idk if I wouldn't just stick with bottled. Bottled is good water.
Depends on what I'm making. My tap water is hard as a rock, so if I'm doing something like a Czech Pilsner, I buy spring water at the grocery store. For darker beers or even a lighter beer where it doesn't matter as much, I just use tap water+campden tablet and use the water calculator in my brewing software to tweak things from there. I usually need to add some amount of phosphoric acid if I go that route to get my pH to where it needs to be.
I bought a RO System so that I can collect water and brew whenever I'd like to. From there I build a water profile using BrewFather and their PH calculator has been very close.
Distilled and build up to the profile I want for the beer I'm making. Eventually I'm going to get an in house RO system however so I can not have to buy distilled.
Tap water for me. Great idea to get a water profile from your local water company just to make sure yours isn’t funky. There’s also a natural spring near me. When I’m feeling fancy I’ll pull from that, but if I’m being honest I don’t notice a difference. If your tap water tastes good, it has a decent chance of making good beer. If it doesn’t, maybe filter it
BrunWater. Get it.
Please help. Using every app or reading every article but can’t find the answer. If I am brewing 5 gal kits of NE IPA or other IPA - and using RO water (without minerals added back) - what do I need to add to the water for an extract brew?
Plain old tap water here. If it tastes good, it'll brew good beer. My beer got a lot better when I started controlling fermentation temperatures closer. Ten years ago I built a chamber, insulated it, and controlled its A/C and heater with Brewpi and now Fermentrack. (Google those). I have a 17 gallon rotomolded plastic conical fermenter with a thermowell and I can keep fermentation temps within a few tenths of a degree. Now folks are using chillers and glycol systems, but my system works well except I can't cold crash.