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Robsparky99

Robsparky99

Newbie kit brewer
Joined
Feb 17, 2017
Messages
165
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71
Location
Shefford, Bedfordshire
Just started to read up on different waters used for brewing and also trying to reduce cost of brewing. At the moment I get ashbeck from Tesco for £1.10 per 5l (actually it's 99p with discount), but Lidl do 2l of spring water for 17p. Any way am I right in saying that very very generally the ashbeck is good for lagers and the sprig water is good for bitters/dark ales? But am I flogging a dead horse as I'm just doing kits? View attachment IMG_2538.JPG


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Water chemistry is not really important if you are only doing kits. So if your tap water is normally good enough to drink without a second thought, and doesn't taste or smell of anything dodgy then it's good enough for brewing straight out of the mains tap.
 
The biggest breweries in the world interfere with there water as it is the only way to maintain 100% consistency as tap/spring or well water will not be consistent over time, if you want to use tap water you could run it thru a basic filter and add a few natural minerals to move it one way or another depending on what you want to achieve.
 
water chemistry isnt simple, but generally as a rule of thumb hard waters are better suited to bitters and soft water is better for lighter beers and lagers. but its more to do with the mash than the fermentation, but it will still have some impact on a kits results.

The main problem with water out of the tap is the chlorine levels and that can be addressed by standing it overnight or more simply with a campden tablet.

unless really hard or really very soft most uk tap water will brew a reasonable beer with the chlorine removed.

if your water is hard and you want to 'dilute' it rather than add acids etc you may be able to get free RO water from a local aquarium shop/supplier, tho the wait for your jerry cans to get filled may guilt you into a token purchase??

Its the hardness or alkilinity that has the biggest impact on brewing as this will effect the mash as well as the final result. you can test this and if necessary correct with acids (CRS Carbonate reducing solutions) . https://www.amazon.co.uk/Salifert-KH-Alkalinity-Profi-Test-Kit/dp/B001EJ3DOG?tag=hba06-21
 
Fil said:
The main problem with water out of the tap is the chlorine levels and that can be addressed by standing it overnight or more simply with a campden tablet.
Click to expand...
If your tap water smells and/or tastes of chlorine and/or chloramines that might well be true. But if it doesn't, campden tablets will make no discernable difference to the end product, so you are really wasting your time imo, which is what I found out, as my water neither smells or tastes of chlorine and the campden tablets I used make no difference whatsoever. So I don't bother. That said all homebrewers should try out these things out for themselves before deciding on their brewing practices, as we are all different. :thumb:
 
terrym said:
If your tap water smells and/or tastes of chlorine and/or chloramines that might well be true. But if it doesn't, campden tablets will make no discernable difference to the end product, so you are really wasting your time imo, which is what I found out, as my water neither smells or tastes of chlorine and the campden tablets I used make no difference whatsoever. So I don't bother. That said all homebrewers should try out these things out for themselves before deciding on their brewing practices, as we are all different. :thumb:
Click to expand...

It seems RO water may have more benefits then first thought - but what will it do to water profile e.g. Flavour and character - I was on a distillery tour not too long ago and had a real blast - was a little dissapointend when I found out they actually RO they're water that they take from a natural spring which is like 50 meters from where the magic happens - but it's to remove mineral deposits accumulating in the bottle in the end and likely to prolong the working hours of they're copper distillery before having to clean up the inside !!!

The three types of filters that can remove fluoride are reverse osmosis, deionizers (which use ion-exchange resins), and activated alumina. Each of these filters should be able to remove about 90% of the fluoride. By contrast, “activated carbon” filters (e.g., Brita & Pur) do not remove fluoride.
 
Personal91 said:
The three types of filters that can remove fluoride are reverse osmosis, deionizers (which use ion-exchange resins), and activated alumina. Each of these filters should be able to remove about 90% of the fluoride. By contrast, “activated carbon” filters (e.g., Brita & Pur) do not remove fluoride.
Click to expand...
With respect, I'm not sure why you have mentioned fluoride. Tap water in most UK areas is dosed with fluoride, although some may contain natural fluoride, and for all but a tiny minority who believe it is harmful, it goes unnoticed. However as far as I am aware, at the concentrations present, you can't taste or smell it unlike you might find with chlorine, so its presence in brewing terms is not really important.
 
Well, I'm on really really soft spring water which comes straight out of a bog on the mountainside above our house. It's got a ph somewhere around 5. From personal experience the only beer that doesn't come out perfect is stout and even that is drinkable. So these days I get around that by brewing black IPA instead, which does come out fine, presumably because of the IPA character rather than the stouty character.
Of course, I'm used to drinking water / tea / coffee of a similar ph so it's possible my taste buds are kind of biased. But like others have said if your tap water tastes fine to you, any beer made from it is also likely to taste fine too.
 
As always great info, I'll be changing to the cheap stuff going forward. Water is my area isn't bad, hard but I can really tell that it has chlorine/chloramide?! Etc etc. In it. I have drunk filtered water for several years and only drink tap if its life and death lol!


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If you are brewing kits then you don't really need to concern yourself with water too much because the main purpose of water treatment is achieving the correct mash pH which has already been done for you. Just add half of a crushed campden tablet to your tap water as a precaution against chlorine taint and you're good.
 

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