Bottled of tap water

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danmac

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Which do everyone use I get some saying tap is fine to brew with and others saying no way ! Is it worth it for the money
 
If it smells remove the chlorine and chloramine with a campden overnight.

If you're brewing kits, keep it simple. Bottle water may be worse for the style you are making.
 
My tap water is extremely hard and pretty chlorinated. My mum wont drink it when she visits and even we will give it a miss occasionally (they must add extra bleach after weeing in it on those days)....

Im only a few brews in but for around £5 a brew, Id rather use Tescos Ashbeck than end up with a kit I cant drink. I know campden tabs are an option but I like the convenience and certainty of mineral water - plus I re-use the bottles for Turbo cider!
 
Really depends on the quality of your water and what type of beer you want to brew.
My water is hard as nails and stinks of chlorine(Thames valley).Bottled or ro water for my hoppy ales is my easiest option.
 
I used to use bottled water but switched to tap about a year ago. I haven't noticed the difference and I thought I would. I use Campden to remove residual chlorine and epsom/gypsum etc to adjust for style.
 
Really depends on the quality of your water and what type of beer you want to brew.
My water is hard as nails and stinks of chlorine(Thames valley).Bottled or ro water for my hoppy ales is my easiest option.
I must not be far from you - it’s not great is it?!
 
Is it about 1 campden tablet per gallon and at what stage do I add it please
 
Is it about 1 campden tablet per gallon and at what stage do I add it please
Half a tablet in 5 gallons is more than enough.
But there's more to tap water than just chlorine/chloramine. Nevertheless, once you've got rid of that, all tap water is good for something: high bicarbonates makes lovely stouts. high sulphates make Burton bitters, very soft water is great for Pilsners, and so on. But we brewers want to be able to make every style with our water and so we have to adjust the chemistry. @strange-steve has done some great work on this. Look up his posts.
 
My tap water tastes great but I have wondered what it'd be like to try some of the local springs. If anyone knows of a cheap testing kit I could collect some and test it.
 
My tap water tastes great but I have wondered what it'd be like to try some of the local springs. If anyone knows of a cheap testing kit I could collect some and test it.
Have a look at this thread Beginners Guide to Water Treatment (plus links to more advanced water treatment in post #1) | The HomeBrew Forum It mentions the kits you need to measure Alkalinity and Calcium. Somewhere there is a post showing how to use them.
This assumes you doing AG, if you are doing kits just had half campden tablet to the water at the start.
 
I'm fine using tap water but for convenience/speed, I'll buy 3 gallons of spring water (.$.79 each) that I can get near freezing which makes hitting my pitching temperature easy when topping up to five gallons (19l think it is).
 
Our water hardness for 2020 was a mighty 396ppm calcium carbonate and I like to brew primarly extra-pale ale and lagers so it's been Tesco Ashbeck for me.
 
My tap water is extremely hard and pretty chlorinated. My mum wont drink it when she visits and even we will give it a miss occasionally (they must add extra bleach after weeing in it on those days)....

Im only a few brews in but for around £5 a brew, Id rather use Tescos Ashbeck than end up with a kit I cant drink. I know campden tabs are an option but I like the convenience and certainty of mineral water - plus I re-use the bottles for Turbo cider!


5£ a brew , go to Aldi or Lidl their bottle water no more than 30p for 2 Litre bottleswith kit remember you already have out perhaps 2 litres of boiling water to your extract
 
5£ a brew , go to Aldi or Lidl their bottle water no more than 30p for 2 Litre bottleswith kit remember you already have out perhaps 2 litres of boiling water to your extract
Tbh we shop in Tescos and I’m usually time poor so for the sake of c.£2, convenience wins. Plus all that extra plastic fills up my recycling bin leaving less room for empties....! 😜🤣
 

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