Filtering water

[Soton]

I have recently filtered a couple of beers into kegs to allow me to transport them and minimise the beer clouding up during transport, this has got me thinking about filtering my water before brewing
I live in Hampshire and like a lot of areas in the UK it is classed as a "very hard water area" so I am wondering what effect filtering my tap water before brewing will have, I have done a bit of research on filtering water on the internet but can't really find any info about what a 1 micron filter will take out, dose anyone know if that sort of filtering would help soften the water a tad or just remove any salts that might be beneficial to the brew?
Maybe if it was to remove good water additions along with unwanted stuff the good stuff could be added back to balance the water as required for the type of beer that was to be made

I don't know if you have ever taken a look at what is and isn't in your water supply but you might find it interesting, if you are interested go to your local water supplier website and do a search for something like water profiles and you should be able to find exactly what is and is not in your water
To give you a idea of what you could find, my water supply profile can be found here
https://www.southernwater.co.uk/media/default/pdfs/ZH508.pdf

 

[Hoppyland]

The only thing that a physical filter - even a 1 micron one - will take out is particulate matter. It won't affect anything dissolved in the water, which is where your hardness comes from.
For beer styles requiring a soft water, your best bet might be to use a bottled water known to have low hardness (I think this would be 0-100 mg/l CaCO3 equivalent - but others here will know better than me!)

 

[strange-steve]

There's a common misconception that hard water is bad for brewing. I think it's due to the confusion of hardness and alkalinity which are different things. Hardness is a measure of the calcium and magnesium in the water, both of which are good for brewing. Alkalinity is the the capability of neutralising acid, which is bad because it can prevent the mash pH falling to the correct range.

As hoppyland says the filter won't affect the mineral composition of the water anyway. If your alkalinity is too high then get some CRS or lactic acid to neutralise it.