Wine and water

[chrissyr63]

hi all,

I do mainly AG beer brewing and there is lots of stuff around the water treatment. Just starting up with wines and wondered if any of that is relevant? As examples:
a) Campden tab to remove chlorine etc
b) soft or hard water treatments (more for a better mash)

But for wine (kits or WOW types) does any of this affect the wine taste? I'd assume the campden tab is a no-no? Do you get regional water profiles as in beer?
Or is the addition too small to make a difference (ie in a 5 lt WOW only about 40% is additional water)?

C

 

[Dutto]

Whenever I use tap-water for a wine (or beer for that matter) I've always assumed that boiling it got rid of any nasties like chlorine; and as I live in a relatively soft-water area I've never bothered treating it.

When there is no boiling involved (and sometime when there is) a lot of Forum members use bottled water from their local supermarket on the basis that it's sterile, chlorine free and chemically well balanced.

I only use Campden Tablets in wine making after the wine has finished fermenting. One crushed tablet in a gallon DJ will inhibit further fermentation when the wine is bottled.

Hope this helps. :thumb:

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I used to heat the water to dissolve the sugar and then wait ages for it to cool, I now use cold water straight from the tap and mix everything in the DJ using a degassing wand and drill.
I also no longer use cooled boiled water to top up as the water from our tap is fine.

 

[Roddy]

Yea I just water from the tap in my 25L wows, which is about 50% of the total volume

I add Campden tabs when racking to a second carboy for clearing 😀

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

[chewie]

I to am straight outta the tap for wine kits or WoW's, the only water i boil that goes into a WoW is for disolving sugar, adding tea bags and mixing up nutrient, pectolase and citric acid.

 

[Drunkskunk]

Bottled water for wine I intend to keep for long periods , tap for ****, ie.. cheap wines like fruit tea or wow that won't be around long.
My tap waters like liquid rock and I'm positive it makes a difference.

 

[rubby]

I always use water in the start of it. Before drilling everything. It does a great work for me.

 

[Notlaw]

I always use water in the start of it. Before drilling everything. It does a great work for me.

 

[tonyhibbett]

Ask for a quality report from your local water company. I did and as a result I started filtering my tap water for tea, coffee and cooking with consequent improvements in taste. However, before the days of 'clean' water, people drank weak (2%) beer or wine as it was safe. The brewing process cleans up the water.

 

[chrissyr63]

thanks all for the replies.
I still get the impression that the majority of people don't bother with any issues with water when making their wine - just straight from the tap. Is it the higher ABV that sorts any differences?
Or is the beer process just different? Again an example is at the end of the wine ferment you degas by shaking the hell out of it - beer world if you accidentally tip the FV a couple of time too much and splash your beer it is doomed to oxidation off flavours!
Fundamentally aren't they both just sweet liquids with yeast added (I understand that the water treatment in AG is for the mash process so probably moving off my own topic!).

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I think with wine the water you use is not really important, with beer it is.

 

[Drunkskunk]

Do two identical brews, one with tap the other with bottled and compare them, only way to be sure

 

[simon12]

Beer water treatment is important to get the right mash PH but unless your water is at the far end of a spectrum its likely OK, bottled water is likely further from traditional brewing water than tap in most areas. Breweries have adjusted there water profile for various beers for years, so its well known what the best water profiles for various styles are while wine is made from the water in grapes so its unlikely anyone has done much experimentation with different water profiles and to keep it as close to what wine is normally like you should use the purest water possible (though who knows maybe a different water profile could improve wine beyond what the best grapes can).

 

[tonyhibbett]

Some of the pipework feeding water to my house is old lead and the water analysis report did not take this into account.
I compared my tap water with some bottled water, the former being slightly alkaline and the latter slightly acidic. A subsequent test found the tap water neutral. Either way it's not pleasant to drink! However, both for beer and wine it's perfectly ok. All the wine I make has a high juice content (50% or more) reducing any influence of the water.