Noob Mistake

So I brewed an all extract summer ale kit yesterday. Everything went perfectly...until it came time for top off water addition. I forgot to buy spring water and didn't have preboiled tap water on hand. So I just topped off will cold tap water. It is not well water, it is city water. My OG reading was spot on at 1.042. Question is how will this affect the finished product?

You will be fine! I did that for a long time and they say if its good enough to drink its good enough to brew with! You have plenty of time to get comfortable with the process before worrying about water chemistry ! Enjoy

couple quarts of city water?

guess it depends on the city. as long as the water isn't completely foul, you should be OK.

saw a video of my LHBS owner making a batch and he's using bottled water. says he usually uses tap, but the city is disinfecting the water supply with chlorine and it will take 2 months.

if you happen to live in Manassas, VA, your beer will taste like pool water. otherwise, shouldn't be a problem

DISAGREE with "if it's good enough to drink..." our water tastes fine straight from the tap, but if we use it to make coffee or lemonade, it tastes like feet & ass.

so, I used it in a test batch. 1 lb of LME in a gallon of water with some leftover hops and cheap-a$$ yeast. it's chilling now, taking it to brew club meeting to see if anyone tastes anything bad about it

so I named the batch:

Thanks for the replies! It's bubbling nicely so I was hoping it wouldn't be ruined!

You had me at the name ! You are correct but I think it will be fine and it will still be beer

GrogNerd said:

couple quarts of city water?

guess it depends on the city. as long as the water isn't completely foul, you should be OK.

saw a video of my LHBS owner making a batch and he's using bottled water. says he usually uses tap, but the city is disinfecting the water supply with chlorine and it will take 2 months.

if you happen to live in Manassas, VA, your beer will taste like pool water. otherwise, shouldn't be a problem

DISAGREE with "if it's good enough to drink..." our water tastes fine straight from the tap, but if we use it to make coffee or lemonade, it tastes like feet & ass.

so, I used it in a test batch. 1 lb of LME in a gallon of water with some leftover hops and cheap-a$$ yeast. it's chilling now, taking it to brew club meeting to see if anyone tastes anything bad about it

so I named the batch:

Click to expand...

Haha! I love the label!

Our tap water tastes fine. No off flavors in coffee, tea, lemonade etc. Hopefully this will turn out good.

Still you might want to go online and see if they use chloromine instead of chlorine. My water tastes great for drinking, not so great for brewing because of chloromine. If they do using campden will get rid of it no problem. Cheap easy insurance.

grem135 said:

Still you might want to go online and see if they use chloromine instead of chlorine. My water tastes great for drinking, not so great for brewing because of chloromine. If they do using campden will get rid of it no problem. Cheap easy insurance.

Click to expand...

Campden can be used to treat water with chlorine or chloramine, and it seems much easier than pre-boiling water for chlorine. Since you didn't treat the water for chlorine/chloramine, you might get some off flavor. Try it when it's done and see what you think. But I agree with grem135: Treat the water in the future regardless - cheap easy insurance.

Ok. I will try that. Thank you very much!