St Petersburg, Florida Water

[rtbrews]

Hi all,

I am heading to st Petersburg in manatee county this weekend to brew a couple of my recipes on my uncle's pilot system so I was curious how others may have treated the water in that area. I'm familiar with basic practices for dealing with hard and alkaline water but I have the pleasure of brewing with basically RO out of my tap so I am just curious how others have gone about tackling it.

Any insight welcome!

 

[passedpawn]

St Pete is in Pinellas County.

Florida water comes out of our deep aquifer. It all filters through bedrock that is full of limestone, which is calcum carbonate, CaCO3, or simply crushed coral / shells.

What does that mean? I don't know Probably means that we have pretty hard water, and that you should start with RO and build on that.

Do I do that? Uh, no. I brew with local water, unmodified. It drinks just fine.

 

[dkeller12]

I live in Pinellas county and use tap water from the tap for my beer. I filter it through a carbon filter to remove any off flavors and them treat it with a campden tablet for the chloramine in the water. The high alkalinity makes it more conducive to brewing darker beers, but I have brewed lighter ones without too many issues. I have found that hops have a little harder of a time coming through in hoppy beers and may help require adding some gypsum to make them stand out more. Other than that, using it shouldn't be too much of a problem.