Brewing with soften water

[dhelegda]

Anyone brew with soften water? I have always brewed with tap water but recently had a water softener put in. I am adding accumash to my mash now. But none of those beers are ready, just wondering if I'm going to notice a difference, and what I should expect.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

You need to be careful with your Sodium levels. Typical household water softeners replace Mg and Ca ions (which you want in your water) with Na ions (which are bad at high levels). It all depends on how much Sodium is being added as to whether you'll have a problem, but generally you'd be better off using unsoftened water.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Also, accumash (from what I just read....I'd never heard of it before) is designed to be added to RO/distilled water, not tap water. I would STRONGLY recommend you don't add it unless you know what's already in your water. Not enough minerals is better than too much, and if you need water softening you probably have high mineral levels already.

 

[AkTom]

I need to get a water test done... I use softened water. It's not a proem for me.

 

[bnut]

I brewed a few batches with softened water after moving to a new house with a well. The results were not good. My beers came out extremely bitter. I added a reverse osmosis system to the house that I've been using since.

 

[Jacinthebox]

All of my brew buddies and I used softened water...beer was good. switched to RO water and added salts/minerals back, and started winning awards. so from good beer to great beer.

 

[divrguy]

I put in softener recently and since the house was older, didn't know whether one of my outside spigots was softened or not (since the house apparently had a softener at one time) so I brewed an ipa and it was horrible. Sent out for a test and...... it was going through the softener. Doh!!
Switched spigots and beers were back to normal. Lesson learned.

 

[agfisher02]

I installed a port after the filter, but before the softener. Prior to this I was not getting the results I wanted from my brews after installing the softener.