Top Off Water

[bkwarn3]

I recently finished brewing 2.5 gallons of wort and to get to my 5 Gallons, I used tap water! The water quality for us isn't bad.....but just the same....did I compromise my brew by doing this??

 

[norsk]

Probably not... but next time it might be a good idea if you boil it first....

 

[ACbrewer]

No. I do this all the time. IF the water is generall good tasting and safe to drink, then it is safe to top off with.

Some people say 'boil it' this is because clorine can be a problem. I've not had that personally, or known that to be a problem for my beer.

 

[grem135]

I use tap water all the time without boiling. I do use campden to treat my water though since my water company uses chloromine. Unlike chlorine, chloromine does not boil out or "gas off" if left to sit.

 

[unionrdr]

I was using tap water in my AE beers with good results. But I found I can get local spring water for 10c per gallon. The AE beers taste a bit better,& the PM beers come out great with it!

 

[hopmonster2189]

Just make sure your faucet is clean so it's not picking up any bacteria/wild yeast as its coming out of the faucet head as well

 

[Hopper5000]

I always pre-boil some water before I start my brew day and then it's generally fairly cool by the time pitching is going to happen. I have heard that you don't really need to pre-boil as the yeast will take over its environment but my method works so I just go with it...

 

[2005STi]

I always shell out the $0.85/gal for Steam Distilled gallons from the grocery store. It's worth the peace of mind before doing full wort boils.

 

[Hopper5000]

if your worried about your water just look up ward labs and get a test kit from them. It;s pretty cheap and will give you all you need.

 

[carguy13]

awesome question, i just did the same thing. so far i'm not seeing any problems but i'll report back as soon as my brew is done.

 

[mjdonnelly68]

The biggest problem with adding tap water to your wort is that you are ADDING TAP WATER TO YOUR WORT!

Get thee to a full boil posthaste.

 

[Revvy]

I recently finished brewing 2.5 gallons of wort and to get to my 5 Gallons, I used tap water! The water quality for us isn't bad.....but just the same....did I compromise my brew by doing this??

I do it all the time and I NEVER boil. This gets so overblown. If you're water is safe to drink without boiling, then there's no reason to boil it for your top off water.

If that were really the case we'd all be sick drinking, brushing our teeth, using ice, showering with it....

I use it, unboiled all the time....I even top off with it, UNBOILED.

Here's my standard rant to put it in perspective...I think it come more from new brewers little understanding of things, then any revelence. I think because we're afraid of this new beer making thing when we start out (heck half the time we're afraid were gonna make something toxic and poison our friends, OR that if we look at our beer wrong it's going to die a horrible death or both) that we forget some basic truths about the world. I wrote this last year when three folks posted something about this in the same day...

Do you brush your teeth with your tap water? Do you shower with it and maybe get some in your mouth? Do you use ice made with the water coming into your house? Do you Drink it?

Do you live in a city that is currently having a boil water advisory?

Have we been so brainwashed from buying little plastic bottles of overpriced water (that may have ALSO come out of a tap, and MAY have less governement regulations than our municipal water) that we have forgotten that that sink in our kitchen isn't JUST used to wash dishes with? I have always found this fear that folks have of their own water ridiculous. If you can drink your water you can brew with it (all arguments about chlorimines aside, I'm talking about sanitization.) If you can drink the water out of your tap without getting sick, you can top off your fermenter with it. I've done it all my brewing career and NEVER had any issues.

I've just found this blind trust people have over those tiny plastic bottles over our own home water is ludicrious....

Let's start with an independent four year study of the bottled water industry, completed in 1999 by the Natural Resources Defense Council.1 The report of the results along with a petition to the FDA stated that there were "major gaps in bottled water regulation and that bottled water is not necessarily safer than tap water". The study's principal findings were that although most bottled water seems good quality, "some bottled water contains bacterial contaminants, and several brands of bottled water contain synthetic organic chemicals (such as industrial solvents, chemicals from plastic, or trihalomethanes - the by-products of the chemical reaction between chlorine and organic matter in water) or inorganic contaminants (such as arsenic, a known carcinogen) in at least some bottles".

.........

This leads us to the subject of the chlorination of our public drinking water in the USA. This law is in effect to sterilize and disinfect the water, eradicating all types of bacteria.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which is a nonprofit organization devoted to protecting health and the environment, more than 25% of all bottled water comes from a public source. That's right - it's the same water that's piped to homes and businesses.

How can that happen? Because they can. No one is demanding truth in advertising from water bottling companies!

Standards for purity exist, of course. BUT ...Bottled water purity is regulated by the FDA, and because the FDA puts low priority on water, bottlers are inspected and tested less than once a year. According to one FDA official, it's the manufacturer's responsibility to ensure that the product complies with laws and regulations.

The result: Some do, and some don't. And even worse, if the water is bottled and delivered within the same state, there are NO regulations.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates tap water, so if a bottler uses a public source that has passed their inspection, it should be OK to drink - right? Not necessarily.

In tests done by the NRDC, at least one sample from a third of the brands contained bacterial or chemical contaminants, including carcinogens in levels exceeding state or industry standards. Not to be argumentative, but I have to wonder why any level of carcinogens is OK.

My understanding is that our municipal water sources are tested several times a day. That's how they are able to have a boil water declaration if something is detected.

Personally...I trust my tap water and my plumbing more than I think it's worth buying water, or bothering to boil it, if I don't have a BWA in my town.

 

[Revvy]

The biggest problem with adding tap water to your wort is that you are ADDING TAP WATER TO YOUR WORT!

Get thee to a full boil posthaste.

Sometimes even AG brewers doing full boil need to top off.....Like if it's windy, and we've overcompensated by cranking up the gas....and we boil off more than we planned in that 60 minutes.

 

[KIAKillerXJ]

Yup. Getting used to my new system and had to top off with 1.5 gals yesterday from the tap. No issues except my water is really cold so the top off dropped my temp into the mid 50s so a bit more lag time for the yeast as its warming up

 

[krackin]

I agree, if your domestic water supply isn't fit to drink then why are you using it at all? If you are pulling it out of the Ganges then I understand.

 

[cooldood]

I do it all the time and I NEVER boil. This gets so overblown. If you're water is safe to drink without boiling, then there's no reason to boil it for your top off water.

If that were really the case we'd all be sick drinking, brushing our teeth, using ice, showering with it....

I use it, unboiled all the time....I even top off with it, UNBOILED.

Here's my standard rant to put it in perspective...I think it come more from new brewers little understanding of things, then any revelence. I think because we're afraid of this new beer making thing when we start out (heck half the time we're afraid were gonna make something toxic and poison our friends, OR that if we look at our beer wrong it's going to die a horrible death or both) that we forget some basic truths about the world. I wrote this last year when three folks posted something about this in the same day...

Can I have an amen?

 

[Hopper5000]

ya IMHO f*&H botteled water, it's just a sham... watch the documentary Tapped. One person in the FDA is responsible for regulating the entire botteled water industry and they have other duties besides that... not to mention all that BPA that's in the plastic of those botteled waters.

Municipal sources are tested multiple times a day...

 

[unionrdr]

I get my spring water from Artisian Springs right out of the spring for 10c per gallon.

 

[bkwarn3]

That was the most epic answer of all answers!! Thanks! And i Completely agree with you!!

 

[mjdonnelly68]

Sometimes even AG brewers doing full boil need to top off.....Like if it's windy, and we've overcompensated by cranking up the gas....and we boil off more than we planned in that 60 minutes.

Exception to every rule - takes all the fun out of platitudes...