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Posted: 5/20/2015 4:31:10 PM EDT
I'm going to brew a Belgian Caramel Wit from an extract kit and am trying to decide if I should take the chance on springwater or just buy bottled water?
Link Posted: 5/21/2015 9:04:39 AM EDT
[#1]
Your going to boil the water anyway, that will kill off any potential nasties in the spring water. The Spring water will likely have more minerals in it, which arent necessarily a bad thing. Beer was brewed for centuries from spring water. It was the best water they had at the time.

My rule of thumb for my brewing right now is if the water tastes good enough to drink, it will make a fine beer. I havent began messing with water profiles quite yet.
Link Posted: 5/21/2015 5:36:23 PM EDT
[#2]
Split your batch in two and do a little experiment to compare.
Link Posted: 5/22/2015 10:57:29 AM EDT
[#3]
It really helps to know your water profile when brewing but you can still make good beer without that knowledge.
Water hardenss
If you are using spring water that is hard then you may have some slight issues. Hard water tend to lean toward darker beers and the use of darker malts like black patent. Soft water required treatment or an addition of calcium sulfate or gypsum to make a better darker style beer.

If your water is soft then you should be good to go with the recipe.

Be advise that a lot of bottled water come stright from a municiple water supply and may have chloramines and cholrides added during the pruification process. Cholrides will dissapate after allowing to sit 24 hours, but cholramines require an addition of Camden tablets to remve them.

Removing Cholramines from water
Link Posted: 5/22/2015 4:57:00 PM EDT
[#4]
I use tap water.
Link Posted: 5/22/2015 5:05:12 PM EDT
[#5]

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I use tap water.
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Yep.  Water modification is something I'd like to get into, but I'm not there yet.
Link Posted: 5/22/2015 6:02:18 PM EDT
[#6]
I found the springs water profile ran it through the calculator it said it was on the low side of a couple things but shouldn't affect taste. I don't wanna get into water modification but my tap water really sucks. I'm gonna find the profiles of brand bottled and check the calculator.
Link Posted: 5/26/2015 12:01:02 PM EDT
[#7]
Tap is fine but I'd filter to get the chlorine taste out. I have a RO filter hooked up to my 'utility' sink in the laundry room just for this purpose. Ended up picking up a sealed in box filter system at Lowes for $50 a few years ago, it's been well worth it.
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