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Hard Water

I am very "green" to home brewing. In fact, I obtained the interest from a former co-worker who brewed quite regularly, but I never pursued any further - until now. I have just purchased a basic set-up, and am curious about using our well water or buying bottled.

Our well water, has a good flavor and smell to it. However, the water is very hard. It leaves a calcium build-up (I'm assuming calcium) on the inside of the pipes, and (unless cleaned regularly) also in our sinks, tubs, and stools. Will this effect the batch, or is there no real concern since it tastes fine?

I appreciate any help that you give.

Stone-ok

Reply to
Stone-ok
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There are some issues with hard water. Unless your brewing specific styles and doing an all-grain, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Personally, if you're using kit beers, I'd stick to the darker more robust beer styles like porter where hard water has less bearing on flavour. If you're trying to brew a Pilsner Urquell clone you would have to use bottled water. Steve W.

Reply to
QD Steve

On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 23:42:18 GMT, "QD Steve" said in alt.beer.home-brewing:

And, even then, you should check the web for the contents of the various bottled waters you have available. It's disgusting what passes for "bottled water" these days. Some of it's a lot worse than what comes out of my tap.

Reply to
Al Klein

If the water tastes good to drink its fine for brewing. There are water treatment regimes that you can apply but they are never simple & you are usually committed to adding chemicals no matter how naturally occuring they are. This is your first brew so keep everything simple until you gain confideence & experience. The big test is can you make a brew you enjoy drinking & if not can you make the changes to do just that. Hard water will not greatly affect the result although you should have told us what style of beer/Lager you were aiming to produce. Hope this helps. Pete

Reply to
peterlonz

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