mineral water

[optic]

I have just fermented a wash using cheap mineral water (93p for 5ltr Asda)as a experiment because the water where i live is terrible,it certainly fermented well and after a day with the turbo clear i have just racked it into two litre bottles ready to run,the wash seems to have cleared better than before and smells a lot cleaner,i wonder if the end result will be any better?,will find out in the week when i do a run.

Has anyone tried using a brita water filter to run the wash or the spirit through,or would this be a total waste of time?

[umpa]

I use ro water, not sure it\'s any cheaper than the mineral water yourgetting though.

[optic]

umpa

do you notice any improvement using ro water?,not quite sure what ro water is,am i right thinking its water that has had everything removed making it pure water,if so what is the difference between that and distilled water?,I have started another wash using alcotec triple distilled yeast,its been going just over 24hrs,it is very slow at the moment unlike the still spirits yeast I have been using,think I will stick with the still spirits yeast in the future.

[umpa]

Yes m8 its pure H2O, the good thing about it is that its like a blank canvas - leaving you to buffer the water anyway you like - I have no problems with it - just google Reverse Osmosis.

[optic]

i have just finished running the wash made using mineral water and it smells a lot cleaner than before,im sure all the crap that is in tap water cant help.

[Phantom]

i have just finished running the wash made using mineral water and it smells a lot cleaner than before,im sure all the crap that is in tap water cant help.

There\'s so many possibilities as to the why\'s and wherefores of using RO, distilled or mineral water.
Don\'t forget, some of the "cleanest" water in the country is tap water. There\'s no argument about that - technically, mineral water is dirtier, but of course, mineral water hasn\'t been treated with chlorine or chloramine has it.... so it might be something to do with the chemical reactions during the ferment that make it smell/taste better than one done with tap water.
don\'t forget, distillation is a purification/seperation process, and I don\'t know enough about the reactions and alcohol as to whether it chlorine/chloramine is concentrated by the process or not. It wouldn\'t surprise me if it was, there\'s only a very tiny amount of chlorine/chloramine in tap water, but if it was concentrated by the distillation process, I\'d guess that could up the % enough to make the distillate taste different....
As I say, I\'m no scientist, but logic would dictate about the possibilities of that happening.....

[optic]

I also put 6 1/2ltrs @ 40% through a brita water filter three times,and the difference in the clarity and aroma was amazing,i just gave it one run through the usual carbon filter afterwards and its the best i have done so far,will repeat the process until i can make a decent carbon filter,i was at the local home brew shop and they have bags of alcotec activated carbon £5 each so getting it locally wont be a prob,i have got some plastic pipe 40mm in diameter all i need to do is get around to finding some other bits to finish the job,im sure you are right phantom about the water,it smells strongly of chlorine where i live so much so you have to be really thirsty to drink it straight out of the tap!,next time i brew some beer i will try mineral water to make it, after all its cheap enough, and see what improvement it makes.

[HangOver]

theres a lot of thought on the net about high alch spirits and plastic reacting so better to use a copper or stainless steel pipe if you can.

the wider & longer the better but apparently width is the important factor.

[goinbroke2]

Something to think about;

Back in the 1700\'s when settlers first came to north america they were scared to try the unknown water so they would ferment with it and drink beer/rum/whisky. Alcoholic drinks were deemed safer than trying the water. That being said, besides taste I wonder what would happen if you used dirty/grungy swamp/ditch water? We always try to make everything perfect to get the perfect ferment/flavour and no doubt the whisky from 1700-1800 was no where comparable to the stuff made today, but I wonder just how much better or worse a mash would be. Comparing RO or distilled water to basically ditch water. As long as there were no chemicals/pesticides etc in it I\'m curious if the alcohol produced and the resulting distillate would be clean regardless due to the distillation process.
Thoughts?
(and no \"you try it first\" answers hahaha)

[Opus 27]

I\'ve used RO Water for quite a while and I think it probably gives a slightly cleaner smelling wash. However of late I\'ve gone back to tap water mainly as it easier to fill my bin at the right temperature using the shower head(How lazy can I get). What I have noticed is I get a bit more vigorous ferment with the tap water which may be due to the presence of extra minerals. At the end of the day I suppose what you use depends on what your trying to create if it\'s a clean spirit for flavouring with essences then I would think the cleaner the water the better but if it\'s traditional whiskeys then the right water could impart something into the final drink. When it comes to filtering I\'ve now introduced a further stage, I put my wash through a Mini Jet Wine Filter before I run it through the Still and I think this has probably helped with a cleaner spirit but these things are a bit difficult to quantify when it comes to quality.
Opus

[Jimmy]

It varies a lot too - up here in the north we have decent tap water, but I know that down south the water is often very poor tasting and furrs up the kettle (it doesn\'t do that here). In theory like people say, any crap should be distilled out of it but in terms of getting the maximum alcohol out of your fermentation, it could be a factor.