newbie question water quality

[ukjam]

hi all as im reciving my new set up this week ive been reading as much as i can to get started and i love this forum.i just wondered about water quality as i keep marine fish i use a reverse osmosis unit to clean tap water down to 0 tds and wondered if this makes any difference

[mozr]

I am no water quality expert, you know much more than me.

I thought osmosis was a car made by Ford in the 1950's.

Anyway, the simple principle is quality in quality out.

So if you can easily filter then do so.

If it's a bit of a pain, do one wash with and one without, making copious notes and comparing smell, speed of ferment, ease of wash clearing, taste, yield, etc.

If you see a difference rejoice, if you don't, use the water out of the guttering.

I would think that you might notice the difference post distillation. Try the filtered water when watering down your spirit to 40%. I use my fridge which has an inline water filter. Does it make a difference? Dunno.

[Jimmy]

If I remember rightly, a couple of guys on here use RO water (Phantom for one I think) - might be something if you search, or I'm sure someone will pick up on this.

[Capt-Cudellez]

Hi UKJAM - mozr's suggestion is a good one - there is lots of conflicting info surrounding the magic of fermenting - your yeast might like the RO water, then again it might like something that is in your tap water better.
If you and I got a packet of seed each we wouldn't expect to grow the exact same amount of tomatoes.

Different yeasts - different water - I find you have to find your own way with this and see what works for you - lots I have read doesn't pan out for me - and I sometimes get results that others can't replicate.

If your water tastes okay - try the lazy way at least twice would be my advice.

[Phantom]

Ok, so if you do some digging around, you'll find that the best water is "soft" water i.e. neutral or slightly acidic and yes, only very slightly acidic, something like 0.1 on the acid side of neutral, with low calcium and magnesium salts.

The problem we have is that larger parts of the country do have medium to hard water as a lot of it comes through chalk i.e. if you get limescale in your kettle, then it's hard enough to have some effect.

Apparently, from what I could find (sorry, I didn't bookmark the links) soft water from distilling it, or de-ionising it, or running it through a reverse osmosis filter seems to do the trick. I've still to get round to fitting my filter, but I get it in 25 litre cans from the aquarium shop.

Hence I use it for the actual wash, and then also for letting the spirit down. That way, you don't get any of the slight bitter or harsh notes that can be caused by the calcium or magnesium salts found in the water here.

And yes, I've also read the crap about yeast needing nutrients etc but if you work out how much is actually in clean drinking water, then if you're relying on that for nutrient, you're pissing in the wind. Because there's not enough in it in the first place. If you wanted water with enough nutrients in it for the yeast, then try raw sewage as that'd have enough of the base nutrients to keep the yeast happy - but you wouldn't drink that would you eh ?


Yes, I do tend to double distill these days (with my T500), so if I do use tap water for the initial ferment, then the TDS is reduced by the first run, then anything that comes through the still, is further diluted by letting it down to 40% ABV with RO water, which further dilutes anything that's got through the still, which is diluted further with RO again in the final reduction to drinking/mixing strength.

That's also then carbon filtered, which seems to make the cleanest, most neutral spirit I can manage without going to mega lengths and modding the still or building one that will give me the further 1.5 or 2% on the strength of the output (that's not to say I'm not gonna have a go at that, just that I don't need to).

[Capt-Cudellez]

Thats some good info phantom. The only thing consistent about my ferments is how inconsistent they are.
I'm guilty of doing some things because it seemed to work the first time. For example for my neutral wash I add a little gypsum, because when I left it out it did't do so well- it is very likly that something else caused the poor performance, but I keep on adding it.

I realise this is not scientific and this I how superstitions get started, I'm not quite at the stage of doing a little dance to apease the beer Gods, Well not until I've had a few jars

[Phantom]

Well, my efforts are equally non-scientific. Just that I know of the calcium salts in the local water, and the info about the calcium and magnesium salts cause harshness to distilate flavours (apparently), so I'm just excluding them as much as possible and relying on the nutrient in the yeast packs.

Which seems to help i.e. that it makes the flavoured spirit taste "cleaner"..... or smoother.

So no science, just hit and miss......

[Capt-Cudellez]

No need Aiden - I have native american blood 3 generations back on my Canadian fathers side of the family, I'm sure I can make it work.