What water to use?

[Abundant1]

Hi, I have been using tap water to add to my brew. Is this ok or should I boil it. What does everyone else uses?

[MrC]

I assume from your question that you're a kit brewer. When I brew with kits I use filtered tap water. I use filtered water simply because we have a filter installed in the kitchen and it's easy. In the past I've used unfiltered tap and never had any problems. In the pursuit of better beer, I would target other factors ahead of water quality unless your water is really bad. If your water tastes OK straight out of the tap, it should be OK in your beer.

Having said that, if you're looking to improve your beer, I would recommend reading through HowToBrew and tackling an extract batch. It's a lot more fun that kit brewing, you get more control over your beer and you should get a better beer (although it does take longer and you'll need a large pot).

What yeast do you use? I would recommend buying a yeast from the fridge at you local HB store and throwing away any yeast that comes with a kit. I'm a big fan of the Safale US-05 yeast and others on this forum are big fans of Safale S-04.

[David Falconer]

depends what you mean by tap water if it comers from a tank via the roof a boil might be a good idea to kill any samonella from bird droppings, some of the town supplies are pretty manky as well , look on the ministry of health website. If you are in a city tap water will be fine. Cheers

[Abundant1]

Oh ya- use Safale US-05 for ales. So you do not have to boil the water first?

[Fairlane]

You may want to only if there is excess chlorine in it........
If you're on town water, ring up the council and ask for a copy of their regional water analysis and they should be able to provide it for you. Then you can cross check this with the style of beer that you want to make, and make any required additions...