Distilled water

[Simon David kelly]

Does anyone know where to get some in and around Wellington?

Si

[Dale]

If you don't need lots get from Mitre 10 they have it for car batteries. Well they do in Nelson

[Chris Banks]

Supercheap and Ripco have it too?

[Stu McKinlay]

??? what on earth do you want distilled water for?

[Simon David kelly]

I need to calibrate my birthday presents ... a refactometer and a pH meter.

[Haish]

You can't calibrate a pH meter with distilled water, unless you know what the pH of the water is of course. Its most likely not pH 7, or even close enough to 7 to calibrate. What you want is a calibration solution.

[Simon David kelly]

I have two of those, the instructions require the distilled water to wash the meter probe between the two calibration baths.

I always thought distilled water was pH7 as it has a perfect balance of hydrogen ions? Or is the deionised-distilled-water?

[Haish]

All good then. You could probably get away with tap water to rinse, otherwise H2GO or Pump (RO water) should do the trick. I think Pure Dew brand water is distilled?

pH of distilled water can fluctuate due to dissolved gases eg CO2. The value can fluctuate quite a lot as there are no other ions to buffer out.

[Nick T]

For the refractometer you need to recalibrate on each day you use it, and often through the day too. (why it drifts I do not know). I just take a little sample of the steam that condenses in the lid of the electric kettle (the one used for making cups of tea that is!) each time for this purpose. You only need a tiny tiny drop.

For the pH meter I just rinse with tap water before calibrating with the pH 7 solution. The pH target of 5.2 isn't critical as far as I understand, talking to a commercial brewer here he told me he just makes sure it is somewhere 5.2 - 5.4 or even 5.6 through the process, so you don't need 5.200 precision...

[Reviled]

I couldnt even see the difference between distilled and tap water on my refractometer...

[Simon David kelly]

I tried some tap water on it last night and it's miles out ... or my water supply is actually pure spirits ... it's showing about -1/-2%.

The pH meter was showing 7.3 for the tap water and 6.1 for the Petone spring water (which I shall be making the beer from this weekend).

[Reviled]

"or my water supply is actually pure spirits"

Good ol eketahuna huh? lolz

[Jona Hjelmstrom]

You get distilled water out of a steam water purifier or any still.
How about rain water?
I wouldn't trust any gas station, mitre 10, supercheap, repco etc...they usually get the water out of the tap!