The Bar Towel

Do any of you treat your water to balance PH, mineral levels, etc.? Do you filter, use spring water, used distilled water? Anybody go so far as to look at the city's water analysis reports and adjust accordingly?

nothing fancy up here. markham seems to have a pretty good neutral profile that works fairly well for many beer styles. no filtering or anything fancy.

the biggest thing you need to be aware of is chlorine/chloramine. years back we tried some brewing in waterloo and everything turned out tasting like a rusty tin can.

if you're going to think about adjusting your water, you need to know what you're starting with, so some sort of water analysis report is the best place to start. no point in adding a bunch of a particular mineral if you're already really high in it.

When I was in London I got an analysis sent me for free. The waterworks guy was really friendly & curious. I think all of the numbers had a range and a median, because it does fluctuate a little with the seasons.

I always charcoal filtered the day before. Then I started using distilled water for sparging as well.

I think we generally have a tad hard water, so I add some chalk to my water. I use a cheap charcoal filter attached to the tap. London has their water report online now - http://www.watersupply.london.ca/reports.html. But as suggested, the levels change all the time. I also make sure my water gets to boiling before I use it to mash-in or sparge.

With Toronto city tap water, I don't filter but I do tend to let my water sit overnight to let the chlorine escape (particularly when the odor is noticeable) and have used campden tablets. Have no idea if they had a material effect of the quality of my brews, but certainly haven't seemed to hurt them as far as I can tell.