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ust wondering what the prevailing opinion is on using municipal tap water without boiling it out. I live in Bucks County, Pa and my water tastes great with no chlorine flavor that I detect. The water is extremely hard as I have to buy a new water heater and fixtures every 5 yrs or so. I have 5.5gal of a late hop RyeIpa (all-grain batch sparge) that has been in the primary for a week now. I used water right out of the tap and did not boil it out ahead of time. Just thought I would try it and I usually brew with spring water from the supermarket. It was a vigorous fermentation using American II from Wyeast (no starter w/ an OG of 1.057) and is ready to be transferred to the secondary for dry hoping. At this point, the beer smells wonderful. It has Simcoe written all over it with some nice malt/yeast in the background. Thanks for your opinions.
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In my experience hard water is great for making the American style PA’s and IPA’s, Browns and Porters.
If you want to do a lager, some lagers like Pilsners benefit from using soft water.
I forget the science behind it. I think hard water can accentuate perception of bitterness somehow.
I’m sure someone with more skillz can chime in.
The basic rule of water though: If it tastes good to drink, it should taste good in your beer.
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If you’re boiling to remove chlorine, that should happen a couple of hours before you use the water for brewing. Boiling will remove chlorine but not chloramine, so it kinda depends on how your locality is treating the water.
Each brewday I use about half a campden tablet, which is normally a wine-making supply. The tablets are measured ’dose’ of potassium metabisulfite, and (among other things) they will remove both chlorine and chloramines from your brewing water.
All that being said, the main thing is that it tastes great to you. Given your water profile it sounds like you should be brewing a dry stout. 
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Thanks for the input. A sample I took while racking to the secondary for dry hopping tasted just fine. No off flavors from the tap water at this point. The FG was 1.016 and I dry hopped with an oz each of Cascade and Simcoe. It is a late hop so the bitterness factor won’t be real high but it will be a floral bomb. A nice light straw/golden color too.
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It’s the hardness and residual alkalinity and other ions that come into play. Hardness is determined by calcium and magnesium. Both are good for brewing in the proper amounts. When there’s calcium, there’s carbonate/bicarbonate. The carbonate content of the water determines the alkalinity. Alkalinity is a measure of how resistant the water is to acidification. Residual alkalinity is the alkalinity that remains *in mash circumstances* when the calcium and magnesium ions are taken into account. Both Ca and Mg react in the mash to reduce pH, effectively reducing the alkalinity.
In a place like Burton on Trent, there’s lots of balancing calcium thanks to calcium sulfate in the soil, aquafer or whatever. And sulfate accentuates hops in a positive fashion. Hence: pale, hoppy beers.
A place like London has less balancing calcium, so the malts have to be darker (more acidic) for everything to work out.
Grossly simple, but accurate enough I hope.
Some good introductory water links here.
http://oz.craftbrewer.org/Library/Methods/Renner/WaterHardness
.shtml
http://www.antiochsudsuckers.com/tom/brewingwater.htm
http://brewery.org/library/wchmprimer.html
*for the advanced student*
http://ajdel.wetnewf.org:81/
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I agree Bucks water isn’t bad but it is worth buying a Brita pitcher and filtering it to take the slime and grease? out Then I would let it sit awhile...Larry in Southampton ]
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