Beer Forum

I have heard Doc mention that if you are brewing with extract he would recommend using distilled water so you are not messing with the water profile that the maker of the extract created. I have always used tap water and have always had good results however I have never tried using distilled water and wanted to know what everyone thought.

You can use distilled water with great results. However you can not use strait distilled, you have to add back the minerals that are appropriate for the style. Strait distilled will leach minerals from your ingredients leaving you with some pretty harsh flavors. If you are looking to experiment with a better water you might consider artesian bottled water, it's usually the same price as the distilled. Building water is considered a more advanced task in brewing. In my opinion, I would get your process nailed before you tackle that task.

Maybe that might work for hopped extract kits, but I wouldn't suggest it if you are trying to make a hoppy IPA or Pale Ale when a full-length boil is needed to extract bitterness.

Here near Seattle, our water is very soft, almost Pilzn-like (it is essentially the rain water/snow melt coming off the Cascade Mts).
Pales & IPA's simply turn out bad if you don't add gypsum to the water here. The hops are so subdued and flat, it barely tastes like you added them at all. I can only imagine that brewing using distilled water will be just as bad.

HTH-

That makes sense. I had just heard Doc mention it a few times and he never really talked about it all that much so I thought I would check.

I would agree to not mess with it for now. Brew your beer up and if you notice something wrong with the beer that may be minerally or different offf flavor then think about it.

My interpretation of Doc's point was that if you use your regular water you are going to end up with possible twice the normal mineral content. You will have all of the minerals from the extract maker since they get concentrated with the extract, and then all of the minerals with the water that you add. The suggestion to add distilled would avoid this. But should only be used with the all extract. Any steeping grains wouldn't be steeped in distilled.

As far as BDawg's point, I think that gets more to tuning the water to accentuate elements of the style. Again, that is sort of a trial and error thing.

Just brew it!

I have had absolutely ZERO success with distilled water. Thanks for the tips. Any good articles someone can link me to to supplement this advice?

rsmith1041 wrote:I have had absolutely ZERO success with distilled water. Thanks for the tips. Any good articles someone can link me to to supplement this advice?

Here is a good place to start: http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15.html

Wayne

My 2 cents: I do mini-mashes. I use spring water for the mash and boil. I add extract very late, and use distilled only to top up to 5 gallons (I usually add at least 2 gallons).