I was at a brewing class this weekend and the instructor mentioned that after brewing 1/2 of his extract batch he brought the rest of the wort up to 5 gallons by adding tap water. He didn’t boil it or any conditioning before adding it to the fermenter? Is this safe? I always thought that you should either buy your water filtered or boil your tap water before adding it to the fermenter?
Cheers
NewbieJM
Technically tap water should be clean and clear of any nasties. Depends on where you live though.
I live in Milwaukee and when I was doing partial boils I would top up with filtered tap water but you should have no problems with milwaukee tap water.
is it the best method? no. Will it work ok. Yes.
I’m rather still inexperienced myself but beer making is what you put in to it. There are lots of different ways to accomplish the same thing. Some ways are better than others.
Worry about water is something I did after 2 or 3 batches.
I would run the tap water through a carbon filter and get rid of the chlorine. Even after a vigorous boil, you do not get rid of all of the chlorine. This will effect the final outcome of the beer. However, I have topped off plenty of extract batches with bottled water and/or RO water and not had a problem.
