RJ Spagnols Does water matter

[gmorandin]

Hi, I just joined this forum and recently purchased a kit for the first time. Does it make a difference if you use tap water or is it better to use distilled water?

Thx

 

[roblloyd]

Is it city or well? As long as its clean and doesn't taste strange it should be fine. If its city I might be Leary if there is a strong chlorine smell. If its well you might just want to check the ph and make sure its close to 7.0.

 

[Runningwolf]

I agree with Rob. If you can't smell it and you drink it, use it. If you're use a water softner then I am not positive. I also would not use water high in iron as you can see what it does to your sinks and toilets leaving the brown stains.

 

[Flem]

Generally speaking, tap water is just fine. Usually, distilled water is not recommended.

 

[jet]

Yes, the water matters.

Do you drink the water? When you boil it, are there any off odors? If you drink it and there are no odors, it should be fine.

If you do buy water, go with drinking or spring water, not distilled.

 

[wineh]

You should not use water which has been softened by a salt based softener. As I have one of those, I use bottled spring water that is available locally.

 

[Gman]

It matters based on my experience. I lived in the city for awhile and found the clorine (hypochloride) did not make for good wine; I went to bottled water. I now live on an acreage with well water. Due to iron and hardness I use a conditioner but even after that I run the water through a Reverse Osmosis (RO) unit. That made all the difference. Regardless of where you get your water (aside from bottled water) you may consider an RO unit if making a considerable amount of wine. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Runningwolf]

At .70 a gallon I just use spring water myself as I have a softner. Of course I am talking about when making kits and your adding 1-5 gallons of water. If its just a qt or so I don't worry about it in my case.

 

[SarahRides]

I tried using tap water, and even though there aren't any chlorine or strange odors coming from it, (and the town gets it from an artesian well) my wine just has a really hard time starting to ferment. I haven't really had any problems since I started using bottled water. I tend to buy Walmart's "Drinking" water which is filtered by reverse osmosis (according to the bottle) and fermentation starts much easier! I guess it depends on the water.

 

[wvbrewer]

I have always used store bought spring water for our kits. I feel if you put the money out for a kit you might as well buy some good water to use in it. If you go to Sam' Club you can get a case of 6 cheaper than buying them seperately in the store.

 

[Truebrew]

My water is softened and it does contain a lot of iron and "flock"-- the stuff that just loves to eat the iron but gives off a "rotten egg" smell. So, for wine, I use the RO unit we also have for drinking water. Because of the volume it produces, it takes a couple of days to collect enough RO water for a batch of wine (assuming more than 1 gal.). That seems to work fine.

The only question I have is if the collected RO water sits awhile, (month or two) will that have an adverse effect?

Susan

 

[bdcl1977]

George at The Wine Makers Toy Store made 5 batches of wine using 5 different water sources little over a year ago. You might want to check with George and see what the results were.

 

[Repsolal]

I used to use regular town supplied tap water, but last year we put in a softener because town water is very hard. I run the water through a reverse osmosis system for our drinking supply and it is taken before it goes through the softener.
The only problem is supply, if making a few kits in one day, I have to start filling a carboy
with water early to get enough.

 

[dbran]

to use water or juice or left over wine

I have made two batches of kit wine so far and had good results. My first batch I added water to yield 6 gallons of wine per directions. My second batch I took the advice of my local wine supplier and didn't add water to yield 5 gallons of wine. I and my friends thought the 5 gallon batch was much better, fuller, less watered down tasting. Can I use bottled wine to top off as some have suggested or will the alcohol in the finished wine kill the secondary fermentation process?. Thanks, Del

 

[ibglowin]

You would not add any wine to top off with until the wine is finished with secondary fermentation.

If you left out a whole gallon of water that is going to be some pretty potent stuff if it went all the way to dry.

 

[robie]

Like ibglowin said, you don't need to top off until AFTER secondary is finished.

I have seen others leave out some of the water.

Of course the kit manufacturers do not recommend that you leave out any amount of water when building the kit. Yes, it will make a thicker wine, but things like acid/PH can be out of balance with the alcohol level.

It is an interesting experiment, though.

Regardless, let us know how these short kits come out in the long run.