Water?

[Click1]

What is best water for making fruit or kit wine. Distilled, Filtered, or Spring.

 

[Chuck E]

I use my tap water. I think the rule of thumb is; if it tastes good to you, it's ok for your wine. My water comes from Lake Michigan and tastes fine to me.

 

[Jim Welch]

I use my municipal tap water, I dechlorinate it.

 

[cmason1957]

If the water tastes good, use it. Doesn't matter all that much whether it is tap, spring, filtered, or distilled. Although distilled lacks (or should lack) any extra trace elements that the yeast might want to have. You make up for that by adding some extra nutrients (minute amounts extra), like if the nutrients say 1 tbsp/gallon, make it a heaping tbsp.

 

[oppyland]

I like the taste of my well water, and I think it adds (probably a very small amount of) character to my wines.

 

[FlamingoEmporium]

When the snow melts and goes in the ground the yellow snow goes with it.
i have good well water and I don’t worry

 

[Jovimaple]

I use tap water, as well.

 

[BigDaveK]

I like the taste of my well water, too. Been fermenting vegetables for 10+ years and never had any strange issues.

I have a deeper well than many of my neighbors. They'll get commode rust stains and I don't like the taste. At that point I'd look for another source or some kind of remediation.

 

[sour_grapes]

They'll get commode rust stains and I don't like the taste.

Hmm, I am on city water, but I haven't tried drinking from my commode...

 

[Noontime]

As others have said, the general rule is if it tastes ok as water it will taste fine in your wine. If you have really funky well water or municipal water, going with the "bottled" water might be best (which is just tap water filtered). Even heavily chlorinated water will dissipate and drop out as salts (teeny tiny amounts... don't remember the chemistry). Don't use distilled.

 

[BigDaveK]

Hmm, I am on city water, but I haven't tried drinking from my commode...

Oh, jeeze. Yeah, I really need to be more careful with my wording.

 

[Rocky]

As others have said, the general rule is if it tastes ok as water it will taste fine in your wine. If you have really funky well water or municipal water, going with the "bottled" water might be best (which is just tap water filtered). Even heavily chlorinated water will dissipate and drop out as salts (teeny tiny amounts... don't remember the chemistry). Don't use distilled.

Dave, I would be interested in knowing why you say not to use distilled water. That is all I use in my wines, and I have been very pleased with the results. My thinking is when the kit was manufactured, what was removed from the natural juice was H20. Adding back the purest water that I can find seems the proper way to go and that is distilled water. I have heard the "rule" that if it is drinkable, it is usable (or words to that effect) and I have always taken this to mean that is the minimum acceptable criterion.

I don't understand what the benefit of tap, well, drinking, rain, etc. would be over distilled water. Can you help me?

 

[FlamingoEmporium]

Link to an article. Of course keep in mind it’s provided by a spring water seller. But it has some good info on the benefits and drawback of other types
https://cedarspringswater.ca/blog/which-water-best-you-spring-mineral-or-distilled/
in part it says...
”However, distilling water also removes healthy minerals the body needs, which means drinking it for any length of time can lead to mineral deficiencies. Also, once it comes in contact with the air, distilled water absorbs carbon dioxide, which makes it acidic. When it is ingested, that goes into the body and causes excess acid.”

 

[Rice_Guy]

@Click1 welcome t Wine Making Talk. Fun bunch isn’t this. ,,, My choice given those fI’ve options would be to use the least invasive method which was drinking water. This said the US is filling land fills up, if I was really asking your question it would be have companies or farms or I contaminated our community water source?

I don't understand what the benefit of tap, well, drinking, rain, etc. would be over distilled water. Can you help me?

The main benefit of using tap water is cost. The instant factory in Houston as well as my pilot plant used city tap water/ Surface water from a reservoir which had significant turbidity from everything up stream from the coast. One could argue that it could have been cleaned or distilled or trucked in from a spring in Arkansas but that isn’t practical.

 

[Rocky]

”However, distilling water also removes healthy minerals the body needs, which means drinking it for any length of time can lead to mineral deficiencies. Also, once it comes in contact with the air, distilled water absorbs carbon dioxide, which makes it acidic. When it is ingested, that goes into the body and causes excess acid.”

I have read the article and, in general, I agree with most of it. I am not certain that it applies to this discussion. We are not talking about the water we drink; we are talking about the water we use to make wine. This is not the same issue, in my opinion. The "healthy minerals" needed by the body would still be in the juice or concentrate, just as the other factors of the terroir from which the grapes (or fruit) originated. The only component removed was water (meaning H2O) and what I am doing is adding the water back into the mix.

Lastly, it is okay for us to disagree on this point. Again, this is what I do and why I do it. I have not had anyone offer what I consider a cogent argument against my thinking. I am willing to listen if someone is able to do so.

 

[Noontime]

My understanding is distilled water doesn't have everything the yeast want; so instead of applying the statement above about "distilling water also removes healthy minerals the body needs " to people , it's the yeast in this case. Also I do think it might affect pH as well. I'm just parroting information I was given, albeit from kit manufacturers and other "experts" from quite some time ago. As others have said, there may be enough of those minerals in the juice, and it might be so nuanced that it doesn't matter. Or it might affect your wines a little; probably the best thing to do is an A/B test using both and see which you like better (and how fermentation progresses).

 

[Rice_Guy]

My understanding is distilled water doesn't have everything the yeast want;

on a ppm basis yeast want magnesium, which is going to be low in drinking water too.

 

[Click1]

I would like to thank everyone for their thoughts. I will try distilled water, as the tap water is very high in lime. While lime may be good for Jack not positive I want that much lime in my wine.

 

[ChuckD]

Also, once it comes in contact with the air, distilled water absorbs carbon dioxide, which makes it acidic. When it is ingested, that goes into the body and causes excess acid.”

I know you didn’t write it but This is just salesmanship trying to scare people! All water will absorb CO2 and become acidic. However wine, soda , fruit juice, and almost everything we drink is much more acidic than CO2 saturated water. That’s why you can dissolve a nail in a can of Coke!

I use whatever purified (not distilled) or spring water is cheapest by the gallon at the store I would use our tap water but it’s very hard water and the softener adds a lot of salt.

 

[cmason1957]

Actually, I did a side-by-side test, so we have one data point. I used a WE White Wine Kit 6 gallon, I made 1/2 of the kit with Spring Water and 1/2 of the kit with Tap Water. I know, not exactly the same as suggested, but at leas some kind of data point. Both fermented same temps, fermented fine, aged same amount of time, etc. etc. Bottled and then took both bottles to the Wine Makers Club I was President of, at the time. Blind tasted both. There were differences, small but different. Some liked the spring water better, some the tap water better. Nobody could accurately say which was which. It would be interesting to try the same thing with distilled water.