Crowd Brew Competition: Home brew ingredient talk - Water.

Sorry its been a wee while since my blog announcing my crowd brew competition (remember all you need to do is vote on the facebook page or comment here to contribute to my crowd brew initiative at any stage and you'll be entered a draw to win a 6 pack of the finished beer). As i stated i will doing 4 blogs about the ingredients that go into beer and voting for which ingredients to use in a specially created crowd brew. The first vote will be for the style of beer, and the first ingredient talk is about Water.

There is a general rule of thumb that if your tap water is good to drink then it is good to brew with. So most people will happily use their tap water without much treatment. However, different types of water (such as hard or soft) with differing levels of additives that are added when drinking water is treated. For example, water supplies with high levels of chlorine can lead to an off tasting finished beer. A soft water is more coducive to a a lighter beer, where is hard water is more conducive to a darker beer. So in terms of tap water it can be helpful to contact your local authority to get a break down of whats in your water supply (they will be legally obliged to provide this information upon request). Though some additives are good, because they provide nutrients that help yeast in fermentation.

In cases where the tap water is not of a quality you want to use for your brewing there are a couple of options you can take.

There's the expensive option of using shop bought mineral or spring water. This certainly allows you to buy waters from other parts of the world where it may be softer or harder than your tap water and therefore better suited to the style of beer you want to brew. It also should be clear of the type of additives that can be harmful to a beer and ruin its taste.

The other option is to distil your water. Which essentially is a system of boiling the water to remove the impurities from it. It also softens hard water - though it is not useful for all grain brewing as minerals are needed to aid fermentation.

Campden Tablets can also be used in tap water to reduce chlorine levels and other harmful materials in
water.

CROWD BREW:

The first vote will be on the style of beer we will produce, this will inform the options for malts, hops, and yeasts.

The choices are:

Wheat Beer

Golden Ale

Pilsner

Lager

Dark Ale


Vote in the comments section or on the facebook page.