Can I use a regular 5 gallon Culligan water bottle to gauge my 5 gallons of water for the boil? I have been using them to make ro/di water for my reef tank for about 3 years now. I'm going to be breaking down the tank and thought I could use these bottles to make more water and use it for the boil. Also, can I just sanitize it by using star san and filling it then dumping it onto another bucket to use the same sanitized water for all my equipment on the boil day? Is ro/di water ok to brew with, or would it be to pure?
homebrew question-sanitary
- Thread starter BigFoot
- Start date
Do you do extract batches, partial mash, or all grain? That has a strong influence as to whether the water can be too pure. If using extract then no it's not too pure, if all grain yes it can be too pure. If doing partial mash it technically is too pure but you're not getting all your sugars from that. If you maybe add a touch of extract to your steeping water the minerals should be present enough to get a decent extraction out of the partial mash grains. That is if having any minerals present even matters because it's not a true full mash. Maybe someone on the board that does partial mash could chime as well if you brew partial mashes.
There is no reason to sanitize anything before the boil you should only need to sanitize things the wort touches post boil. Clean is good but using star san is a waste of money and time on the "hot side". I use 1gal jugs as my volume measurements because I fill my water at a grocery store RO system in the 1 gal jugs. Then to do mashing and such I use brewing salts because I do all grain since the water is too pure. I typically only use Calcium Chloride and on hoppy beers I add some gypsum.
There is no reason to sanitize anything before the boil you should only need to sanitize things the wort touches post boil. Clean is good but using star san is a waste of money and time on the "hot side". I use 1gal jugs as my volume measurements because I fill my water at a grocery store RO system in the 1 gal jugs. Then to do mashing and such I use brewing salts because I do all grain since the water is too pure. I typically only use Calcium Chloride and on hoppy beers I add some gypsum.