Well water

[Blkandrust]

I brew with well water that is filtered thru a Pur water filter that is mounted on my kitchen faucet.I plan on brewing first thing in the morning,and my filter is now clogged,which means I need to replace it.Lets say I ran my water straight from the tap and boiled it,then let it cool to strike temp,would this get rid of the iron?Could i do this for my sparge water as well?I have heard of people doing this to their water but i'm not sure if it treats well water or not.Or should I just run into town and buy a new filter?I'm curious as to whether or not this would work.As often as i brew,I use a lot of filters and this would save me some cash.

[Tweek]

have you tried brewing with just straight well water? I used to do this years ago and the results were fantastic. Of course it varies greatly from well to well, but could be worht a try.

[Derekt2]

And if you can't, consider getting yourself a filter housing and a couple of spun p-p filters which will handle thousands of gallons of water and cheap too.

[Blkandrust]

In regards to the replies,I have never tried using straight well water.But I might give it a shot.I already am using a whole house string wound filter,it seems to work alright on its own,but when coupled with the Pur unit it is significantly better.

[Mad Bomber F/X]

Could you add another filter to the whole house set-up? A carbon filter in addition to the spun filter would do pretty much the same thing as the pur.

[SoxyinMO]

Hey there. I know Va is different than Mo, but we always use straight from the well...We are tapped to an aquifer in the limestone here and our water is clear, clean and good...

[Dextolen]

I'm on a community well, I don't filter it. After reviewing our water profile, if I am making a british style ale I use our water, anything else I use spring water from the store.

[Otis_The_Drunk]

Well water is usually hard. In certain styles that is ok..... (IPAs, Stouts ECT.)
But when you brew certain styles such as Pils, some Belgium Ales ECT. This may not be a good thing....
For example, I went through a lot of frustration trying to get a triple that was exceptional.... I let my daughter brew the last one and the only thing different that she did was to use bottled spring water from the store. That did the trick, this beer came out just as I'd hoped for, crisp, clean and flavorful.

I'm kind of stuck on Belgium Ales at this time, every other batch is a Belgium ale :D

BTW the batch my daughter brewed was her first, she followed directions to the letter and she did an exceptional job.
She's going to make a good little brewer.

[Vienna Lager]

If you can drink the well water to no ill effect then you should be fine. Sounds like the Pur filter takes more microns of carbon,sulfer,iron etc out of the water and that taste is what you prefer. From a brewing stand point, the mashing process will draw out some of the residual minerals in your well water as will the boil process. The bottom of your boil pot is where the excess iron and such will come to rest along with hot and cold break solids. When transferring to your primary fermenter don't dump all the bottom crud in the boil pot into the fermenter.

[BrewDog]

Very cool, Otis!

[chazwicke]

I have always heard that if the water tastes good, it will be fine used in brewing. I guess this is not always true.