The Best Water for Brewing Beer – Q&A

When people first start brewing beer, they want everything to be absolutely perfect and it’s totally understandable. I mean, if you’re not careful with things like proper sanitation and water temperature, a lot of things can go wrong and spoil your hard work. But one question that comes up often is about the most basic ingredient: water.

Which kind of water is best? Do I need to use filtered or bottled water? Should I boil the water before brewing with it?

These are questions we get all the time so I thought it would be good to clear the air and get a few things about water and brewing beer straight.

Tap Water For Brewing Beer

The good news is this: If you are new to brewing beer and already bogged down with 15 other details, rest assured, you can still brew great beer with water from the tap. We have been using tap water for years and the beer we brew can satisfy the our pickiest beer loving friends. If you’re concerned about it, you can boil it first but we don’t find this step to be necessary. At the end of the day, if it’s ok for drinking it’s ok for brewing. But homebrewers tend to be tinkerers and we like to make sure that we have accounted for and fine-tuned every detail, and this includes the water. So I just described the way you like to brew, read on because you can certainly go deeper than “just brew with tap water.”

Bottled Water for Brewing Beer

While it might seem logical that using bottled spring water would make sense for brewing, there are care few things to consider. We want to emphasize that if you do brew with bottled water, make sure you buy spring, not distilled, which has all of the minerals removed from it.

Just like tap, spring water should be good to go right out of the bottle. That is unless you are making a type of beer that demands a specific water chemical profile like a British Ale. If you are brewing extract you won’t need to do much of anything, maybe add some gypsum of CaCl2 for taste but that’s it. If you are brewing all-grain you should test the water so you have a sense of it’s profile.

Fair warning, some people don’t like brewing with bottled water at all. They feel that it’s hard to know what’s in them so they stay away entirely. Out of convenience we don’t share this opinion but it’s out there. This leads us to the next option: reverse osmosis (RO) water.

Reverse Osmosis Water for Brewing Beer

Some brewers prefer reverse osmosis water because it’s considered a clean slate and is relatively inexpensive. Lately, what we have been doing is thinning out our tap water with reverse osmosis water. Probably about a 50:50 ratio. When blending water like this, you’ll need to experiment and build up your water profile over time to discover what works best for your local area. Having your tap water tested can be helpful for this. Ward labs does a tap water test for about $30 and it’s very accurate. Just remember that your tap water profile will change over as the weather changes and can vary depending on how your city treats it to make it safe for drinking.

The Bottom Line

As you can see, you have a lot of options and it really depends how detailed you want to be about it. If money and time are at a premium, don’t sweat it and just use tap water. You can still make awesome beer. The fact of the matter is that unless you are trying to replicate a a certain water profile for a specific beer, or have discovered some problem with your domestic supply (and brewing all-grain) then you just don’t need to worry about it.

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How Many BTU Do I Need to Brew Beer?

A question that comes up a lot when home brewers are looking to purchase a propane burner for boiling wort is how many BTU do I need to get the job done? If you’ve spent any amount of time looking at burners, you’ll quickly see that the BTU output can range from 50,000 all the way up to 200,000+, so it can be confusing when trying to determine what you really need.

For the purposes of this blog post, let’s assume you are trying to boil a 10-gallon stockpot or wort. We know that that average household stove ranges anywhere from 7,000-9,500 BTU, and this simply isn’t hot enough to boil 10-gallons in any reasonable period of time.

So lets take a look at what we will need. With a little help from Wolfram Alpha, we can figure out what we will need at a minimum.

First we need to see how much energy is needed to boil 5 gallons of water:

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Through this calculation, we see that it will require 48200 kJ (kilojoules).

Since we are looking for BTU, we need to convert kJ to BTU which we can also do with Wolfram Alpha:

http://ift.tt/2ir3k63

After running the conversion, we see that the result is approximately 45,000 BTU.

While these exact calculations are nice, they don’t necessarily translate to real-world scenarios. Here are some more rough approximations that we have found to hold true.

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5 gallons of wort will require at least 55,000 BTU 

10 gallons of wort will require 100,000 BTU

15+ gallons of wort will require 200,000 BTU

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Here is the basic gist of it: Any commercially available propane burner will be able to handle a 5-gallon pot or wort. As you go bigger, if you will want it to boil in roughly the same time, you will need to go hotter. The BTUs of burners, roughly speaking, make the jumps outlined in bold above so when you go up 5 gallons, make the jump to the next BTU tier.

 

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Make a Kegerator From Scratch – A Step-by-Step Guide

When it comes to drinking beer, there is no better way than straight out of the tap. But for most people, this is a pleasure that is reserved for when you are out at a bar or restaurant. However, over the last 10 years of so there has been a huge resurgence in craft beers, and with it more and more people brewing beer at home and also making space for a kegerator so they can enjoy ice cold draft beer at any time.

If you’re not a do-it-yourselfer, you can always check out our guide to find the best kegerator on the market and be done with it, but if you have that build your own kind of spirit, read on. With less than $400 in materials, you can convert your own modified compact refrigerator or chest freezer to accommodate a keg of any size and serve draft beer at home with a kegerator from scratch.

Choosing the Right Refrigerator to Convert

There is no one best model on mini fridge for converting to a kegerator and there are plenty on the market that will work perfectly. You can check out Amazon, Best Buy or even Craigslist, all of which regularly have great deals on small refrigerators.

In terms of size, you want a model that is between 4 ½ to 5 feet. A refrigerator of this size is going to be able to hold one or two kegs, depending on whether or not you install a dual tap. When in doubt, research the keg size ahead of time and make sure whatever model you are buying is going to be large enough. This hand chart goes over most major keg dimensions for you to reference. You’ll also want a fridge that either does not have a freezer compartment built into it, or the compartment is relatively easy to take out. Remember, if the cooling lines happen to run through the freezer, you wont be able to get rid of it and would be useless for converting.

Picking the Right Conversion Kit for Your Kegerators

Luckily for us, there is no shortage of vendors for these kits on the Internet. Again, Amazon is a great please to look and learn about the different styles of kits, but expect to spend anywhere between $150-$300 depending on whether you go with a single or double tap system.

The kit should include a commercial regulator, a 5-pound CO2 tank, a drip tray, a ball lock keg coupler for tapping different kinds of kegs, beer faucets with levers, a beer wrench, as well as gas and beer lines. When making a kegerator from scratch, most kits found online will be suitable.

Take Apart the Fridge

Simply unscrew the hinges that attach the door to the fridge and remove all of the shelving. You will need to make as much space as you can for the keg and CO2 tank.

Take off the Top of the Fridge

To remove the top of the fridge either unscrew it or peel it off. Depending on the model, it may be either glued on or screwed on. If it’s glued, use a spatula to work your way around the seam of the joint to work the lid off. This can take a little time but we found that once you get it partially off, the rest follows pretty easily.

Locate the Cooling Line on the Fridge

You can usually find the cooling lined on the side of the fridge but in some cases they will be run across the top or the bottom. This can take a bit of poking around and make sure not to sever them because as soon as they are cut the refrigerator is no longer able to cool itself and is therefore useless.

Drilling Through the Bottom

Using a drill, drill a hole in the bottom of the fridge between the cooling lines making sure not to damage them in the process. Make sure the hole is large enough to accommodate two liquid lines and a cooling line that will come later in the process.

Reinforce the Refrigerator Lid

The tap component of the conversion kit is not light, so it’s important to reinforce the lid with wood so it doesn’t collapse in when supporting its weight. There are likely to be ridges on the inside of the lid that you will have to sad down either by hand of with a sander so that the wood can lay right up against the lid and actually provide support. Choose the spot where you want to tap to be and drill a hole there. With most fridges there is going to be a layer of insulation running up to the top of the lid. So once you have your wood square measured out, you need to cut a ditch in the insulation to accommodate it so it can sit flush against the lid and provide support.

 

 

Install the Wood and Prepare to Drill

After you install the wood in the insulation mark a pilot hole where the main hole will be drilled. Using a holesaw, make a 3-inch hole where the pilot hole is. It’s important the hole is exactly in the center of the wood. It’s a good idea to do this drilling while the lid is off of the fridge so you don’t do any damage to the parts.

The PVC

Find a piece of 2.5 inch PVC piping which is going to run from the bottom of the fridge where the hole is up to the top hole where the tower and tap are. Seal the pipe with moisture resistant tape.

Installing the Tap and Rails

Here is where the kegerator starts to take its form. The tower is going to screw right into the top of the fridge with screws. Make sure to drill all the way through to the wood and fasten the screws from the bottom.

Move the Light and Thermostat

If you are tight on space, consider moving around both the light and the thermostat. If you are just going for a single keg, this step may be unnecessary.

Building A Fan Box

It’s important to keep the air within the fridge moving or else your temperatures will be off and the beer will foam up and not pour properly. You can either buy a fan, or simply repurpose one from an old computer. Just install the fan into a piece of Tupperware that will fit it, cut holes for the tube that direct the air and the power cord, hide it behind the keg and you’re done.

Put the Door Back On

Once you have all of the pieces in place and everything fitted properly, all you need to do is screw the door back on. Don’t forget to fill up the CO2 keg at a local store and you’re draft beer will be ready to go.

 

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There you have it! When we said making a kegerator from scratch was easy we weren’t lying. If you have any questions just let us know.

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