How much do you trust grocery store distilled water?

General Homebrew Discussion
1

I have some double strength canned starter wort that I want to dilute by 50%.  My plan is to use distilled, and I want to be lazy and use it as is.  No more boiling of anything.

It was purified using steam distillation and should be free of both minerals and contaminants.  But what about the bottling?  In theory it’s fine.  In practice I’m sure it’s even more fine, as people have topped off with tap water and not had infections.  The large quantity of yeast in a starter will quickly outgrow contaminants, anyway.

I think I just need some reassurance  :smiley:

2

I trust it in terms of being mineral free. It’s probably ok for what you’re doing but I don’t know that I wouldn’t want to boil first to be sure. Sort of defeats your purpose though.

3

I use it a lot because we can’t buy ro water. It’s a lot cheaper than mineral water, and if you avoid the version flavored with violet it’s quite ok :wink:

4

I think you are fine. As you said, in theory it is sanitary at packing.

As to the idea of doing a concentrate, I think it’s a good idea. NB is selling their fast pitch wort and I know a handful of people that like using them.

5

I have added it directly to the fermenter before when drastically overshooting a target gravity. No issues or contamination there and that was a full 5 gallon batch.

6

I’m not sure that microorganisms can survive very well in distilled water in the first place, so I’d think it’s fine.

7

I’ve used store bought bottled water to rehydrate dried yeast many times and have never had an issue with contamination.

8

You know, I should have hit Google before replying. A science teacher many moons ago gave me some bad facts about distilled water. I was under the impression it was fairly hostile to life, as it theoretically pulls essential minerals out of cells, but it turns out that’s not all that true.

Sorry to spread misinformation!

9

I do exactly what you want to do all the time, and have had no problems.  I use triple strength canned wort though!

10

I’ll admit to having overshot evaporation in the boil and topped up with either RO or distilled water from the store without boiling it. I do sanitize the opening of the jug before topping up. No problems so far.

11

I’ve done it plenty of times and have never had an issue. I used to use store-bought RO water all the time for things like meads and extract brews, and never boiled it once.

12

It will be absolutely fine. If you want to feel extra safe use the stuff in the baby isle, it is supposed to be sterile.

13

Thanks all.  Exactly what I had figured but I wanted to make sure there were no bad experiences.

14

I top up with RO straight out of the tap.

That being said I cleaned a huge booger of clear mucus-like growth out of my RO faucet with a brush a couple days ago. You would think essentially pure RO wouldn’t harbor organisms.

Wrong…

15

Well, that’s gross.  But I didn’t see any boogers in the jug of distilled I bought.

Starter is going and smells great, even with unboiled jug water AND constant stirring  :)  Or maybe I just love the smell of shear stress in the morning.