cheap RO water

[rsc3da]

Hello everyone. Name's Ryan. I am a new member and I have been going to the last 3 or so monthly meetings and just joined the club last month. I've been brewing for many years but been a bit siloed until recently. I hope to make some contributions to the club and forums.

Anyway, as you know beer is mostly water and therefore an important ingredient. So there is a hot dog place called Woofies that is located on the north side of the intersection of Page Ave. and Woodson Road in St. Louis, it is just off of I-170. The place has pretty decent hot-dogs and brats, but this is not about the food. They have opened up a purified water 'stand' right next to the place. My cousin noticed this while driving by one day since he owns a property in Overland, he knows I brew and called me up to tell me about it. So I went over there and the price of the water is $1 for 5 gallons. It is similar to an ATM machine in construction I guess, just put in your dollar, then put your container (sanitized carboy, kettle) on it and it will fill it up. I also happened to talk to someone (think his name was Tom) that happened to be out there working on it one day, and he said the water they sell is better than the distilled water that Schnucks sells and is 1/5 the cost, also he said that the $1 price is introductory as he is trying to build up a customer base, the price will be going to $1.50 in June. He also offered to go in with me at half the cost if we get the water analyzed at Ward Labs since he hasn't had it analyzed, I haven't followed up with him on this though. He did say that the machine has just about every type of filter imaginable. Ion-exchange, RO, UV light, carbon, etc.

So I brewed a few beers with the water and they turned out great, it's good water for light beers like pilsener or you can mix it with your house water to get the ion concentrations down, or use it for building water ... use your imagination.

The guy at Woofies did say that I had to bring him some beer that I made with it, I made an ESB, so I guess I owe him some, but it's good and I don't want to part with any.

[turkeyjerky214]

First off, welcome to the club and the forum. Second, this sounds pretty cool if you like to build your water. I wouldn't use it for every beer, but like you said, it would be good for some styles.

Water treatment is one aspect of brewing that I really haven't looked into at all. Hoping to start learning about that at some point this year.

[jay8s]

I live just up brown from Woofies, and have been using it for most of my brews. There have been some days that it has not been working, but when it does work it makes some tasty beer.