Basic beer ingredient most likely to make or break your beer?

Definitely the yeast. It's what converts the wort into beer.

Unfortunately, I learned this the hard way when I started brewing. My apartment isn't good at regulating temperature given that the AC-unit is connected to all the other rooms. When I tried to make a brown ale (my first beer), the temperature was far too warm and this led to many sour tastes in the beer (lots of byproducts containing ester functional groups). Now I just brew Belgian beers.

The second important ingredient, IMO, is the water. Water hardness does play a huge factor in taste, and one has to make sure the water source isn't heavily chlorinated.

 

Water followed by yeast. Don't forget that makes up 90-95% of your beer.

 

In my minimal experience as a homebrewer (about 25 batches), I'd have to say yeast. Overlooking the fact that it's yeast that's going to give you alcohol, yeast also can easily define the flavor profile of a beer. Hops are lovely things and the types used, amounts used and addition of them can make beer amazing. Same goes for malt. So many varieties and so many options for how much to use. Nevertheless, this all falls apart without yeast. Someone else more educated than I will speak to the importance of water......

Ask yourself this, what is an authentic Germany Hefeweizen without the distinct yeast?

 

As a beer drinker I would say the water has the biggest impact. Beer is mostly water and I can certainly tell when city water is used. Something about the chlorine that is used by the city to disinfect really affects the taste. I might be mistaken, but I believe even a tiny amount of chlorine inhibits the fermentation process.

 

the malt bill. while there are a few yeasts I generally don't care for (like HefeWeizen), to me the malt flavors are what defines the beer style, and usually the biggest factor in determining whether I like a beer or not.

 

When I get around to taking up homebrewing, I'll likely be buying gallon jugs to make sure the water is not a problem - would you recommend 'drinking water' or distilled?

 

I was going to say water, but after thinking about it I would say yeast. There are some many factors to worry about with yeast that can affect a beer.

 

Can you let me know from which breweries you've tasted city water ?

 

As a homebrewer it is water. Bad yeast practices may make bad beer, bad water will make bad beer.

As a commercial beer drinker, yeast.

 

You wont want distilled unless you want to use it as a starting point and modify it with various salts/chemicals. Ive made good homebrew with tap water. 9 times out of 10, if the water is pleasant to drink it will be good enough for homebrew purposes. If you are that concerned, get a filter system from home depot. If you dont want to drop that coin up front, buy gallon jugs of spring water. It will add $8-12 to each 5 gallon brew if you buy all your water in gallon jugs - up to you if you think that is worthwhile or not.

Brian

 

Thanks for the advice, but unfortunately, my wife and I are currently living on bottled water. We recently bought a house and we can't get our pur filter on the faucet - we plan to get a reverse osmosis system someday but right now there's no room for it in the budget.

 

Don't do distilled. I repeat, ABSOLUTELY DON'T DO DISTILLED. The yeast requires lots of salts/ions in order to conduct regular cellular processes. Distilled will give you a bad batch, unless you're planning to adds salts to it yourself.

 

On the plus side, it comes pre-measured and speeds up the brewday a bit. The main benefit to the bottled water will be lack of chlorine. This can be removed from tap water with a pre-boil but its just 1 more step to an already long day.

 

It's cheap anyway - what goes into a 5 gallon batch - 8 gallons? Pick them up at wal mart, spend very little... I imagine...

 

I was just in Two Deep Brewing in Indianapolis and they were experimenting with different blends of water (1/2 RO, 1/2 City | All RO | Hard Water & Soft Water etc.). One brew was straight city water and there was a noticeable difference in the taste.

 

Yup, you can assume 8-12 gallons per 5 gallon batch depending on gravity and if you are doing all grain or extract.

I normally pay about $1/gallon for spring water at the local grocery store - I bet a walmart/costco/sams club could probably beat that by a bit.

 

If he starts out brewing with extract he can use distilled because the malt extract will contain the necessary nutrients for yeast metabolism. I got my tap water tested and I just use that to adjust my water to give it the right feel per style by diluting it with RO water and using salts.

Pertaining to the topic. Yeast is number one. The most important factor of brewing after sanitation is fermentation temperature control.

 

You're correct. I stand corrected.

However, I'm not sure how much hardness the extract can really impart on the brew. Probably needs to add salt if he uses distilled water.

 

The extract will make the water profile identical to that of the wort that the extract was processed from. So assuming muntons or whoever makes good beer wort, no additions would be needed. Now as far add water hardness pertaining to styles and certain brewing regions, that's pretty much impossible(unless the maltster gave the info); which is why I brew all grain. No guesswork there