Way waaay back when I first started brewing - I quickly searched "can you use tap water to make kombucha" - and found an article saying if water is treated with X you need to boil it, and if it's treated with Y you need to filter it. But I couldn't easily find any info on how my local water supply is treated, and I was impatient to get started! So I just did both - and I've been doing that ever since! 😅
So today I decided to look into it properly.
I found out where our town water comes from, and that it's treated with chlorine. And aparently, over time, the chlorine can harm the scoby.
There are a bunch of ways to dechlorinate water and they all have their pros and cons.
Boiling works, but just boiling it in the kettle (like I've been doing) isn't enough. You have to keep it at a rolling boil for 5-20min - which seems like a lot of work!
And I don't really want to invest in any expensive under sink water filtration systems.
So that leaves filter jugs. Activated carbon filters don't completely dechlorinate water, but they do remove a lot of it - and I've decided thats good enough. I've been doing that for 2+ yrs now and and my scoby seems happy enough 🤷♀️
So, yay! No more boiling 8 litres of water the day before brewing 😁
