March 17, 2017 - 4:48pm
Brand of Bottled Water Used for Success with your Sourdough Breads...
By way of King Arthur Flour, I understand 6.0 pH spring water is the best for baking. I have hard well water, with a pH between 4.0 and 5.0, so I use bottled water. What brand of water are you using and how do you feel about the success with that brand? Also, by way of the folks on this site, I hear a bottled water high in minerals is good when baking with durum wheat. Any pro insights like that are much appreciated.
Stop and Shop private label - Acadia Spring Water, pH 6.0 - 7.0 - thumbs up
Poland Spring spring water, pH 5.0 - mixed results
Dasani, reverse osmosis, pH 4.0 - thumbs down
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I use chlorinated tap water for all baking, and have never had a problem, as far as I can tell. The one resource I found about pH is from a 2005 study of the Biscayne Aquifer, from which we receive our water.
"The pH of samples collected for this study ranged from 6.2 to 7.7, with a median of 6.7 for monitoring wells and 6.9 for public-supply wells"..."These higher pH values in ground water are due to the buffering effect of the limestone as rainwater percolates down through the upper sediments."
I also use water straight from the tap with no issues at all. I've experimented with boiled and unboiled water and there is no difference. The current compounds they use for chlorination don't boil off.
For feeding sourdough culture I use distilled water, but otherwise tap water has always worked fine.
If you want to experiment with minerals, why not add them directly?
Lots of scope here. See e.g. Kevin Liu here: http://www.alcademics.com/2013/02/transform-tap-water-into-magical-alpine-fairy-water-book-excerpt.html His ingredients are easy enough to get.
Another way to experiment with minerals is by using sea salt.
I take tap water from the refrigerator water dispenser and run it into a large wine bottle, then let it sit on the counter until I need it. That way it's room temperature, filtered and the chlorine has a chance to escape.
I used to leave my chlorinated tap water on the counter for at least 24hr to leave chlorine dissipate and had not problem. Then i got a water filter for my entire house. Water became soft! I learned you can't make bread with soft water the hard way! Now i use San Benedetto natural mineral water from Italy and it works great!
I'm in Toronto.. the city clocks our PH level at 7.7 on average.. no issues.... have thought I should leave the water out overnight as well.. but the bread doesn't seem to mind..