Basics Tap Water Bottled Water
Well Water Chlorine

One of the main ingredients in mead is water. It is the largest ingredient by volume. While water can be found in bottles or from the tap, all water is not created equal.

By far the most convenient source of water is your own tap. In most cases this should be good enough to use in your mead. However, sometimes tap water can be hard and/or have too many chemicals (e.g. Chlorine) added to it which can give it an "off" taste or even a smell. If this is the case you should either boil the water (15 - 30 minutes) before using it in your mead (to prevent contamination) or use bottled (distilled) water. Another alternative is to filter your tap water. Filtering will remove ions from the water that are good for yeast

See also: Chlorine

For some, bottled water may be the way to go. It is fairly cheap and can be found almost anywhere. Spring or mineral water will contain some minerals that may be used by the yeast. Where as distilled water will not contain any. If you use distilled water you will probably need to add some minerals for your yeast. Using distilled water will allow you to have no water variation between your batches, whereas the mineral content in the spring/mineral water may change between different brands. Of course if you always use the same brand you should have consistent results.

Note: I am not sure how much the mineral content of the water will affect the final outcome of the mead.

Well water should be fine to use for your mead. Simply boil the water for 15-30 minutes and let it cool (this can be done the day before if it is stored properly. If your well water has a funny smell or taste you should not use it for your mead, even if you boil it. The off smell/taste would more than likely carry over to your mead.

See also: Chlorine

If you use well or tap water you may have gaseous Chlorine in the water. Gaseous Chlorine is easy to remove by boiling the water. If you have tap water your water company may use chloroamine instead. This is can only be removed by using activated charcoal. You may test for Chlorine in your water with test strips. If after boiling your water it still tests positive for Chlorine then your water contains chloroamine and you must use the activated charcoal. Or you may just want to use bottled water.