Using Well Water

[beedude]

Looking for some insight before I begin brewing. I live in Central Florida and we have a well. The well water is hard and has a lot of iron. The water is somewhat alkaline (aquifer is limestone). We have a water softener installed. I have been told that the unprocessed well water will darken the beer and that softened water should not be used. May need to buy water which I prefer not to do. Any thoughts or experience with this issue?

Thanks,

Ed

[BDawg]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
You don't want to brew with high iron in your water. There is no treatment to remove Iron other than installing a reverse osmosis (RO) system. Iron makes your beer taste bad -- either metallic or bloody.
It also is prone to stain all of your sinks, toilets, washing machines, etc, over time.

You are probably best off buying your brewing water if RO is out of the question. A quick google search shows a bunch of RO units in the roughly $200 range. You will find the taste much better when cooking, too.

[edit - softeners often add other minerals to get the excess ones to drop, often with poor results for brewing purposes.]
HTH-