quote:
Echoes97, you don't want to use too much RO water. Not enough minerals. For all intents and purposes RO = distilled in terms of water chemistry.
While your general point is valid, this isn't completely true. If you're brewing very light beers, 100% RO water can work quite well. Just look at a water report for Pilsen and you'll see it comes extremely close to RO water.
/nitpick
As far as brewing water in general, I know it can be somewhat intimidating delving into the chemistry behind it, but practically speaking it's actually not that bad and can make a HUGE difference in your beer quality and consistency.
My quick/dirty recommendations:
1) Get a water report. Ward Labs has a Homebrewer's water panel (I think), and it's like $26. Best money you'll ever spend.
2) Google and download the Bru'N Water spreadsheet. It's free, reasonably user friendly, and extremely powerful.
All you do is enter your water profile, enter your grain bill, and mess with acid/mineral additions until you get the water where you want. We test all our mashes w/ a pH meter, and the estimated number it spits out has been essentially dead-on every single time. On top of that, it even has a large database of target water profiles from around the world and for specific beer styles. Can you tell I'm a big fan?