I have been brewing since the 90's. I was talking to my buddy about this "homebrew" flavor I was having in my beer and he didn't know what the hell I was talking about. I had his beer and thought, "Hey man. Where's that flavor?"
SOOOO, I went to my buddies house to help him brew his first batch and, after doing research, went with purified drinking water with no additions other than some yeastex in the boil. The beer finished and was super clean without that "homebrew" flavor and was ridiculously delicious. I went home and tasted my beer and tasted my tap water (why have I never done this before) and realized my water is crappy and I think I was tasting chlorophenols mixed with uranium, radon, feces, and all kinds of other los angeles water grossness.
I used my tap water in Los Angeles that was filtered through charcoal and treated with campden tablets for years. Today, I will be going back to bottled water like I did when I brewed extract. I am going to brew an American stout and will be using the AJ Delange water primer strategy of adding 1 tsp of cacl2 and gypsym per 5 gallons. or I might just use RO water with yeastex. I'm not interested in learning about the finer details of brewing water. After hearing Drew Beechum talk about his limited water chemistry knowledge and all he knows is CaCl2 and gypsum. I can do that and enjoy brewing.
What do ya'll think?