TSPX with tap water: Big Mistake??

[oberst]

Well shoot, in a rush to put up a UMAI batch of ginger salami last night I mistakenly mixed my TSPX culture with tap water instead of distilled. Anybody have any insight on how big a mistake that may have been? The chubs are fermenting in the oven now about 14 hours and smell pretty good, and like they usually do, but that's just a best guess in comparing to previous batches.

I'm wondering to what extent the tap water may have impacted the effectiveness of the culture. Thanks for any insight!

 

[SonnyE]

Welcome to the Human Race...

Well, I'd bet you notice the difference.
But where does your tap water come from?
If City/Municipal sourced, it can have a ton of undesirable things in it.
Chlorine being one. Algae's, or other water born things.
These may, or may not have a great effect on your results.

We use a Reverse Osmosis water filtration system for our potable water, ice, and cooking.
Because there is a lot of weird things in our local city tap water.

 

[atomicsmoke]

The tap water likely didnt stun your culture, considering that you can smell (good) fermentation process.

 

[cdn offroader]

I always use tap water. Haven't had any problems yet.

 

[indaswamp]

The good thing is that chlorine vaporizes fast once out of the pipe...the water filling the glass making bubbles is enough to gas out most of the chlorine.

 

[SmokyMose]

I wouldn't worry about it. All I've ever used is tap water. City.

 

[oberst]

Responses much appreciated! Here's some additional info: I sent a question toTthe Sausage Maker and Miroslaw Stanuszek, VP, quickly responded after talking to Chr. Hansen, the TSPX maker. They said 12-15 ppm chlorine kills 50% of the culture and over 15 kills 100%. 8-12 kills 25%. Looking at the city water statistics, they say they never exceed 4 ppm. So, it looks like I'm fine with the culture, and now in day 3 of fermentation the chubs look and smell like they always have with distilled water. Also, like indaswamp noted above, a friend who runs a water treatment plant said the chlorine dissipates very quickly after leaving the tap, and I probably had the culture mixed with tap water in a bowl for at least 10 minutes before mixing in the sausage. I can see why folks like offroader have used tap regularly without any issues since city water systems appear to be at 4 ppm and below. So I'm confident that this batch of sausage is in just fine shape.