Using filtered water, like that you can get from a Mavea water filter, improves and taste and experience of your jams, pickles, and jellies.
As many of you have come to know, water is often a primary player in canning. Most pickling recipes call to dilute vinegar by half. We can whole fruit by making a syrup of sugar and water. When I want to include an intense flavor (like ginger) in a preserve, I blend it with some water before squeezing it through some cheesecloth to get a potent little brew.
In all of these recipes, I make a point of using filtered water. Preparing fruits and vegetables for canning is often a process of cooking down and concentrating your ingredients. I really don’t want to concentrate any extra crud or crap in my finished product. I live in an older apartment building, so who knows what kinds of funky particulate matter is in the H2O that comes out of my tap? It’s just one of those steps I like to take to ensure that the quality of my product is as good as I can make it when I go to open those jars six or eight months later.
Edited to add: There’s been a little confusion in the comments. I don’t use filtered water in my processing pot. I only use it IN the canning recipes. Regular tap water is fine for the outside of the jars.
For most of my adult life, I’ve been a Brita water filter user. Recently, I had an opportunity to try the new Elemaris filter and I really like it. It’s made by Mavea (which is part of Brita), is entirely BPA-free and the filters are recyclable. It has a meter on top that tells you when the filter is due for a refill and the lid is designed so that you can simply position it under the tap and fill, no need to remove a piece or flip open a flap. They’ve even created a nifty blog called Inspired Water to help spread the word about this product.
Disclosure: Mavea gave me that black Mavea water filter you see above. I’ve also filmed a series of canning videos with them that will be appearing in the next few weeks. No money has changed hands and I wouldn’t say nice things about their pitcher if I’d didn’t genuinely like it.
In the winter – room temp with a squirt of lemon. In the summer – cool in a stainless steel water bottle.
It’s got to be homemade lemonade, extra tart!
Cold, plain water, frequently from a water bottle that lives on my desk. Doesn’t need anything else!
Would LOVE to get this
I like my water cold. COLD!!! With lots of ice cubes – especially ones made of fruit juice. Yum! 🙂
I love to drink water very cold in a glass glass with a squirt of lime juice.
I add ginger and honey to hot water and refill the mug with more hot water throughout the day.
I drink water with meals and add only one or two ice cubes.
Hot water with lemon and honey gets me through the winter.
I drink water in the form of suntea which I make every day using loose tea leaves.
I love water with a twist of lemon, hot, cold, room temp, just water.
I like to use filtered water to make almond milk. Delicious.
I drink it super cold and from a glass, right out of the refrigerator!
Just plain ol’ water. Ice on a hot day, without in the winter.
Best way for water? Oh coffee coffee coffee
Definitely with a squeeze of lemon!
I like it plain, sometimes with ice, sometimes not.
I use my filtered water in making soda with my sodastream!
I love really cold water (no ice) with lemon slices. I would love to win this! Our water could use a filter.
Love my water cold with a slice of lemon, would love a new pitcher!
Dale
I like my water carbonated with a hint of sweet syrup (lately, I’ve been adding the syrup from the cranberry sauce I canned in the fall).
With lots of crushed ice and lemon slices.
I have a well-used Brita pitcher from the 1990s that I drink from all day and I have a glass by my bed at night. Hydration is awesome!
I like plain old water, but very, very cold.
I have a terrible habit of drinking my water straight out of my (incredibly old) tap. But there’s something incredibly refreshing about a quick, cold drink of water!
My favorite way to drink water is ice cold in big gulps…so refreshing!
My favorite way to drink water is straight from the tap in my stainless steel water bottle! No need to worry about water quality here in Oregon!
Wow! Lotta water drinkers out here. 🙂
Always room temp, often with lemon. We have a water filter built in under our sink so that it comes out of a tap up top. A huge convenience. But I have a little office behind our house and I could really use a pitcher like this up there. Thanks!
Very cold with a squeeze of lemon!
I love to drink hot water. At first it was a substitute for tea (after I’d already had enough caffeine for the day but was still craving something warm and comforting), but it’s actually quite delicious and I sometimes prefer hot water to tea. My teeth are sometimes sensitive to cold water, so it’s always at least room temperature. I’m lucky to live in Portland where our tap water is pretty great, but a water filter would help with the problem of older pipes in our building!
just plain ice water .
My favorite way to drink water is out of my refillable plastic bottle (32oz.), pretty much all day long.
We keep a brita pitcher in the fridge, and I fill my stainless steel waterbottle from it.
When I wake up in the morning I heat up some filtered water and pour it over 2oz of organic apple juice then I add the juice of one lemon. It feels clean and fresh!
I should really drink more water, when I do drink water its 2/3 OJ+ 1/3 water. Maybe this pitcher would clean my tapwater enough to I could actually drink it. (I’m making the preserved lemons right now btw!!)
I’m using a Brita pitcher now, and this one sounds so much easier to use. I drink water straight up, room temperature!
From a glass with a stem. It can be tap water but I like it from a glass with a stem and no ice. No ice and a glass with a stem. That’s it.
My favorite way to drink water is straight from a San Pallegrino bottle.
I like water cold, in a nice big glass. It’s actually just about the only thing I ever drink.
My favorite way to drink water is out of a metal bottle while swimming at the gym!
We’ve got an old Brita that’s covered in hard water stains (our water comes from wells, pumped up through granite, so there are lots of minerals :). A new pitcher would be fantastic.
I have been filtering my water since the first water filters hit the market, I don’t fill up the landfill with all the plastic water bottles that are available and carry my own reusable container with me. Also I am lucky enough to be near a natural spring that has been tapped out in the country. Using the natural spring water has made an incredible difference in my pickling, crispy and keep there natural color.
straight up filtered. try to avoid bottled water at all costs.
I drink lots of Iced Tea made with Brita water. Would love to upgrade! Thanks for the opportunity. Love your blog!
I like my water just chilled in the fridge. Nothing in it unless I’m some place that does that yummy crunchy ice bits. Then it’s all about the ice!
Cold water (no ice) from the fridge with a wedge of lemon sqeezed in it. Preferably comsumed while standing out in the warm sunshine looking at my gardens 🙂
Love to drink water first thing in the morning. On hot days an ice cube or two is nice. And during our frigid winters, warm water or maybe tea is what I crave.
Straight, thank you. (Though brewed into tea or coffee is good, too, and if it wants to sparkle, that’s okay with me!)
Straight up! If it’s hot, I’ll add ice. 🙂
My favorite way to drink water is unsweet iced tea! Although, I love plain water!
Very nice pitchers! I like warm water with lemon in the a.m. or room temp with a slice of lemon or lime. I drink a lot of green or chair tea too.
oops, meant chai tea not chair tea
Definitely a filtered water fan! If I know its filtered, I don’t have any trouble drinking a tall glass of cool-ish water all by itself. Otherwise, extra cold with lemon, please!
“plain” water for me, or with sliced cucumber (refreshing, but not tart, like lemons).
Thanks for the opportunity!
love filtered water, everyone should have one of these! Thanks for the info.
I prefer my water filtered and room temperature just about any non-summer day. In summer, it must be iced w/lemon! I also enjoy making sun tea with it.
I do love my Britas as well. My favorite water bottles used to be the liter and a half Aquafine bottles – nasty water, but grewat bottles with extra wide mouths that made refilling easier. But they’ve standardized the lid size, and I’m down to my last two remaining bottles. I’ll have to find a new favorite water bottle very soon.
As for tea, I am on a Keemun kick, and I’m searching for a good place to buy it loose.
I like just plain water from my re-usable bottle. I try to make it a game to see how many bottles full I drink a day to keep reminding myself to stay hydrated.
I mostly drink straight water all day to help me recover from my workouts, but I really like filtered water for improving the taste of my favorite indulgence- coffee!
I keep a bottle of water in the refrigerator so that I can have some whenever I want. That’s my favorite way–cold, plain, and with no ice. Thanks so much for the chance to win!
plain water, tea, seltzer, i have a 5 month ild nursling so i’m drinking a lot these days! We use a brita but lately i’ve been contemplating getting an the sink model, but this new brita seems really great. love that’s bpa free and the recyclable filters!
What a cool water filter. I use Brita. Very nice.
Vanilla Caramel tea with honey and milk. Yum!
Out of my hands under the tap.
Water. In a glass. No ice, no additives. OK – in a cup will do… 😉
I like my water plain, cold & with no ice.
I love green tea– Gen Maicha, Hojicha, and Gunpowder are my favorites.
It wouldn’t be breakfast if I didn’t have a cup of black tea, straight with no sugar or milk.
I like my tap water best in winter because it starts out the right temperature for me 😀
I like my water cold and crisp. The water here in Vancouver is pretty tasty straight out of the tap, but I’ve lived in places where the water definitely could have benefited from a good filtering!
Warm. I know I’m weird, but I like it room temp or better unless its a hot day.
I have a big ‘ol water jug that I cart around with me everywhere.
I love ice water with a slice of lemon or lime, and recently discovered the glory that is ice water with a *cucumber* slice!
I love my water with lemon or tea or just plain I’m not picky at all 🙂 I drink it in a cup 🙂
I drink my filtered water plain, ice cold with crushed ice 🙂 I fill up my bottle (great intak bottles) a couple times a day!
In a cup of coffee, in chai, straight up or with some raspberries. I’m hooked.
tap water in a metal bottle at home; filtered water by the 32oz glass jar at work.
i love water!
Woohoo – commenter #423! I really love tap water, but now I’m tempted to go for filtered in my canning.
MMM I drink water every morning with freshly squeezed lemon juice, then maybe coffee, or tea- herbal and black- AND I have an older Brita pitcher I’d love to replace!
I drink tap water in my water bottle throughout the day. In the summer, I frequently go for ice water. But I also love to drink hot black tea every morning with milk and sugar, and I drink lots of iced tea in the summer.
We have a water filter inside our side by side fridge with water dispenser on the door. I keep a full glass of this filtered water in the refrigerator to keep it cold so can sip from it and refill it throughout the day. By the way, water always tastes better when drinking out of a real (glass) glass.
I love water! Actually, other than morning coffee, water is about the only thing I drink on a daily basis. I love it in a big plastic cup with lots of ice.
mint tea, once it’s cooled to room temperature 🙂
I like my water cold, with ice! Always, even when it’s freezing outside.
I drink it cold and plain out of my nalgene every day.
A good glass of water is great, but hot tea with milk is equally as good!
I LOVE WATER! I keep a BPA-free bottle of water on my desk and refill it a couple of times a day. I’d love a BPA-free water filter like this one, as I’m trying to eliminate BPA from everything.
Just water–sometimes in a glass (around the house), sometimes in a reusable bottle (anywhere else).
I love making a huge pot of coffee every morning with chilled and filtered water… then I patiently wait for that first cup to be ready!
i put a drop or two of essential oil in it: lemon, peppermint, spearmint, even lavender. and i need it room temperature. i have used only filtered water for 3 decades. even my fridge water in the door has a filter. i grew up not drinking water because our water was so awful. it’s amazing what even a filter pitcher can do.
In a big glass cup right out of the tap, plus some ice in the summer.
I like my water best in apricot black tea with milk!
I don’t use filtered water – right out of the tap is fine with me and it doesn’t require filters going to the landfill (and I’m having a hard time imagining how long it would take to fill up a giant canning pot, one pitcher at a time, waiting for it? To each their own, but I don’t think it’s a necessity for canning. I do admit I am fortunate in Oregon to absolutely love our tap water :0)
I did want to share with those who use filters and are concerned about the waste stream, that Brita does now offer a recycling program for their filters: http://www.brita.com/support/filter-recycling/ – if we think about how many millions of these are tossed each year and cannot be recycled with regular plastic, this is somewhere to begin.
thx 🙂
I take mine straight up, not shaken or stirred…..LOL
Mary
I think my favorite way to drink water is just plain straight up. Coffee is awesome, but there’s only so much I can drink in a day before it makes me crazy. Iced coffee is equally awesome (though the two are almost never equally desirable in the same moment), but how could I claim to love iced coffee without giving a shout-out to my good friend, Mr. Ice? Nope. I’m sticking with plain ol’ water. Drink up!
ice cold water in a glass, or in the form of a nice hot cup of tea.
…. or in the form of craft beer 🙂
Cold with ice cubes—the classics never go out of style. I never really thought about using filtered water for canning. We also do when we brew beer, but I never thought about it for canning. Thanks for the heads up!
Ice Tea, winter, spring, summer or fall its ice tes.
Sun tea!
This is a great give away, b/c I often joke the I only drink water and beer – I gave up caffeine five years ago, and eventually soda followed, and I limit my fruit juice intake because it’s so sugary and my mom always used to yell at me, “don’t drink it like it’s water!!!” over the past five years I’ve acquired a taste for water plain, slightly cooler than room temp and I drink two 27 ounce water bottles a day at my job, if I’m good. I also took to making herbal ice tea over the summer, and have been known to go on seltzer binges…I do LOVE bubbles. 🙂
I have a large (30 oz) glass jar from ikea that I drink my water from. It gets refilled 2-3 times a day. I am a thirsty sort. Plastic bottles leave a taste behind. I am a picky sort too.