Campden/KMeta vs. Filtering

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oldbullgoose

oldbullgoose

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I just found out that I have a ton of chloramines in my tap water. I have two questions:

I have the ability to do carbon filtering on my water or treating it with Campden tabs/potassium metabisulfate. Both would be minimal effort, I'm curious what makes for better beer at the end of the day.

Second, I brewed about 40 gallons of otherwise very good beer with my muni's untreated tap water...I took the entry level homebrewer's mantra of "if the water tastes good, your beer will" to heart too much, despite having all of intentions and materials to treat the water. Doh... At any rate, I've got what seem to be predictable phenolic off-flavors in at least two of the batches. Still waiting on the other two. Is there anything I can do? I've kegged one and it's sat in my keezer for about 2 months and has gotten a little better. Or maybe I'm just getting used to the phenols. Another batch is lagering, another in secondary, and one in primary.

Thanks.
 
My 2 cents: Unless you've got a reverse osmosis system, how sure are you of your carbon filter's efficiency with removing chlorine and chloramine? As long as the campden tablets have the correct amount of active ingredient, and are used properly, they will work. I am curious to hear other opinions
 
If it concerns you enough just buy drinking water. Its pretty cheap at the mega mart. Boiling and carbon filtering works for chloride but not chloramine.

You could cut your tap water with RO water to lower the ppm.
 
Regarding the cost of buying water, if I can cut my brewery costs by using muni water, I'll do what i can to get to that point. I was buying water when I was doing 5 gallon batches and it was right around 10 bucks to get spring water at my grocery store to get enough water for a batch. I couldn't justify doubling that when I bumped up to 10gal batches.

Campden/Kmeta sounds like the way to go then. My only (unscientific) opinion was i'd rather not add additional chemicals to treat a water chemistry issue, but I'm convinced by the argument that the filter would only lower ppm rather than remove the chloramines.

I guess the only way would be to actually measure the chloramines. I know there are chlorine test kits, I'll have to do some research to find out if i can test for chloramines. I'll get to that when I'm back at my computer. I spoke at length with the municipal water chemist, who seemed very knowledgeable. Perhaps I'll take it up with her.

Thanks for the feedback!
 
I usually use tap water to mash and RO to sparge. I'll be doing my first all RO batch tomorrow. I'm getting some off flavors and I think chloramines may be the culprit.
 
You could also try good ole vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Not sure of the dose, but you can search this forum.
 
Keep in mind that another benefit of campden tablets is that they inhibit the growth of wild yeasts and spoilage bacteria.
 
I just provided input on the source water treatment chapter for Palmer and Kaminski's upcoming book on brewing water. One of the analyses I provided was on the subject of activated carbon (AC) filtration. For chlorine removal, AC is very effective and useful when the flow rate is low. For the typical 10-inch undersink filter unit, a flow rate of 1 gal/min or less is effective at removing chlorine. Due to its more stable nature, chloramine does not react with AC in the same manner as chlorine and the contact time between chloramine and AC must be much higher. To produce good chloramine removal with typical AC media, the flow rate through a 10-inch filter would be a ridiculous 0.02 gal/min. That flow rate can be increased if specialized chloramine-specific AC media is used. But that is still going to be below 0.1 gal/min. That flow rate is still unworkable in my opinion.

Side note: The flow rate through the AC filter on a 50 gal/day RO unit is less than 0.1 gal/min, so that AC prefilter on those units do remove chloramine too.​

Because of the unrealistically low flow rate requirements for chloramine removal with AC media, I now strongly recommend the use of metabisulfite for chloramine removal. With the typical dosage, a brewer will only be adding a few ppm of chloride and sulfate along with a few ppm of sodium or potassium to their brewing water. Those additions are negligible.

This shortcoming of AC media for chloramine removal does not mean that AC is not useful in the brewery. If the tap water has taste and odor components, then that AC filter will still be useful. I still suggest that low flow rate (say less than 1 gal/min with a 10-inch filter) be utilized to maximize the removal of taste and odor.
 
mabrungard said:
I just provided input on the source water treatment chapter for Palmer and Kaminski's upcoming book on brewing water. One of the analyses I provided was on the subject of activated carbon (AC) filtration. For chlorine removal, AC is very effective and useful when the flow rate is low. For the typical 10-inch undersink filter unit, a flow rate of 1 gal/min or less is effective at removing chlorine. Due to its more stable nature, chloramine does not react with AC in the same manner as chlorine and the contact time between chloramine and AC must be much higher. To produce good chloramine removal with typical AC media, the flow rate through a 10-inch filter would be a ridiculous 0.02 gal/min. That flow rate can be increased if specialized chloramine-specific AC media is used. But that is still going to be below 0.1 gal/min. That flow rate is still unworkable in my opinion.

Side note: The flow rate through the AC filter on a 50 gal/day RO unit is less than 0.1 gal/min, so that AC prefilter on those units do remove chloramine too.​

Because of the unrealistically low flow rate requirements for chloramine removal with AC media, I now strongly recommend the use of metabisulfite for chloramine removal. With the typical dosage, a brewer will only be adding a few ppm of chloride and sulfate along with a few ppm of sodium or potassium to their brewing water. Those additions are negligible.

This shortcoming of AC media for chloramine removal does not mean that AC is not useful in the brewery. If the tap water has taste and odor components, then that AC filter will still be useful. I still suggest that low flow rate (say less than 1 gal/min with a 10-inch filter) be utilized to maximize the removal of taste and odor.
Click to expand...

Great info, thanks Martin!

Some (more expensive?) RO systems do have chlorine and/or chloramine removal features, I believe. Is it because of a special filtering?
 
Yooper said:
Some (more expensive?) RO systems do have chlorine and/or chloramine removal features, I believe. Is it because of a special filtering?
Click to expand...

Almost all RO membranes are damaged by chlorine or chloramine. Therefore, most systems include a AC prefilter to remove those compounds from the influent water stream.

I notice that some RO systems include AC post filters too. I'm not really sure why those are included since anything that the postfilter could remove, the prefilter should have already caught.
 
RO systems use a carbon prefilter that does a good job with the chloramine because of the extremely long contact time feeding the low volume membrane. Then they carbon filter it again to “polish” the water.

Here’s a link to a series of articles on water filters. Awesome company, BTW. I have been using them for years.

http://www.purewaterproducts.com/articles/
 
Wynne-R said:
Then they carbon filter it again to “polish” the water.
Click to expand...

Since the prefilter adsorbs just about everything, there is little for a postfilter to pick up. Hydrogen sulfide is one compound that can easily permeate the RO process, that could be one reason a user may need a postfilter. If your water supply doesn't have a rotten egg aroma, then it may not be necessary to use a postfilter. Many systems do not employ them.

By the way, that was an interesting site.
 
Mabrungard, what is your opinion on using ascorbic acid as an effective method to remove chloramines?

San Francisco Public Utilities Commission states 1000mg per medium sized bathtub (50 gal?) HERE.
 
TheZer said:
Mabrungard, what is your opinion on using ascorbic acid as an effective method to remove chloramines?

San Francisco Public Utilities Commission states 1000mg per medium sized bathtub (50 gal?) HERE.
Click to expand...

It is effective. I'm pretty sure that the reason that its not used more commonly than metabisulfite is cost. At the homebrewing scale, that is probably not an issue.
 
Brewed a pale ale with 1/2 a campden tab crushed in my strike water and 1/2 a campden tab crushed in my sparge water. We'll see if I get a chlorophenolic taste. Hoping not!

Perhaps I'll try the ascorbic acid next time.
 
No off flavors detected in the Pale's primary. Looks like a full campden tablet took care of it. Thanks for all of the feedback.

I've read here that you can use Polyclar to get rid of phenolic off flavors including chlorophenols. Does this sound at all possible? From the little I've read, I'm willing to give it a shot to try to salvage the 40 gallons of beer that is affected.
 
Polyclar is fine powder of charged particles that adsorbs compounds and gets them to precipitate out of the solution. It works well for polyphenols from hopping, but I haven't heard of it working for chlorophenols. I don't think it will work, but you might as well try it. Report back if it does or doesn't.
 
Will do. Going to try it out this weekend. I apparently am blessed with an exceedingly acute sense of tasting them, so I'll be able to tell quickly. It's almost infuriating that I can hardly drink the beer and everyone in the house drinks it like there's nothing wrong.
 
No dice on the Polyclar, at least a week out. Kegged up an tainted batch of IPA and let it sit with Polyclar for 7 days at 33 degrees. No noticeable change in the chlorophenol taste. Looks like I'm dumping some beer.
 

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