Chlorine in Reverse Osmosis Water?

My grocery store sells RO water that you can fill in your own jugs. It's half the price of the distilled water and allows me to cut down on waste. I know it's considered free of minerals, but could it contain chlorine or chloramine? I know how to treat it if it does, but I'm just wondering if that's really a necessary step. Of course, I could send a sample to Ward labs.

jescholler said:

Of course, I could send a sample to Ward labs.

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or you can stop by the local pet store and buy a chlorine test kit.

TipsyDragon said:

or you can stop by the local pet store and buy a chlorine test kit.

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I thought about that just after I submitted the question. Will the test kits detect low enough levels that affect beer? I've read that less than 1ppm can cause off flavors.

There would still be the question of chloramines though.

well as far as the test kits being sensitive enough i would read the box. its been some time since i've had pet fish so i don't remember how sensitive the test kits where.

i believe (no actual evidence to back it up) that the test kits also detect chloromines. the reason i think this is because fish are also sensitive to chloromines and you would have to test for that to or risk killing your fish.

RO water shouldn't contain chloramines, the chemical is far too large to pass through the membrane.

I was just at the store and looked a little closer at the RO water. It says that it does not contain chlorine. I think I'll give the RO a try instead of the distilled. Thanks for the help guys.

What does it taste like? I can taste & smell the Chlorine in my tap water but can't detect it in my RO water so that is good enough for me, myself & me beer!

Jescholler,

Reverse Osmosis water does not contain chlorine or chloramines. It eliminates up to 99% of all chemicals, solids, contaminants, etc. The water is excellent for beverages, especially beer making. I have used my home system for making different brews many times, tastes great. The distilled water is also excellent, but either option will do a great job in your choice of beverages. Hope this helps.

If you're using it to make beer, as I suspect you are, and if there is chlorine in your RO water, which I suspect there isn't, when you boil ...all the chlorine will be gone.

Reverse Osmosis itself doesn't remove chlorine or chloramines, most R/O systems contain
or run water thru a carbon filter before entering R/O membrane. In supermarket systems,
if they are installed properly?, the water should run thru GAC filter first. Some R/O systems run it thru before & after membrane ,as in the link above. This is what truly removes the chlorine & chloramines, not the R/O. Hope this helps. Cheers!!

Thanks for all of the replies. They were all very helpful. I'll be trying the RO water for my next brew. I'm pretty confident it will be fine.

Beers tastes better and lighter using reverse osmosis or distillation because the water has very little dissolved solids present (as you get with mains water).