Camden Tablets - How fast do they work?

Hi

I am beginning to use Camden Tablets to treat my brew water. I am interested in knowing how long from the time the tabs are added to the water and the time the Camden Tabs takes care of chloramine.

How long do I need to wait before I can begin using the water for mashing. Can I heat the water, preparing it for mashing just after I have added the Camden Tabs?

They work immediately. I use a little less than half a tab crushed and added to the 8 or so gallons that I start with for a 5.5 gal batch.

Skipstr21 said:

They work immediately. I use a little less than half a tab crushed and added to the 8 or so gallons that I start with for a 5.5 gal batch.

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TY

Now for the reason:
I use a gravity fed system with my HLT at the top of the food chain. Not having a pump I need to add water to the HLT using a sight gauge for measuring.

I brew in Wisconsin's winter. Rather than having to prepare nine gallons of water and then heat it all at once and take forever to get needed temperatures, I would rather heat 16.5 quarts, send it to the mash tun while I am heating 3.X gallons of sparge water. Then finish off with the second equal sparge of 3.X gallons.

This allows me to add a proper proportion of Camden tabs to the water at various stages of the mash/sparge process. And at each stage I am heating less volumes of water which will save time.

While it's not as cold in St. Louis Mo. I certainly understand the challenge of brewing in cold weather! I have a hose hooked up to my house hot water and fill my 15 gal brew kettle up with all the hot (150º) water I need and add the campden tabs, gypsum, etc. to this and then transfer smaller quantities to a smaller pot to heat for mashing/sparging. The water in the kettle stays surprisingly hot if you keep a lid on it. I batch sparge so no need to worry about the sparge water temp falling.

Skipstr21 said:

While it's not as cold in St. Louis Mo. I certainly understand the challenge of brewing in cold weather! I have a hose hooked up to my house hot water and fill my 15 gal brew kettle up with all the hot (150º) water I need and add the campden tabs, gypsum, etc. to this and then transfer smaller quantities to a smaller pot to heat for mashing/sparging. The water in the kettle stays surprisingly hot if you keep a lid on it. I batch sparge so no need to worry about the sparge water temp falling.

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I typically need to bring my mash target to 168F then my sparges to 187F. Heating 9-10 gallons to 168F can be a challenge.

You don't get any off flavors or extra chemicals from the bottom of your water heater transferred to your brew kettle?

Gammon N Beer said:

You don't get any off flavors or extra chemicals from the bottom of your water heater transferred to your brew kettle?

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I thought I might at first but have not noticed any difference at all. It does shave about 30-40 minutes off the brew day.