Brita filters: What do they filter?

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hofmeister

hofmeister

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Greetings from Upstate NY! This is my first post to this site. (Actually, it's my first internet forum posting ever). Tomorrow's a big brew day, and I'll be having a go at my first pilsener as part of the fun. I'm running my water through a counter-top Brita filter in preparation. In addition to chlorine, what else do Britas filter? I have my city water report, so I want to know if, aside from the chlorine, it will remain similar post-Brita in terms of calcium, magnesium, sodium, and the like. Basically, I'm trying to get an idea of what's left, so that I can soften the water if need be.
:mug:
 
from:

http://waterindustry.org/Water-Facts/filtered-1.htm

A Brita water filter claims to remove 99 percent of chlorine as well as heavy metals in tap water such as lead and copper which can be caused by the household installations. The filters also eliminate fluoride, which may not be a benefit for children's teeth.

Brita, however, does not filter THMs out of tap water.

Tap water may be just as safe because chlorine and THMs evaporate from tap water after a few hours.

The benefits of a Brita water filter lays in its ability to filter out heavy metals and other impurities, such as lead, which are most likely not in your tap, but may be due to poor plumbing.
 
Brita is an activated charcoal filter. It will probably remove chlorine but I don't know if it does much of anything for minerals.

Depending on your water quality, I would just get 5 gallons of spring water. It's not too expensive.
 
Welcome! If you're like me, you tend to "lurk" more than post. I get turned off quickly by a lot of the shenanigans that go on within many forums. However, I think you'll find this forum to be one of the best in terms of helpful and knowledgeable members. Forums in general are a good source of info, but I've found that this place is one of - if not the - best around.

I can't answer your question with any reasonable level of authority, but I found this on Brita's site:

The majority of BRITA cartridges contain a combination of ion exchange resin and activated carbon. The carbon absorbs chlorine, pesticides and organic pollutants, improves taste and eliminates odours and discolouration. It also contains an inhibitor that prevents bacterial growth. The ion exchange resin reduces temporary hardness, which causes limecale. It also significantly reduces levels of metals such as copper and lead.

The overall hardness of water consists of permanent hardness and temporary hardness. Permanent hardness (caused by calcium and magnesium sulphates as well as chloride) does not influence the taste of water or the function of household appliances. Temporary hardness (caused by calcium and magnesium hydrogen carbonate) primarily affects the taste of food and other beverages prepared with hot water.

The BRITA water filter cartridge reduces the temporary hardness of drinking water. The results of this reduction: better tasting water for hot drinks and cooked food and less scale build up in household appliances.
Click to expand...

That doesn't tell us all of what Brita's filters take out of your water, but obviously they are removing temporary hardness (calcium and magnesium carbonates).

How much, I can't say. Nor am I much of a science buff. However, I'm sure we have some sharp members here that are far more knowledgeable than I am.

What I will say is that if you have a water report already, you should post that so that we can all have a look. You may or may not want to filter the water based upon this knowledge. It might be better to simply treat it with brewers' salts.
 
joyceman said:
from:

http://waterindustry.org/Water-Facts/filtered-1.htm

A Brita water filter claims to remove 99 percent of chlorine as well as heavy metals in tap water such as lead and copper which can be caused by the household installations. The filters also eliminate fluoride, which may not be a benefit for children's teeth.

Brita, however, does not filter THMs out of tap water.

Tap water may be just as safe because chlorine and THMs evaporate from tap water after a few hours.

The benefits of a Brita water filter lays in its ability to filter out heavy metals and other impurities, such as lead, which are most likely not in your tap, but may be due to poor plumbing.
Click to expand...


+1

Filtering through a Brita won't hurt anything but will not influence THMs.

On a side note, filtering vodka through the Brita does amazing things for low grade versions.
 
hofmeister,

Undergrad chemistry student and homebrewer here. Some thoughts on your questions:

1) BRITA FILTERS. Yes, Brita filters do indeed remove hardness from your tap water. I base this on a few hours of research online in which I evaluated several independent tests which were posted online. Here are a few:

Missouri TV Station KFVS had an independent water lab analyze Brita filters:
http://www.kfvs12.com/story/307273/brita-water-filtering-pitchers

Undergrad chem lab report tests Brita filters. Interesting because it shows faucet-attached model significantly better at hardness removal than pitcher-type.
http://bit.ly/15Wescd

Science Fair project tests Brita filters. Use of TDS meter involved.
http://www.usc.edu/CSSF/History/2006/Projects/J0509.pdf

Also, pistolsatdawn’s post above with the quote from Brita’s website saying their filters do remove hardness from tap water.

Also also, the chair of my department assured me that a few years back they tested Brita filter water in the lab and he was surprised at how much of the hardness minerals it removed. Hopelessly anecdotal from your POV, but still.

2) Softening your water for homebrewing: DON’T DO IT. A defense of this blanket statement would involve a very complicated discussion of the various technologies employed by commercial in-home water softener units. doubtless there is some homebrewer out there who thinks his water softener homebrew is the bomb and will say I’m wrong, but I can virtually guarantee you that if such a person were to chime in, they would lack the technical background to be able to determine if your setup is same as his setup. (also keep in mind that you might think his hb was total dreck if you tasted it, so…)

3) Your location. Consulting a water hardness map of the US (link below), I can see that upstate NY has a wide variation in water hardnesses. Looks like if you live ~50 miles to the S or E of Lake Ontario, your water will be hard to very hard respectively, and elsewhere soft. If you have soft water, then I say your water, esp after being Brita'd, should be just fine for a decent pilsener. If you have found your pilsener brew unacceptable, then I would determine which of your local big chain grocery stores have a water machine that you can buy water from. These machines are always reverse osmosis, and should dispense very soft water (<10 ppm of calcium) which should be excellent for your pilsener.

Hope this helps!

Water hardness map of US:
http://www.h2odistributors.com/water-hardness.asp
 
when i saw it above, i assumed it meant "total hardness minerals", but i guess that's wrong. in the context of a water report i think it means trihalomethanes. i've never seen trihalomethanes ever discussed in brewing literature, not sure why joyceman called it out above. rereading his post (2nd down), he doesn't seem to be discussing Britas in the context of brewing.
 
A Brita filter contains (or did last time I checked which was several years ago)
1. A GAC element
2. A H+ for cation and OH- for anion ion exchanger element
3. A silver ion injecting element.

The GAC element removes chlorine and chloramine (I actually tested for this) and should remove THMs to some extent at least

The ion exchange resins remove hardness, alkalinity, heavy metals... i.e. most everything. Given enough contact time the Brita pitcher should produce essentially DI water with the exception of a small amount of silver ion (and some accompanying cation) which is in there to keep bacteria from growing in the filtered water.

Post #7 advises against softening brewing water and that is good advice if the softener is a typical home water softener which replaces calcium (the brewers friend) and magnesium with sodium and leaves bicarbonate (the source of alkalinity which is the brewer's enemy) untouched. A Brita pitcher removes both cations and anions so this comment is not applicable to Brita pitches. Soft, decarbonated water is great for brewing some styles which is why so many brewers are turning to RO as a source of their brewing liquor. In some (many) cases, however, such water needs supplementation with calcium, chloride and, for some styles and personal tastes, sulfate.
 
joyceman said:
from:

http://waterindustry.org/Water-Facts/filtered-1.htm

A Brita water filter claims to remove 99 percent of chlorine as well as heavy metals in tap water such as lead and copper which can be caused by the household installations. The filters also eliminate fluoride, which may not be a benefit for children's teeth.
Click to expand...
You might as well have said, "eliminating the Bible might be beneficial for the morality of children" or "removing chlorine might be harmful because chlorine kills germs in ur belly." Use a search engine. How the hell hard is it to look up "fluoride dangers"?
 
Fluoride ion in excess in poisonous. In moderate amounts it strengthens the teeth (by displacing one of the hyroxyl ions in hydroxyl apatite: Ca10(PO4)6(OH2) + H+ + Fl- ---> Ca10(PO4)6(OH)F + H2O )

Fluoroapatite is harder than hydroxyl apatite and thus consumption of moderate amounts of fluoride in the water (or applied to the teeth by dentists) increases resistance to decay.

At the time municipalities began adding fluoride to the water there was a huge outcry. Critics claimed that this was a communist plot which would result in destruction of our children's intellectual capacity and thus their ability to resist socialist propaganda. The end the US way of life was foretold. Apparently those critics were right but more to the point here: by removing fluoride ion from fluoridated water the Brita pitcher removes the benefit, in terms of caries reduction, that ion provides. This should be immaterial as most dentists have discovered an opportunity to pad their bills out a bit by making application of flouride supplements directly to the teeth during regular cleanings.
 
chosenbygrace said:
You might as well have said, "eliminating the Bible might be beneficial for the morality of children" or "removing chlorine might be harmful because chlorine kills germs in ur belly." Use a search engine. How the hell hard is it to look up "fluoride dangers"?[/QUOTE]

Wow! Some first post...

bosco
Click to expand...
 
chosenbygrace said:
You might as well have said, "eliminating the Bible might be beneficial for the morality of children" or "removing chlorine might be harmful because chlorine kills germs in ur belly." Use a search engine. How the hell hard is it to look up "fluoride dangers"?
Click to expand...

Good morning General.

gen_jack_ripper.jpg
 
ajdelange said:
A Brita filter contains (or did last time I checked which was several years ago)
1. A GAC element
2. A H+ for cation and OH- for anion ion exchanger element
3. A silver ion injecting element.

The GAC element removes chlorine and chloramine (I actually tested for this) and should remove THMs to some extent at least

The ion exchange resins remove hardness, alkalinity, heavy metals... i.e. most everything. Given enough contact time the Brita pitcher should produce essentially DI water with the exception of a small amount of silver ion (and some accompanying cation) which is in there to keep bacteria from growing in the filtered water.

Post #7 advises against softening brewing water and that is good advice if the softener is a typical home water softener which replaces calcium (the brewers friend) and magnesium with sodium and leaves bicarbonate (the source of alkalinity which is the brewer's enemy) untouched. A Brita pitcher removes both cations and anions so this comment is not applicable to Brita pitches. Soft, decarbonated water is great for brewing some styles which is why so many brewers are turning to RO as a source of their brewing liquor. In some (many) cases, however, such water needs supplementation with calcium, chloride and, for some styles and personal tastes, sulfate.
Click to expand...

Sorry for bringing up a bit of zombie thread. I am using a Brita pitcher filter in a bit of a unusual way. I just take the filter and push it into the end of my large funnel. It makes a nice tight fit and water doesn't leak by. Then I can just turn on my hose(drinking water safe) and slowly collect filtered water. My question though is should I treat that filtered water as RO, or even DI, water and add back minerals as appropriate?
 
I'd like to see the results of that as well, I'm having a hard time believing that the brita filter is capable of filtering everything out. If that were the case, why use RO systems; just make giant-sized brita filter elements!
 
wardens355 said:
I am skeptical of that. I will filter some water tonight and measure the TDS, but I anticipate that it will be in the hundreds.
Click to expand...

Yeah...I am a little skeptical too. I measured using those aquarium water hardness test kits and the filter removed roughly half of my hardness. But I am just starting to dabble in water chemistry so I could be screwing it up.
 
http://www.ewg.org/report/ewgs-wate...e=&technology=&contamcode=&submit_ty_1=Search

According to the EWG, the pitchers are GAC/Ion Exchange, and the faucet filters are carbon block.

The Brita website is pretty much fact-free and the following is as close as I could find to useful information.
FAQ
The Brita® Pitcher Filter Systems and the Brita® Faucet Filter are both excellent water filtration products offering different filtering techniques. The best product is the one that most meets your individual needs. Both products reduce the contaminants that most commonly concern consumers — lead and chlorine (taste and odor) — and both products deliver great-tasting Brita® water. The Brita® Pitcher Systems also reduce copper and mercury — which the Brita® Faucet Filter can't do. But unlike the pitcher, the Faucet Filter removes the microbes, Cryptosporidium and Giardia, and reduces the chemicals Atrazine, Lindane, Benzene, Trichloroethylene and Asbestos.
Click to expand...

Their filters are rated for 40 gallons, except for the faucet filter, which is 100 gallons.

By contrast, a 10" carbon block filter is $20 and is rated for thousands of gallons.
 
The_Bishop said:
I'd like to see the results of that as well, I'm having a hard time believing that the brita filter is capable of filtering everything out. If that were the case, why use RO systems; just make giant-sized brita filter elements!
Click to expand...

I should say that I haven't done measurements on them in years. At the time I did them they did plainly state that they contained ion exchange elements and they did take everything from the water. People later started to claim that they did not and any useful information disappeared from the box (I looked at them in the store but refused to buy another one just to test something I had tested before). So it is possible that what is in them has changed and that they no longer contain the ion exchange.

As to the reason why one would use an RO system: it works on an entirely different basis. In the ion exchanger the cations are captured by the medium and replaced by H+ ions. The anions are captured by the medium and replaved with OH- ions. The two combine to form water. Eventually (pretty quickly, actgually, all the mediums H+ and OH- ions have been released and replaced with cations and anions. The medium is no longer able to purify water and a new filter element is needed.

In an RO system pressure is applied across a membrane with ion laden water on one side. The pressure forces the water through but the ions stay on the feed side to be flushed down the drain. The membrane is never exhausted in the sense that an ion exchange resin is. They do not last forever though - just much, much longer than an ion exchanger.
 
This has more to do with softened water than filters, but... Since moving my brew equipment into the basement I have been using tap water from near my laundry. I didn't realize that was a problem until reading this thread. The last three brews I did are softened water (Nut Brown Ale, Smoked Porter and Irish Draught Ale). I won't know if that has effected these brews until I start to collect water that bypasses my softener and brew the same recipes. The Nut Brown is OK, my first AG attempt. The others are still fermenting. What do you brewsters think the effect will be? I hear all the "Don't do it" claims, but, I don't know what effects these people are claiming. I know the softener removes hardness (minerals), but, not all of it. It's not like brewing with distilled water. Either way I will collect non-softened water for my strike, sparge and brew kettle from now on. That's not a biggie in the whole big picture of a brew day. If this inquiry is taken as an argument for using softened water please reread it. I am asking for some reasoning, not arguing that is makes no difference.
 
When the 'Don't use softened water' cry began to be heard throughout the land it was generally thought that brewing water had to contain at least 50 ppm calcium. That is no longer considered to be true, nor was it then by those who brewed continental lagers, but that was a generally accepted truth until fairly recently. At the same time it was then, and is now, accepted that alkalinity won't do you any good unless you are brewing rather dark beers. So what does a water softener do to 'hard water', which nearly always contains an approximately equal amount of alkalinity (in ppm as CaCO3)? It takes out the 'good' ions (calcium) and replaces them with sodium while leaving the bad ions (bicarbonate) untouched. Further more, the good ions are replaced with sodium which is at best considered a 'don't care' (at low levels) and a detriment so in some cases the good ion was being replaced with a bad ion and the bad ions were untouched.

In today's way of thinking removing the calcium isn't so bad and it is easy enough to shore it back up if necessary but the potential problems with high alkalinity still remain. Today home type water softeners are often used to feed an RO system which deals better with sodium ions than calcium ions (they will scale up an RO membrane just as they will your shower head). RO systems produce water that is low in all ions and whatever is wanted can be added in.

Rather than a disaster and undrinkable beer you should expect that one brewed with softened water just won't be as good as it might have been. If your water was extremely hard then the beer may taste salty and, because the high hardness is associated with high alkalinity, may suffer from muddy flavors.
 
I use R.O./distilled water to dilute my Pur tap filtered water. Subscribed.
 
Phunhog said:
Sorry for bringing up a bit of zombie thread. I am using a Brita pitcher filter in a bit of a unusual way. I just take the filter and push it into the end of my large funnel. It makes a nice tight fit and water doesn't leak by. Then I can just turn on my hose(drinking water safe) and slowly collect filtered water. My question though is should I treat that filtered water as RO, or even DI, water and add back minerals as appropriate?
Click to expand...

My Brita filter (w/ new cartridge) produced treated water with 165 ppm TDS from tap water starting with 290 ppm TDS. From Brita:

"In a Brita® Pitcher filter, activated carbon and ion exchange resin work together to filter out the following impurities, leaving you with healthier*, great-tasting drinking water: The Carbon reduces Chlorine. Ion Exchange Resin reduces metals: Copper, Cadmium, Mercury (health contaminants) & Zinc (metallic taste)."

So don't assume your Brita-filtered water is close to RO/DI water. What exactly the Brita removes, I am not sure, but an article I found on NIH online indicated they may remove up to 90% of the calcium. I prefer to take the guesswork out of my tap water and just get jugs of water from local water vending machines (TDS around 10 ppm) and build up my water as needed.
 
Brewer's friend water profile calculator has a function for "boil water". Boiling water is supposed to rid off temporary hardness, leaving the permanent hardness components intact. From what I understand, Brita filters also remove temporary hardness. In France we get our tap water profile provided on a government web site, and it's regularly updated. I brewed today using my tap water, run through a brita filter. To simulate the reduction of temporary hardness, I plotted my tap water profile into Brewer's friend calculator, then used the " boil water" function. Just to emphasize; I did not actually boil my mash water, I just ran it through a Brita filter! Here is a link to my Brewer's friend calculations; http://www.brewersfriend.com/mash-chemistry-and-brewing-water-calculator/?id=JMZ25YG.
As you can see, using the "boil water" function with an addition of 5 g. Calcium chloride, my mash pH should be 5.2. Attached photo of my mash pH strip. So this seems to have worked perfectly for me.

View attachment 1452447658398.jpg
 
It would be har to imagine a process which the pitcher could carry out which would remove the temporary hardness but not the permanent. You an do this by treating water with appreciable temporary harness (> 1 mEq/L) with lime but that is a bit tricky. The hardness precipitates as limestone (not the same as lime) which I would think would plug up the filter were it not removed by backwashing.

It occurs to me that I might have been to hasty in saying the Brita composition was changed b ased on # 29. It would take multiple passes to get the water down to near RO quality. This is if the ion exchange resins are both anionic and cationic.

Note: One generally cannot rely on test strips to provide accurate pH measurements in brewing.
 

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