Chlorine smell in my brew pot?

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NCBeernut

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I just got a new aluminum brewpot. I filled it with regular tap water and boiled for 30 minutes to build the oxide layer. I filled the pot almost to the top and heated on a stove, and to get it up to a nice rolling boil I had to cover the pot while it was heating, and uncovered once it got to a full boil. I shouldn't have this problem as much while brewing, since I had almost twice as much water as I would normally boil. After I emptied the water and dryed it, it smells a little bit like chlorine, but maybe this is just what Aluminum Oxide smells like? All of the chlorine should have evaporated off during the boil right? The only thing I could think of was maybe an Aluminum Cloride precipitate formed during the boil, and is giving off this smell, which I think could easily be removed with a good cleaning.
 
I'm really not sure what is going on here. A good test would be to boil RO or distilled water in the pot, dry it, and see if you still smell it, which would tell you if it was your water or your pot. Your local water report could tell you a lot about your water chemistry, too. If you don't want to keep buying RO or distilled water to brew with, I suggest you buy or make a water filter. BYO magazine had schematics on a homemade water filter that has a 10,000 gallon life expectancy. Here's the link:

Brew Your Own: The How-To Homebrew Beer Magazine - Projects and Equipment - Build Your Own Water Filter: Projects

I made this and it's fast, cheap, and produces good tasting water.
 
Chlorine will be driven away by boiling, yes. But Chloramine will not.

From Wikipedia:
Home brewers use reducing agents such as sodium metabisulfite or potassium metabisulfite to remove chloramine from brewing liquor as it, unlike chlorine, cannot be removed by boiling (A.J. DeLange). Residual sodium can cause off flavors in beer (See Brewing, Michael Lewis) so potassium metabisulfite is preferred.
 
I'm really not sure what is going on here. A good test would be to boil RO or distilled water in the pot, dry it, and see if you still smell it, which would tell you if it was your water or your pot. Your local water report could tell you a lot about your water chemistry, too. If you don't want to keep buying RO or distilled water to brew with, I suggest you buy or make a water filter.

I actually have a filter that removes 98% of chlorine as well as several chlorinated compounds (chlorobenzene, etc) that I will use for my brewing water. Do these filters remove chloramines? I should have just flitered the water...I'll just give it a good cleaning first and see if that helps.
 
A common water filter that removes chloramine is Activated Silver Impregnated Charcoal ("chlorogon"). It is a special type of activated carbon. If the filter is used or old (even if you bought it new since it could have been sitting) it could be ineffective.Potassium Metabisulfite (as khiddy said) is commonly used and isn't very expensive if bought by the pound.
 
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