Will a carbon filter work at warm temps

Will my active carbon filter work if I use hot water (120 degrees) thought it. Will it effectively remove chlorine or will it deactivate the carbon and render it useless. I could heat my mash water to strike temps way faster if I use hot water as apposed to cold water.

I can't speak to that, but for what it's worth, hot water (from your tap, i'm assuming) is going to actually have MORE dissolved materials in it than if you used cold water. I'd start cold and heat from there.

Really….How do you get more dissolved minerals in hot tap water? Will that clog the carbon filter?

No, but run hot tap into a glass and set it next to glass of cold tap. Look at the haziness of the hot. Also, in some houses (i don't know if your case applies, or how this changes the H2O profile - replaces Ca with Na basically) the water softener only softens the HOT water...

Just food for thought.

I have one of those Britta water filers on my sink at home, and while I was flushing a new one out I looked through the little booklet that comes with it and it mentioned not running warm/hot water through it, because it can't filter properly.

I'm not sure if it's the same as your filter, but I know that mine doesn't work as well with hot water.

Most do list the maximum safe operating temp for hot water filtration. From what I have seen, the hot limit is usually 100*F. Beyond this, IIRC, the binders in the cartridge start to fail. There are some places that do sell filters rated for higher temps but they are pricey and usually have their own housing (meaning non-universal).

the water softener only softens the HOT water...

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Hmm Must be cheap or poorly installed most softeners are connected to the pipes before not after the water heater.. Most are not connected to outside hose feeds.

The biggest problem with hot water is the sloughing off of chemicals/compounds which had been adsorbed. The heat causes the carbon pores to open up. which could result in lead or chemicals being released into the water. And, the carbon would not effectively reduce contaminants in the water.

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It has no effect on the filter if you cool it back down.. ie no damage to the filter.

Activated Carbon Filters work much better with cold water. The contaminants are more easily adsorbed by the carbon at lower temperatures. The higher the temp. gets the worse the filter works.

If it gets hot enough (over 145 F) you can actually strip organic chemicals out of the carbon back into the water.

King of Cascade said:

Really….How do you get more dissolved minerals in hot tap water? Will that clog the carbon filter?

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for most solids, as temperature increases, solubility of solids increases.

you can make a super saturated sugar or salt solution with hot water, let it cool and then toss a single grain of sugar or salt in, and you'll cause a chain reaction of precipitate out of solution until it falls to a saturation level suited to the current temperature.


conversely, gas is usually less soluble as liquid temperature increases...which is why warm soda goes flat faster than cold soda when left open, and why it tends ot spray more when opened vs. a cold soda.

and shaking causes the CO2 to rapidly come out of solution (i.e. massive foam and mess)