Water profile

Hey all,

I'm gearing up for another brew and would like to mess around with the water a bit as I am tired of making OK beers and want to step up my game. After checking my water report here.

http://www.lbwater.org/pdf/longbeachccr.pdf

Things don't look too horrible but I do notice chloramines which may be a reason that my past brews were good but not stellar. So my questions.

What water to use.

1. My city water with Campden tablets to take care of the chloramines and then adjust to style.

2. I have an ro/di setup for my reef tanks, I can T off before the DI and get RO water or I can get DI and either way add in salts to get the desired profile however I have read that Chloramines may still be present.

3. Distilled water and go from there.

4. A mix of RO and city or a mix of distilled and city which seems to be how many commercial breweries go about it. Would still need the Campdens though.

I am planning on brewing BM's Centennial Blonde. I want to make something that my wife will drink and I want it to be good hence the water chemistry. My previous brews have been drinkable but not something I'm proud to offer friend, just good enough for me to be happy.

BM's recipe for reference

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f66/multiple-centennial-blonde-simple-4-all-grain-5-10-gall-42841/

Anyone?

For a blonde, I'd go with RO or distilled water and use a brewing spreadsheet to get the correct profile for the light color. Messing around with tap water and adding campden anyway, and still mixing it with RO water just sounds like a pain to me.

honestly, i'd do what yooper said or just try option #1 for now and see how it turns out. i routinely use campden to de-chlorinate the water and it works great for me. then, if you are still detecting some water-based off-flavors, go from there.

so does RO get rid of the chloramine? I have read conflicting ideas about it, or would it be better to go straight DI. I can go buy distilled but I have an RO/DI so if I can use it that would be easier.

With my RO system, all traces of Chloramine are gone using the smell and taste test. My beer comes out great. Don't have DI so can't comment.

No, the RO membrane does not remove chlorine/chloramine but the carbon filter which precedes it does. Chlorine or chloramine will poison one of the most common membrane types and so it is important to keep that carbon filter up to date.

As to your water: It's not too bad but not too great either. If you have RO available your best bet would probably be to use that with a tsp. of calcium chloride per 5 gallons. That's a prescription for a good beer in most cases. If you want the hops drier and more assertive than just the CaCl2 gives then add a tsp of gypsum per 5 gal the next time you brew it, see if you like the difference and adjust the gypsum up or down depending on whether you want more or less hop assertiveness. Sulfate seems to be OK for the British hop cultivars but not so good for the continental. I don't know about the American varieties because I never use them.

OK, I'll do that then. I found the same information about the carbon clearing up chlorine and chloramines as well so that is good to know. I was planning on adjusting my water to specific beer styles anyhow, I was just concerned about the best starting water. My ro water pre DI is usually less than 10 tds so when measuring salts is it safe to assume 0 on all starting values? Cal, mag etc...

Yes, I'd think so. Those 10 mg/L are divided up over sodium, magnesium, chloride, sulfate,bicarbonate averaging 2 mg/L (though some will probably be higher and some lower). No point in wasting the capacity of you DI exchanger(s).

So after talking to the company that made my ro/di unit it seems that the best bet is to use DI for a few reasons. The carbon filter does not exactly remove the chloramine but breaks the bond between the chlorine and the ammonia. My understanding after talking with him is that chloramine is basically chlorinated water treated with ammonia that then bonds together. From what he said if I T off before the DI the ammonia will still be present as it does not get taken out through the RO however the DI resin will remove ammonia. Also since you can't be certain exactly what amount of what element are present in the RO without testing, DI will be more constant as it is completely stripped of all TDS.

Also he told me that chloramine treated water will break down carbon blocks much faster than other city water and carbon filters should be replaced more often in services containing chloramine. They do make a carbon block upgrade package that supposedly is a bit beefier and will hold up a bit better.

The reaction between an activated carbon site, C* and monochloramine is C* + NH2Cl + H2O -> CO* + Cl- + NH4+ at lower pH (below pH 8 mostly ammonium ions would be formed - at 9.4 equal amounts of ammonia and ammonium and above 9.4 more ammonia).

The oxidized carbon site is then available to oxidize additional chloramine to nitrogen:

CO* + 2 NH2Cl --> C* + 2H+ + 2Cl- + H2O + N2

thus regenerating the activated carbon (which is, therefore, not consumed).

Combining these 2 equations gives

3 NH2Cl --> 2H+ + 3Cl- + NH4+ + N2

for the overall reaction. Thus 3 chloramine molecules produce 1 ammonium and 1 nitrogen molecule and 1/3 of the chloramine nitrogen winds up as ammonium ion as compared to treatment with metabite where every chloramine molecule produces an ammonium ion.

Your man is doubtless really sensitized to ammonia (NH3 - high pH) because it is (and you obviously know this better than I do) very toxic to fish. Ammonium ion (NH4+ - low pH) is not toxic to fish and is especially beneficial to yeast. Many yeast nutrients contain an ammonium salt. So I'd say don't worry about the ammonium ion. In the first place, your yeast will love it. In the second place very little is produced. If your chloramine is 3 mg/L a carbon filter will produce about 1 mg/L ammonium. And, theoretically, you should never have to replace the GAC. Perhaps the theory does not reflect the real world.

What he told you about the process of chloramination is correct. Chlorine is first injected into the water:

H2O + Cl2 --> HOCl + H+ + Cl-

Then, usually as the water leaves the clearwell for distribution, ammonia is injected

HOCl + NH3 --> NH2Cl + H2O

What he said about GAC only breaking the chlorine-chloramine bond is only true for 1/3 of the chloramine as we saw above. 2/3 are oxidized to nitrogen. That is if this model (Faust and Aly, "Chemistry of Water Treatment") is correct!

It is, of course, true that DI water will have less ions in it that RO water but if the difference is on the order of mg/L then it's a "don't care". At least it is for me. As to the uncertainty you could estimate the ion content at the output from the RO unit based on ion rejection ratios (I assume the RO unit came with this data) and the source water report. But it is hardly worth the trouble.

I think you would be just fine with the RO water but you must do what makes you comfortable.

Wow, thanks for all the info. He did mention that the ammonia didn't seem to bother the other brewers he had spoken to as I was not the first person to pose the question to him for brewing purposes. He was not sure why though so that answers the question he had, the yeast like the ammonium so that is fine. Like I said my water RO water is actually below 10 tds and to be honest is usually like 4-6 so the amount of elements still in it is so small I can probably assume 0's as far as adding salts. My only concern was the residual ammonia or as you clarified ammonium and you answered that so RO it is.

h

i used my waste water from my RO/DI system for brewing today. since its been through the sediment filter and 2 carbon blocks...its free of the chlorine/chloramines, i then used my water report and the ez water calculator to make a few minor adjustments. Then I did a water change on my tank after I got the mash going.