RO Water Storage

Does anybody know of any practical purpose of the specialized RO reservoirs that come with the "under the cabinet" systems (2 gallon?). I know then have a pressurized bladder in them - is that just to push the water back up and out the faucet? The large ones are expen$ive!

Long story short... I'm getting tired of only collecting 2 gallons at a time. I have to plan well ahead for my brewday. I want to build a collection tank with a float switch on it that will fill a larger holding tank. If I have to, I'll put it up on the wall above my HLT with a nice, large spigot on it.

I don't think I need anything bigger than 10 gallons. Anybody have any links to food grade plastic tanks that I can use about this size? Anybody see any issues with this?

Thanks.


Mylo

the air bladder tank lets you store the water under pressure so the pump don't burn out and that water comes out when you pull on the faucet. (wow i am quite articulate today)

if you are fine with gravity feed into your hlt you should have no problem taking a tap of the bladder tank with a solenoid and feed a tube/pipe to the storage tank.

I would put the solenoid valve closest to your ro system. you could also use a ball valve if you have an over flow on you tank. (now thinking about it an over flow is not a bad idea ether way)

i was thinking about doing something similar for my brew hut.
try us plastics for a tank

A buddy of mine just brought up a good point... Storing all that water could get funky with algae, etc... Now that I think about it - that's probably the other reason for the bladder - no air ever goes into the tank. Maybe I could use one of those sterile filters that B3 sells to filter the air that goes in, to prevent mold and algae spores from getting in there. It's all pre-boil - so I guess I'm not that concerned with anything else - especially if it doesn't affect the water's flavor.

Probably best practice for a "homegrown" storage system like this is to leave it dry... I wouldn't mind flipping it on a few days ahead of time - as long as it shuts off automatically when it gets to 20Gs.

What do you all think?


Mylo

Use a black tank, algae needs light.

edit:
sorry phone started to ring; anyway

leaving it dry is fine, i like the idea of having a valve shut off after 20g. I would make all the connections tubing so that you can flip it up side down because you will never be able to drain the last bit out. (unless you use a cone of course)

probably do something like this (could be simplifyed now that i look at it) :

Another option rather than RO water storage would be to put another RO membrane in parallel with your existing membrane. This would double your RO output and cut your filling time in half. You could put quite a few membranes in parallel. This could get pricey initially, but would extend the life of each one since they would be only filtering a fraction of the water coming through.

If you want to go the storage tank route; one idea would be to use a keg. They're readily available and somewhat inexpensive. You could mount your float valve/switch in it to control your water level. You could also hook up a CO2 tank to purge the air and keep it under a very low pressure to keep O2 out, just like a kegerator. Might even be able to use the CO2 to push the water to your tun. I might be over-thinking this a bit.

BTW, is this your setup? I have it saved in my bookmarks to steal ideas from later.

EDIT: Here's an example of a second membrane upgrade.
http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/store/150-gpd-water-saving-upgrade-kit.html#

EDIT EDIT: You'd want to bypass your undersink storage tank to do this too.

I'd install a kent float valve into the top of the sidewall of a 15 gallon open head barrel. Put a manual ball valve on before that so you can only open it the day before you want to brew. That way the water only sits around for a day.

Mylo said:

Does anybody know of any practical purpose of the specialized RO reservoirs that come with the "under the cabinet" systems (2 gallon?). I know then have a pressurized bladder in them - is that just to push the water back up and out the faucet? The large ones are expen$ive!

Long story short... I'm getting tired of only collecting 2 gallons at a time. I have to plan well ahead for my brewday. I want to build a collection tank with a float switch on it that will fill a larger holding tank. If I have to, I'll put it up on the wall above my HLT with a nice, large spigot on it.

I don't think I need anything bigger than 10 gallons. Anybody have any links to food grade plastic tanks that I can use about this size? Anybody see any issues with this?

Thanks.


Mylo

Click to expand...

Nothing specialized about them, but these have been on CL for 2 months at $6.00 each
Current posting doesn't mention pedigree, but IIRC they came from beer-worthy past lives....

I just use empty culligan bottles.. apparently thats far too simpleton.

Talk to your LHBS about getting one of their empty extract barrels. You could probably get one free.

Get a gray Brute container from Lowes/HD and use that for a resevoir to fill the day before. Like Bobby said you can add a float valve to shutoff the flow and I'd pair that with an auto shutoff. The floats can still let water by if you have high enough incoming pressure, but the autoshutoff cuts your incoming water to the ro off when it senses backpressure being caused by the float.

Don't worry about algae/funk too much so long as you cover the vessel. RO is stripped of essentially everything and isn't too condusive to growth. My RO/DI and saltwater drums are always full in my basement and they might get cleaned once a year.




page 11 shows the setup installed.

http://www.spectrapure.com/manuals/PRINTER_FRIENDLY/ASOFK_SPFK_FLC.pdf

rabeb25 said:

I just use empty culligan bottles.. apparently thats far too simpleton.

Click to expand...

It is only for the fact that you have to manually fill it in increments 2 gallons at a time over the course of a day. The float in a larger vessel is about walking away and coming back to a container full of water. After the slightly more complicated build, collecting the water is way more simple.

I use RO nd the day before I put my bucket on the floor and use a piece of tubing and push it over the faucet and into the bucket. I turn on the water and let it go. After the tank is empty, it's still making water so let her rip till bedtime. I can get five to six gallons and the next day, I have two more.

You could also pickup a larger bladder tank and T the one you have or just replace it out. Search google for "ro bladder tank" and you will find lots of places selling tanks you can switch in for larger storage capacity.

Personally I just empty the 3g tank into cheap 5 gallon bottles (like you get a bottle watered stores) in the morning when i wake up and again when i go to bed for a few days till all my bottles are full. It is RO watter so its not like their is anything real bad going to happen to it if put into clean containers.

P-Lay said:

BTW, is this your setup? I have it saved in my bookmarks to steal ideas from later.

Click to expand...

One in the same. Steal away...! Just don't try using a BCS or BrewTroller to control that Honeywell Intermittent Pilot valve (ask me how I know...)!


Thanks for all the great ideas, guys!


Mylo

myazmj said:

You could also pickup a larger bladder tank and T the one you have or just replace it out. Search google for "ro bladder tank" and you will find lots of places selling tanks you can switch in for larger storage capacity.

Personally I just empty the 3g tank into cheap 5 gallon bottles (like you get a bottle watered stores) in the morning when i wake up and again when i go to bed for a few days till all my bottles are full. It is RO watter so its not like their is anything real bad going to happen to it if put into clean containers.

Click to expand...

This is exactly what I HAVE been doing, and it's such a PITA - it was the catalyst for this thread.

Those valves look interesting, WPStrassburg...


Mylo

I get about .75gph from my ro. I start filling my 25 gallon boil kettle the appropriate time ahead of brewday and then pump into the hlt. I brew 13 gallon batches so if I'm going all RO I start the day before. My hlt is a keggle so after mash-in I fill the hlt with sparge water. Never had a runover so haven't messed with floats and valves.
All the bladder tank does for you is hold a small volume of water at the ro tap, the bladder gives you line pressure as the pressure drop across the ro unit will cause the flow to go to a drip after the first couple ounces. I don't use a bladder tank on my ro.