Regular old chlorine in water - boil or let sit?

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rappinkapc

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I checked with my local water district, and they still use chlorine as a disinfectant to treat the water, not chloramines.
I'd rather not use Campden tablets if they're unnecessary. However, there seems to be mixed advice about whether it is necessary to boil the water a day in advance to get rid of the chlorine, or if letting it sit in an open container for a day is sufficient.
I would also rather not boil the water, as it uses a lot of energy, but I would do it if letting it sit doesn't really work. What do you all think?
 
I let it sit overnight - and I use campden...but i may try one without the tablet. I don't smell any chlorine after it has sat overnight....
 
Could always try a water filter?

True... I tried that once with my Brita. But, (A) it takes a long time to filter 7 gallons of water, (B) according to Brita "For maximum efficiency, filter no more than 2 gallons daily", (C) I would guess that would shorten the life of the filter, which is expensive (and wasteful) to replace more often than every two months.


I let it sit overnight - and I use campden...but i may try one without the tablet. I don't smell any chlorine after it has sat overnight....

I think I am going to try letting it sit overnight to see what happens. I want to strike a good balance between being cautious about things like chlorine, but also trying not to waste resources.
 
Why not use campden tabs? They are really cheap and it works very fast. Do you think they will negatively affect the beer in some way?

I guess my main reason for not using campden tablets in this batch is that I am making an organic beer from a 7 bridges kit. So... I would like to keep as many non-organic ingredients out of the beer as I can.
I guess I would consider using camden tablets if everyone really thought that letting water sit overnight won't get rid of chlorine.

P.S. According to my water report chlorine is about 0.94 ppm (if I'm reading that right).
 
What about just buying some store brand mineral water?

Look... Obviously there are lots of ways to get water without chlorine in it. I would appreciate if someone tried to answer the original question as to whether leaving water out overnight will be sufficient to remove chlorine.

As for buying water... I was trying to use a method that would not use resources unnecessarily. Why use bottled water when there is water that comes directly to my house through the pipes?
 
Look... Obviously there are lots of ways to get water without chlorine in it. I would appreciate if someone tried to answer the original question as to whether leaving water out overnight will be sufficient to remove chlorine.

As for buying water... I was trying to use a method that would not use resources unnecessarily. Why use bottled water when there is water that comes directly to my house through the pipes?

Easy, man. You haven't gotten a straight answer because it's a difficult question that depends on many variables. Try googling "chlorine evaporation rate.". Temperature, humidity, vessel shape, concentration, all play a role here. Letting it sit for 24 hours will reduce chlorine. At what rate? Who knows.
 
Easy, man. You haven't gotten a straight answer because it's a difficult question that depends on many variables. Try googling "chlorine evaporation rate.". Temperature, humidity, vessel shape, concentration, all play a role here. Letting it sit for 24 hours will reduce chlorine. At what rate? Who knows.

Thanks. Has anyone tried the "let it sit out" method? What were the results?

If no one really knows, maybe it would be a good experiment for me to get some test strips and test the chlorine levels of water straight out of the tap, after sitting overnight, from the brita filter, and maybe compare that to bottled water and distilled water. I'll update if I choose to go this method.
 
rappinkapc:

I have been brewing for the past 6 years. When I first started I too was in search of the perfect beer. I would trot down to the local grocery store with my 3, 5 gallon water bottles fill them up and then lug them down to my basement to use to brew beer.

I did this for almost 4 years until I went and talked to the local water department head. I asked him about our towns water quality. He said that the only additive to our water was chlorine. He then said that if you fill up your water bottles and let them sit overnight with the lid off that the chlorine would disapate.

I was somewhat skeptical and thought that boiling the water with campden tabs and letting it sit overnight was the happy medium. I did this for about 10 - 15 batches.

I then ran out of campden tabs when getting ready to boil water one time. I went ahead and just boiled the water and let it sit overnight. I did this for about 10 - 15 batches.

Last spring I did not have time to boil my water so I said what the hell and just filled up my water bottles and let them sit overnight and used them the next day.

The moral to this story. There was no taste difference between all three methods and the filler up and forget it is the method I use now.

Hope this helps.

TD
 
I don't do any of that stuff. Water goes straight from my tap into the kettle, I heat it to strike temp. then into the mashtun it goes. I've done this in 4 different cities and I don't get any of these mystical off flavors that people worry about. I really doubt that anyone could taste these chlorophenols from tap water unless they used swimming pool water. I sort of think that most of the people who freak about this sort of thing are fish people and like to mess with water anyway.
 
I don't do any of that stuff. Water goes straight from my tap into the kettle, I heat it to strike temp. then into the mashtun it goes. I've done this in 4 different cities and I don't get any of these mystical off flavors that people worry about. I really doubt that anyone could taste these chlorophenols from tap water unless they used swimming pool water. I sort of think that most of the people who freak about this sort of thing are fish people and like to mess with water anyway.

Well I am certainly one of those phish people. But when your beer smells of Bandaids, and it doesn't take much chlorine to affect that wort, then you need to do something about it. If you can smell the faintest bit of chlorine in your water, it will be very detrimental to your beer.
 
I've never tried leaving my brewing water overnight to get rid of the chlorine, but I have done it with drinking water. A jug of water in the fridge overnight had no taste or smell of chlorine 12 hours later. Based on the saying that if your water smells and tastes good, you should be able to brew with it, I think an overnight rest should be fine.

-a.
 
Thanks for all the replies. I was curious and bought some water test strips from a pet/aquarium store.
The baseline reading (straight from the tap) was lower than I expected. It was only about 0.25 ppm, which is less than the 0.94 ppm reported by my water district. There is not really much of a smell of chlorine straight from the tap either. I'm not sure if the strips I bought are precise enough for me to tell if there is much of a change in chlorine after leaving it out overnight, but I will report back anyway.
On a side note, the strips also tested for total hardness, total alkalinity, and pH, which all matched pretty close to the published water report.
 
If you are so concerned about doing this brew organic and not using many resources, why not collect you rain water?? There is a brewery doing this. Oh...and you may want to build a fire for your boil. That would minimize the amount of resources utilized as well. Good luck!!
 
The other consideration is if you are doing a full volume boil anyway. That will drive off the chlorine. Correct me somebody if I'm wrong, but I don't think chloramines boil off. My town adds that, so I use campden, but to tell the truth, I don't think I tasted it before I started using it.
 
OT, but...

The other consideration is if you are doing a full volume boil anyway. That will drive off the chlorine.
True as far as I know, but couldn't some of the trichlorophenols already have formed during the mash? And boiling after they've been formed wouldn't boil them off?

Correct me somebody if I'm wrong, but I don't think chloramines boil off. My town adds that, so I use campden, but to tell the truth, I don't think I tasted it before I started using it.
True. Chloramine can be removed by metabisulphite, Vitamin C, Activated Carbon Filtering or superchlorination (According to Wikipedia)

However there are some people (and some other people) that claim Chloromine does boil off with a 20 minute boil.

Personally I boil the water and add some metabisulphite.
 
Chloramine became popular as I recall because regular Chlorine would dissipate in the water system and leave the water & piping unprotected from the bad stuff. So they pump in something that lingers a lot longer.

Several sources report that leaving your water container in sunlight will speed up the off gassing process.
IMO if you can afford a quality filtration system for your drinking & brewing water you should have one.
 
I have been using campden tablets lately, and believe that they do help the taste...I have pretty good water, and the only issue that I wanted to tackle was the cholorine.

I do have a question, I believe that I have read that 1 tablet treats 15 gallons, and I only use 14 in a batch (before evaporation, and loss to mash tun). My question is that if I add 14.25 to hlt and later add a gallon or so to mash tun straight from sink to drop temp, does the campden permeate through batch to manage chlorine levels or not?

Thanks
 
I worked on pools for 5 years and I can tell you that chlorine hates the sun and will burn off in direct sunlight. In fact, we used to add a product called Cyanuric acid (basically a sunscreen for the chlorine) to help prevent burnoff. If you're worried about it, put the tap water in a clear container and let it sit in the sun to burn the chlorine off. This may also lower the Ph of your water after the chlorine is burned off.

I can also inform you that the chlorine you smell is actually "combined chlorine". Combined is a mixture of free and used up chlorine floating around the air. This occurs more in indoor pools.

Bottom line, let it sit out overnight or burn that stuff off using the sun for free!
 
I've heard this is what you can do to remove chlorine odors from your water.

Again Ive heard this I do not know this as a fact. (I heard this from a aquarium owner, fish keeper )


Take a simple aquarium air pump and a piece of air line plugged at end. with mass small holes punched in it. Just like you see in a fish tank but with out the stone.

Apparently the air bubbles will help release the chlorine taste and odor.
 
I just use my big 10", filter.:ban:

It's a filter that goes under the sink for the cold water. I chucked the filter that came with it, which only removes about 60% of chlorine, for the next more expensive filter, that does 97+%. Total cost under $50. Better tasting water, as well.

Much better and cheaper long term solution than those little brita or faucet filters, buying spring water, or using camden tabs or KMS.

Rich
 
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