Chloramine in Water: How much of a problem?

My city water has 2.82ppm of chloramines and 0.4ppm chlorine. How much of a problem is this for brewing? I'm more concerned about the chloramine since there is a lot more of it and chlorine boils off.

Chloromines are a problem for brewers because it can lead to medicinal off flavors in your beer and won't boil off like chlorine. It is also very difficult to filter out. It can be filtered out to some degree with an activated carbon filter, but the water must remain in contact with the carbon for quite some time. Which means running the water through the filter VERY SLOWLY.

Now the good news. One campden tablet (potassium metabisulfate) will reduce the chloromines and chlorine to insignificant levels of sulfate and chloride ions in 20 gallons of water in minutes at room temperature!

Thanks. I see that Northern Brewer has some. I'll check it out.

Campden is also useful to have around if you do ciders.

what is the off flavor from chlorimine, and how do you test for it? I have an off flavor I would relate to acidic grapefruit. I use well water it is hard, and I am sure it has high levels of both chlorine and chlorimine.

thanks,
Adam

do most water purifiers get rid of this? is there anything they dont get rid of?

You end up with chlorophenols if the water has chloramine in it. Supposedly it tastes medicinal or like band-aids.

could the band-aid flavor be inerperatd...interprated...(i cant spell right now) as a plasticky flavor? I've noticed this in some of my recent brews and I have suspicions re: the water. I have noticed an increasing chlorine/pool water smell from my water for the past 6 months. I even cut my last brew w/ 50% Ro water since it was a APA and I get only hard a$$ well water.

sorry, it's late and I'm a bit

I brewed a couple of beers with treated water and then bought bottled water.. haven't looked back.

Both batches had a weird off flavor that was not very pleasant. I think I scrapped about half of a batch easily because of it.

I've got the same water issue as well. I do buy gallon jugs b/c of this. Obviously I can save a few $ and time running around with the campden tablets. Are they worth a try? Wouldn't the campden tablet give a flavor also? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

The chemical reaction that occurs when adding campden tablets to water with chloromines will reduce the chloromines to insignificant levels of sulfate and chloride ions that will be undetectable to the taste.

johnsma22 said:

The chemical reaction that occurs when adding campden tablets to water with chloromines will reduce the chloromines to insignificant levels of sulfate and chloride ions that will be undetectable to the taste.

Click to expand...

IF adding after primary fermentation, won't this also kill the yeast?
I am curious about trying these as I artifically carb anyway.

I'm pretty sure you do the metabisulfite treatment before you start brewing.