Adventures in Chlorination...

[jsv1204]

So... With the intention of saving myself the cost of bottled water, I set myself up with a carbon-activated in-line filter and brewed my last batch with filtered, de-chlorinated tap water... Or so I thought!

Last nights first bottle o' the batch yielded such a band-aid stench it was almost unpalatable.

Come to find out that carbon filters aren't the end-all! What was mildly disturbing was that some midnight band-aid breath research revealed that a camden (campden?) tablet would have done the trick. I was surprised that I had never run across that bit of wisdom in the dozen or so brewing liquor articles I have read up to this point. The icing on the cake (head on the pint?) is that I have about 500 camden tablets sitting on my wine-stuff shelf...

Lesson learned!

Cheers...

 

[Yooper]

The great thing about campden is that it also works on chloramine- which many water suppliers are using instead of chlorine. Chloramine isn't filtered out by carbon filters, and it isn't boiled off. But a campden tablet will get rid of it!

 

[jsv1204]

The bitter part (ironically, this batch is a bitter) is going to be either muscling through 60 bottles of band-aid juice or dumping it... :'(

 

[jsv1204]

So disappointed. Next round mild ale had a somewhat reduced but dis-stink-tive band-aid odor despite generous Campden tablet usage. I have officially given up on our tap water. The only method I've had any success with is boiling and that was not stellar. Looks like it will be bottled water for the time being.