Campden Tablets.....

[Brownalemikie]

Anyone notice any obvious improvement in flavor when using Campden Tablets with tap water? Thanks in advance.

 

[Invertalon]

Yes, especially if your tap water has chlorine or chloramines. Chlorine will off-gas itself if you leave your mash/sparge water out overnight, or filter through a proper carbon filter. Chloramines can only be eliminated with something like campden or vitamin-C (ascorbic acid), or proper carbon filtration. Otherwise, you can run into some flavor issues.

Not all city water uses Chloramines, so you need to contact your water company. For example, Cleveland just uses free chlorine in the city water.

Campden is easy enough to use... 1/4 tablet per 5-gallon.

 

[chris000]

... Chloramines will not be taken care of by sitting overnight or carbon filtering, ....

That is not correct. You can filter Chloramines out, but you either need a proper sized catalytic carbon filter or a very long bed contact time in a regular filter. The later can be impracticable (too large of a filter or very slow flow)

 

[Invertalon]

That is not correct. You can filter Chloramines out, but you either need a proper sized catalytic carbon filter or a very long bed contact time in a regular filter. The later can be impracticable (too large of a filter or very slow flow)

Oops! Not sure what I was thinking earlier... You are correct! Edited my post above.

 

[chazzman]

Campden is terrific in many ways. It can be used as a gentle preservative if you use less than one tablet (550 mg) per gallon. Using more will mess with your yeast. I brew NA batches,
so I can't rely on alcohol to fight bacteria that may infect my brew. Also if you crush say
half a dozen tabs into a gallon jug and fill/mix it with water you have a cheap sanitizer that
will not harm you or your clothes like bleach or Star-san. No rinsing needed after using
this sanitizer. Five to ten cents a gallon. Beat that with a stick if you can!

 

[dr_bollinger]

I accidentally forgot to use campden in a batch. It tastes notably "medicinal" -- there's an unpleasant plasticy, iodine, hospital flavour and aroma. It's no good. Never again.

I brew with Toronto tap water, which has chloramines.

 

[Brownalemikie]

Thanks for the replies guys. I'm brewing this morning and will try Campden for the first time. Won't know the results for about 5 weeks.