ESIL Water?

[Falcon3]

So in another thread, somebody brought up this "new" treatment for water. I know very little about it, but many of us were skeptical of how much "better" it's supposed to be for drinking/brewing/baptising babies/etc....it strikes me as selling snake oil.

Any of our science gurus know anything about this and could dumb down the biology and chemistry for us regular folks or totally refute what this company is claiming?

Original Thread:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/too-active-fermentation-482929/

ESIL Website:
http://www.esilwater.com/research-hw.html
http://mineva.com/

Thanks!

 

[Falcon3]

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/04/prweb11724141.htm

More data, although not terribly forthcoming with thieir actual numbers. Interesting that the ESIL water magically produced .5% more ABV. This means that on an average 1.060 beer with an average 75% attenuation, the ESIL water purportedly showed 82% apparent attenuation in 2 of their trial beers. This seems like a substantial difference.

Also for the ESIL electrolysis to work, don't you have to add an electrolyte to solution so that the water is conductive enough for the electrolysis can occur?

 

[PrinceOfThePoint]

I'm skeptical that it can have a significant effect. However, with oxygen being as important as it is to fermentation, the idea of treating water to remove biological and chemical components that might otherwise compete for oxygen is at least rational. But with beer being such a subjective experience, a lot more will need to be done analytically to prove its worth. What I'm wondering is whether these "improvements" are mostly a product of crappy starting water, and whether those of us who have good starting water as well as good oxygenation would ever see a real benefit.

Thanks for bringing it up

 

[ajdelange]

It's clearly BS as no details of how the process works are given. We can hypothesize. Any water dosed with salt NaCl and passed into an electrolytic cell will produce lye and hydrogen gas at the cathode and chloride gas at the anode. If the anode and cathode are separated by a barrier which prevents mixing but permits the passage of ions the chlorine gas from the anode can be piped to the cathode where it dissolves in the lye forming bleach. This is the basis for the other hoax water systems such as Kangen. It is also the basis for modern swimming pool chlorination systems. No chemicals involved other than plain old NaCl.

Bleach, or rather the OCl- ion and the acid HOCl are oxidizing agents. If, then, the water has appreciable BOD/COD the bleach can meet some of it. So the scheme can be used to disinfect water. If fact that is what is done, as noted above, for swimming pools. Or you can just add some bleach or rely on the bleach added by your water authority.

As for a 'neutralizing heavy metals', yes. A lead ion would get reduced to metallic lead and would presumably plate onto the cathode just as the sodium ions do (but would not react with the water as the metallic sodium does).

"The electrical current forces all possible reactions in the water to take place." Pure BS.

I note that some of the usual claims that go with hoax water such as "It hydrates me better" are left to the testimonials. The company is not making a false claim if all they do is repeat what one of their customers said. Nevertheless there is a strong aroma of snake oil here. I really hope it isn't true that the BA took these people on as a sponsor. That would damage their credibility greatly.

 

[Falcon3]

^^^ This is the quality of response I was looking for The ESIL website is full of errors and typos, including calling drinkable water "portable" instead of "potable." I was amused that the "scientific" study they provide as proof of their system on the ESIL website was less than one page long and contained 0 citations or technical descriptions.

I would also assume that if water used for brewing was treated with the electrolysis described above, it would need to be RE-treated to remove chlorine by using Campden or charcoal filtering.

 

[ajdelange]

Keep in mind that I am hypothecating here as to what they do based on other similar scams. Assuming I'm right if the water has COD then some of the chlorine will be consumed in meeting that demand (but we'd have to worry about THMs being formed). If, OTOH,the chlorine is simply vented then we wouldn't and there would be no chlorine in the water but it would be hard to justify the claims about killing bacteria. Perhaps a careful reading might reveal that they don't actually make that claim. These guys are pretty good at being careful about how they keep out of the clutches of the regulators. Within the Kangen system they do it by having the local (US) dealers repeat the claims of the Japanese company (which is outside US regulation). The company itself does not make any claims in the US. As the sales force is only parroting they are not techinically advancing the false claims.

In any case the chlorine that is produced is chlorine, not chloramine, and would pass from the water on standing or aeration as would be the case with chlorine introduced by a utility.

 

[agrazela]

But, but...

It's got electrolytes!

 

[Hermit]

I note that some of the usual claims that go with hoax water such as "It hydrates me better" are left to the testimonials. The company is not making a false claim if all they do is repeat what one of their customers said.

I can get you a dozen email testimonials in short order all from different domains. Two dozen will take a little longer. More and I might have to actually dip into my own pocket. If you don't have to 'vet' a testimonial then it is as good as nothing in my book.

 

[ajdelange]

I hope this helps to clear up the issues you have faced trying to understand our products and technology.

It should make it clear to anyone who knows a little chemistry that you don't or that if you do you are randomly grabbing terms from chemistry and engineering and trying to use them to dupe the gullible.

 

[ajdelange]

Interesting. jkbrown (ESIL) had two posts on here. My No. 9 was a response to the first and he responded to it with

Not at all, I am simply trying to post a little blurb about ESIL on a home brew forum. It would be too much to go into great detail, with 40000 lab tests to reference and 25 years of developing anodes that do not break down..etc

The bottom line i'm trying to get to is that we are not a hoax, or trying to dupe the gullible.

You seem to have very specific questions about this and I encourage you to get in touch with one of our engineers, or research crew. I can set that up for you, just send an email to [email protected]

You are certainly not the first to be skepticle, which we understand. Let us answer your questions, please.

Since then, both posts have disappeared. I didn't think it was possible to delete a post any more. I suppose that we should all be flattered that they realize that the powerful minds of the Brewing Science forum are not susceptible to fringe science.

 

[day_trippr]

The only way a user can have a post deleted is to appeal to the tender mercies of our crack moderator team.
And on that score, I'd wager the success of such an appeal is in the low single digits over the entire history of HBT.

Perhaps the mods decided jkbrown was technically a vendor and have put him in the virtual penalty box until he signs up as same...

Cheers!

 

[jmsbrwn34]

I must have been flagged as a vendor, which I apologize for. I did not realize the limitations involved when posting responses.

My posts were removed by the moderator.

Apologies for causing such a debate around ESIL technology, and for overstepping the boundaries debating a product.

I'll leave you all with a message of happy brewing.

Regards,
James @ ESIL