One more water report

[Brew_Dude41]

I am running my municipal water through a carbon filter, and sent it out for testing the results are as follows:

pH 7.3
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est, ppm 200
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 0.33
Cations / Anions, me/L 3.2 / 2.9

ppm

Sodium, Na 19
Potassium, K 5
Calcium, Ca 31
Magnesium, Mg 8
Total Hardness, CaCO3 111
Nitrate, NO3-N 0.6 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 19
Chloride, Cl 38
Carbonate, CO3 < 1.0
Bicarbonate, HCO3 38
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 31
Total Phosphorus, P 0.39
Total Iron, Fe < 0.01
"<" - Not Detected / Below Detection Limit

So my question is my chloride high and what should i do about it (campden tabs, preboil?). I also think that i am bit on the hard side and should probably add distilled water to soften it up.

Teach me oh wise ones...

 

[brewing_clown]

Looks like nice brewing water to me. Definitely not hard. Chloride is good, but I think you were asking about chlorine?

Your carbon filter should get rid of chlorine/chloramine.

 

[douglasbarbin]

Looks like nice brewing water to me. Definitely not hard. Chloride is good, but I think you were asking about chlorine?

Your carbon filter should get rid of chlorine/chloramine.

You are right about his brewing water being good (nice and soft), but you are wrong about his filter getting rid of chlorine or chloramine. It won't.

OP, you will need a reverse osmosis membrane to filter out any chlorine or chloramine if you find it is noticeable in your beer. My guess is that it won't be. Alternately, you can treat your water with campden to remove chlorine.

Overall, you have soft water that looks pretty damn good for brewing. There isn't much in it, which is ideal because you can add whatever you need. Adding is much easier than subtracting when it comes to water profiles.

 

[Brew_Dude41]

Ok, thanks for the feedback. I miss took the chloride for chlorine/chloramine and thought that i need to remove it.
To douglasbarbin's point I am not sure how much Chlorine makes it through this filter. That was the main reason i picked it to try and remove that specifically, and seems to work pretty well. What i will do is test for it against my straight tap water, and a sample from the pool using those testing chemicals this evening and i will post the results.
Thanks again.

 

[brewing_clown]

... but you are wrong about his filter getting rid of chlorine or chloramine. It won't.

Everything I've read tells me a carbon filter is the best way to remove chlorine from water.

 

[mchrispen]

Carbon filters, when used very slowly (much slower than you expect) can remove chlorine. Chloramine can also be removed, but the necessary contact time with activated charcoal is very long. Unless you are using a very large filter and running very slowly, most likely some residual chlorine and chloramine may pass through. It will certainly reduce the amount considerably, but very little chlorine amounts can still cause chloraphenols. Chlorine can also destroy an RO filter. Also - many municipalities use high levels of chlorination at different times to deal with line breaks or detected organic levels.

The best solution (IMO) is to treat the water with Campden. It's cheap, the reaction is nearly immediate and has been proven effective and removes both chlorine and chloramine. No off flavors.

 

[mabrungard]

To give you an idea of what it takes to effectively remove chlorine and chloramine, a standard 10" undersink canister with a carbon block filter can be remove chlorine when flowing at about 1 gal/min. That is a fairly minor stream of water from a hose. To remove chloramine with that same filter, the flow rate needs to be around 0.1 gal/min which amounts to a fast drip out of a hose. Unless you are preparing your water way ahead of time, chloramine removal with a filter like this is just a huge waste of your time. Campden tablets really are a great option when dealing with chloramine removal.