Primo RO Water Refill at Walmart

[ChuckS1]

Question for Buckeye_Hydro. Would I benefit from (or even be able to use) an RO system with my Rainsoft softener and well water that looks like tea when I bypass my softener? What about all the extra sodium I have in my softened water? Does the RO system remove that extra sodium?

Right now I'm getting my water from Wal Mart's refill machine.

 

[Buckeye_Hydro]

Sure - make sure to feed the softened water to your RO. The RO does a good job removing sodium. Many times, a drinking water RO setup will suffice. Less commonly, a whole-house RO system is required.

A softener uses a special kind of cation resin to exchange Na+ for Ca++ and Mg++ (primarily). Water w/out Ca and Mg is said to be "soft." You may also have some other issues with your well water like iron and/or Mn and/or tannins. Have you had your well water tested?
https://www.buckeyehydro.com/drinking-water-test/
Russ

 

[ChuckS1]

Lots of iron and sediment in my well water. for the amount I brew, looks like Wal Mart might be the better option. Thanks for the reply.

 

[Buckeye_Hydro]

The iron and sediment should be largely gone after the softener.

You may want to also consider iron out salt.

 

[ewibolo]

I feel sorry for those people giving you weird looks. I say beer on and don’t worry about it. They’re there for purchase

I used to buy distilled by the gallon at Walmart, but ever since the pandemic, I can feel people looking down on me as I lug 15 single gallons to the front. I am actually going to check out the RO station that was just introduced to my local Walmart in the next few days. I figure filling two of them shouldn't be an issue (and a lot less stares from people thinking I'm hoarding water for the apocalypse). I would assume if they are advertising it as RO, it should be RO.

 

[JohnDBrewer]

I have a system I only use for brewing. Is there a best practice to maintain it between brews?

 

[Buckeye_Hydro]

You should use any RO system at least once a week. Keep it in a conditioned space, out of sunlight.

 

[AlexKay]

I see advertisements for tankless RO systems. What are the pluses and minuses of these? (Compactness sure seems like a plus.)

 

[day_trippr]

The plus is space, the down-side is latency: sans a storage tank of some kind you're down to the actual throughput of the system to pour a glass of water.

[edit] For example, my 100 gpd system produces roughly 8 ounces of water per minute. That's a long time to pour a glass of water Otoh, the small (4 g) pressure tank that services the small/cheap RO faucet at my brew sink will pour 8 ounces in about 10 seconds.

But that only matters if you're using the RO system for more than just brewing. If you're filling a rig with 20 gallons of RO the typical small pressure tanks that come with most kits really don't help that much...

Cheers!

 

[Buckeye_Hydro]

Tanks are used in RO systems to accumulate purified water so that when you go to get a glass of water, you have ready-made, pressurized water. Otherwise you'd have to wait several minutes for the RO to produce a glass full of water.

If you don't want a tank, then the tradeoff is you have to use an RO membrane that will produce an outlet flow like someone would expect from a kitchen faucet - that's about 2 gallons per minute. That would require:
2.0 * 1440 = a 28000 gpd RO membrane. As you might imagine - that membrane and surrounding equipment will be quite a bit pricier than the typical 100 gpd membrane used by home brewers.

 

[AlexKay]

I was looking at:

Reverse Osmosis Water Filtration System for Home

600 gpd. means 0.42 gal/min., which seems workable. The thing that worries me is that it looks like they use proprietary filters, so if the company goes **** up... The other thing that worries me is that they don't spec. a TDS after filtering.

(Sorry for the thread hijack. More on topic: I also cart a dozen single-gallon water bottles through the grocery store, and feel like I'm a survivalist who should also be stocking up on dried goods and beef jerky.)

 

[day_trippr]

Definitely recommend sticking with systems that use standard cartridges to provide both the best possible pricing and flexibility (like if you decide to upgrade an element like the membrane from one manufacturer to a better one). Competition matters!

Cheers!

 

[Buckeye_Hydro]

I'd recommend you steer clear of that RO system.

 

[AlexKay]

All right! A nod’s as good as a wink. Off I go with my tape measure to check under my sink.

 

[RolandD]

My experience with RO water from Wal-Mart is that it tasted salty compared with the RO water from other dispensers in the area. I have five businesses with RO dispensers in the area to choose from and use the four that aren't Wal-Mart.

 

[IslandLizard]

If you're filling a rig with 20 gallons of RO the typical small pressure tanks that come with most kits really don't help that much...

But you can start collecting RO water, in a large enough vessel, a day (or 2) before brewing.
You need to make your yeast starter too a few days before brew day, so just plan your water too.

Or you could get a large enough pressure tank, so you can brew any time at will. When the tank is full, the RO system will stop generating automatically.

 

[day_trippr]

Of course all of that is possible at cost plus space, but given I have the tiny tank for faucet duty and can put 20 gallons in my rig in under 5 hours - without using any of the stored RO in said tiny tank - that's good enough for me...

Cheers!

 

[DonT]

@Buckeye_Hydro, looking at your systems... wanting this for brewing only, do I need a RODI system or would a RO work fine. What about the Chloraguard Stage? Our water service does add chloramine at the level of 1.8 annual running average, whatever that means... Thanks

 

[ewibolo]

This one works for me. I brew ten gallon batches and start cool collecting water day before with no problems.

 

[day_trippr]

There really is no need at all for a DI stage...

Cheers!

 

[Buckeye_Hydro]

@Buckeye_Hydro, looking at your systems... wanting this for brewing only, do I need a RODI system or would a RO work fine. What about the Chloraguard Stage? Our water service does add chloramine at the level of 1.8 annual running average, whatever that means... Thanks

RO only - not RODI for this purpose.
You'll want to add the chloramine option.

 

[madscientist451]

I can feel people looking down on me as I lug 15 single gallons to the front.

Jeeze all this time I thought people were looking down at me because of my "DEPLORABLE" T-shirt, I never thought anyone would care what's in my cart.
I'm lucky that the town water here is pretty good, but I do buy distilled when brewing lagers and IPAS and I'm making water adjustments.

 

[NSMikeD]

This is a topic with the reef saltwater tank community where the stakes are much higher due to the sensitivity of very expensive corals. Are a reef hobbyist, thus crosses over to my brewing habit. Here are some thoughts.
to repeat myself, small amounts of trace elements can wipe out tens of thousands of dollars of livestock in coral reef tank so the hobby takes this most seriously


1. many reefers report success with walmart RO water. While RODI (Reverse Osmosis Deionized) at 0TDS (zero dissolved solids) is the standard, the Walmart RO is sufficiently low in TDS to use in a reef tank.

2 while a full set up is good, a portable unit under $100 that hooks up to a kitchen sink faucet or a washing machine connection is all you need. I have one such unit that is rated 75 gal per day and I make 5 gal of rodi @ 0 TDS in about one hour each week. Keep in mind this is RODI at 0. An RO unit should be faster.

3. if you have hard water you can add some cheap pre filters to the unit to ease the workload of the RO chamber. Saves you money and time.
.
4. Spend a few dollars for an inline TDS meter. They usually are an option with the unit but can be easily added to an existing unit. It takes the guessing game out of when to replace cartridges. I have a dial probe, one just before the DI and one right after so I know how both my RO and my DI are doing and because it’s for corals know precisely the TDS.


with my cheap unit and making 5 gals weekly and an extra 5 gals monthly my unit goes a little more than a year before needing to replace my cartridges. 3 years on the more expensive on (off hand I can’t recall if that’s the RO or 5he a DI)

Summary, Having a unit in the house is a game changer for ease. You don’t need to spend more than $100 for a suitable unit (my TDS meter confirms this). Walmart is reliable if you don’t mind lugging water home.

Fwiw, my local water is fairly neutral. I use the mid points of the most recent water reports and add the salts to reach my desired water profile. That results in, IMHO, extremely good beer, if I do day do myself. Mind you I have Clean slate water on hand to start with on brew days but I find it easier to use the tap (and the calcium sulfur mg etc that comes with it) and adjust accordingly. It’s not precise but I am not going to argue with my taste buds especially if they tell me not to make for extra work.

Hope this helps.

 

[crazyjake19]

It may be a regional thing, but I've never actually seen an RO or distilled water dispenser in any Walmart (or any other grocery store) around here. They do sell 1 gallon jugs of distilled water for 82 cents each.

I recently decided to jump in to water chemistry. Our city's water report was useless for brewing water info, and contacting the water department was even less helpful. Our city water supply is drawn from 3 different reservoirs throughout the year, which would require 3 separate Ward tests and knowing when the sources are switched. I considered a LaMotte test, but decided to just buy an RO system for home.

Even if I could locate an RO dispenser, having an RO unit at home is way easier and more convenient than lugging gallons of water home.

 

[Galette]

I am questioning this water refill station have RO unless they have giant tank in the back room but I doubt it…I will thing the 5 gallons jugs might be RO …
Just a thought

 

[rtstrider]

Does anyone get there brewing water from one of those Primo RO Water refill stations at Walmart? Seems like a good deal at .37/gallon but as with anything from Walmart, quality can be questionable. I'm worried that it may vary from one store to the next. Anyone ever get a water report on that water?
Mike

I have not read through the full post here. My experience with the Walmart RO machines around here are they are essentially useless. I was pulling more TDS from their machines than I pulled from my unfiltered home city water. When I looked at the last serviced dates on the machines the most recent one was 2 years ago. I quit going there and use the Glacier machines at Publix. They service these monthly. Most TDS I've ever pulled is 1. Home is around 50-70 unfiltered. Walmart was almost 80 TDS. I'd have to recommend purchasing a cheap TDS meter when using those Primo machines.

Edit: Yes I contacted Primo and they weren't even aware these machines hadn't been touched since 2018/2019

 

[deuc224]

I built my RODI myself, i wanted to start with nothing and ill add in minerals myself, but I wanted a clean slate. Now dont get me wrong, I left some RODI water in a lowes bucket for 2 weeks and opened it up and it was literally eating the plastic bucket slowly. So if you do go DI, make sure you are adding salt and minerals as soon as possible, cuz DI water will eat metal just as easy.

 

[abweatherley]

Not in the new house we live in but the old House, we installed an RO system and it was busted within 6 months, because the municipal water was so hard the membrane just got destroyed. @Buckeye_Hydro it was a GE system.

I Use the gallon jugs of distilled water in my brewery since it's only a one gallon brewery. If I went back to to 5 gallon batches I would just get an inline water filter from the faucet to the kettle.

 

[agentbud]

what does the DI in RODI stand for?

 

[RufusBrewer]

My local Whole Foods has bulk water, Reverse Osmosis and De-ionizsd water. The RO has <6 ppm, de-ionized has 0 ppm. I consider them to be close enough to distilled water that I treat them as such. I contacted the company that services the machines and they confirmed my expectations.

How well and how often are the primo machines Wal-Mart serviced? If you are concerned, get a ppm meter and chlorine/choir a mine test strips and see if they come back low enough for you to use.