Using bottled water for all grain?

[chemman14]

My LHBS suggests boiling water then letting it cool to drop out all chlorine and hardness or whatever is in our water, or using bottled. The time factor was not worth it for me. My neigborhood grocery, literally, less than 2 blocks away has a water dispenser. It is $1.35 for 5 gallons. Since I did not have a 5 gallon container handy I bought one of the 5 gallon ones pre-packaged inside for about $13. I think a refill is $5-6, but now that I have the plastic bottle I can just refill when I need for $1.35. Another bonus is the H2O vending machine is outside so I can stock up at any hour. Since I am reusing the bottle it is cheap and environmentally responsible. Also the bottle looks very similar to Better Bottles wondering if they could be used for a carboy? Will have to look closer when I brew next. Just finished my MLT a few days ago, maybe first allgrain this weekend.

Yeah, I was thinking of possibly going this route as well. Don't you need more than 5 gallons for each batch of beer?
I also called my city and had them send me a water report. I will receive that once I return back to Southern California.

 

[Brewinator]

As others have said in this thread, boiling does not remove cholramines.

Campden tablets (potassium or sodium metabisulphite) or good ol' vitamin C will remove that.

My LHBS suggests boiling water then letting it cool to drop out all chlorine and hardness or whatever is in our water, or using bottled. The time factor was not worth it for me. My neigborhood grocery, literally, less than 2 blocks away has a water dispenser. It is $1.35 for 5 gallons. Since I did not have a 5 gallon container handy I bought one of the 5 gallon ones pre-packaged inside for about $13. I think a refill is $5-6, but now that I have the plastic bottle I can just refill when I need for $1.35. Another bonus is the H2O vending machine is outside so I can stock up at any hour. Since I am reusing the bottle it is cheap and environmentally responsible. Also the bottle looks very similar to Better Bottles wondering if they could be used for a carboy? Will have to look closer when I brew next. Just finished my MLT a few days ago, maybe first allgrain this weekend.

 

[Bobby_M]

The problem with buying any water besides distilled is that you don't know what's in it. The dispenser might be giving you RO water which is close to distilled. It might be local tap water run through a simple carbon filter which will not do much more than strip organics and undissolved solids (as well as chlorine/chloramine if it's run slowly enough). If I had to buy my water due to KNOWING that my tap water was off the charts too hard, I'd buy an RO system for $100 which would be paid back pretty quickly. The cheapest I've found distilled water is $.88 a gallon at walmart.

 

[rico567]

The problem with buying any water besides distilled is that you don't know what's in it. The dispenser might be giving you RO water which is close to distilled. It might be local tap water run through a simple carbon filter which will not do much more than strip organics and undissolved solids (as well as chlorine/chloramine if it's run slowly enough). If I had to buy my water due to KNOWING that my tap water was off the charts too hard, I'd buy an RO system for $100 which would be paid back pretty quickly. The cheapest I've found distilled water is $.88 a gallon at walmart.

For our extremely hard water, a plain RO system won't work. Have to have a multi-stage system incorporating a resin unit to get out the minerals, which are dissolved, not particulates. A multi-stage aquarium "reef tank" system such as this:

http://www.airwaterice.com/product/1TYPHOONIII/TYPHOON_III_AQUARIUM_RO_DI_75_or_100_GPD.html

....should do the trick (with our water). I've got the plumbing skills, just not sure if I want the capital investment, maintenance and upkeep.

 

[StunnedMonkey]

For our extremely hard water, a plain RO system won't work. Have to have a multi-stage system incorporating a resin unit to get out the minerals, which are dissolved, not particulates. A multi-stage aquarium "reef tank" system such as this:

http://www.airwaterice.com/product/1TYPHOONIII/TYPHOON_III_AQUARIUM_RO_DI_75_or_100_GPD.html

....should do the trick (with our water). I've got the plumbing skills, just not sure if I want the capital investment, maintenance and upkeep.

I used to run a reef aquarium and had a filtration system similar to that. Two things...first, it's S-L-O-W and one shouldn't expect to be filling up buckets on a whim. The one I used would do (maybe) two gallons an hour and you'd literally waste 3x as much water as you collected. Second, it's expensive, in water and materials. For beer I'd just get RO from the grocery before running something like that. In fact I still have my RO/DI system and I'd never consider bothering with it to produce brew water when I could get RO at the store at $1.95 for 5 gallons.

 

[waldoar15]

I use RO water for AG brewing and don't notice any thing "off" in my beer. It's possible that a beer judge might be able to find something wrong with it, but I can't. But then again, I don't brew Pilsners. <shrug>

 

[Bobby_M]

Once you have the RO or RO/DI system, you're most of the way there. You can easily run the output into a 15 gallon open head barrel and install a $10 float valve to stop filling when full.

As for long term water cost, the waste is something like 3-5 gallons per 1 gallon RO/DI. You can use the waste water for any non-drinking application like laundry or watering plants. Even if you let it go down the drain you'd use at most, 40 gallons for a 5 gallon batch. I don't know about you, but I pay my water company 20 cents for 40 gallons of water. It's the initial $100-200 for the system that's stopping me right now.

 

[Bobby_M]

I use RO water for AG brewing and don't notice any thing "off" in my beer. It's possible that a beer judge might be able to find something wrong with it, but I can't. But then again, I don't brew Pilsners. <shrug>

I think you have it backwards. RO water is perfect for pilsners with just a pinch of salts. However, if you're brewing porter/stout on 100% RO, no doubt your mash pH is in the 4's.

 

[StunnedMonkey]

As for long term water cost, the waste is something like 3-5 gallons per 1 gallon RO/DI. You can use the waste water for any non-drinking application like laundry or watering plants.

Now there's where the PITA factor comes in. Am I really going to collect 40 gallons of reusable waste water for every 10 gallons of brew water, and further schlep it all over the house for other purposes? I don't think so.

Hey, if someone has the time and space to use an RO/DI system to make brewing water, that's great. I was just pointing out that such a setup isn't as straightforward as turning a knob and quickly collecting several gallons of water on brew day. I had to use one for my reef tank and found it a serious pain. For my time, space, and money, I'll pay .40 a gallon for RO from someone else. But then again I'm a lazy sod.

 

[waldoar15]

I think you have it backwards. RO water is perfect for pilsners with just a pinch of salts. However, if you're brewing porter/stout on 100% RO, no doubt your mash pH is in the 4's.

Oops, I was thinking about the softness of the water there.

 

[arturo7]

Most supermarkets carry a decent brand of spring water. Locally it is Arrowhead and they have WQRs listed on their website. Spring water is usually not RO and the WQRs confirm this.

 

[Bobby_M]

Now there's where the PITA factor comes in. Am I really going to collect 40 gallons of reusable waste water for every 10 gallons of brew water, and further schlep it all over the house for other purposes? I don't think so.

Hey, if someone has the time and space to use an RO/DI system to make brewing water, that's great. I was just pointing out that such a setup isn't as straightforward as turning a knob and quickly collecting several gallons of water on brew day. I had to use one for my reef tank and found it a serious pain. For my time, space, and money, I'll pay .40 a gallon for RO from someone else. But then again I'm a lazy sod.

Well, you do have to go drive to the store to retrieve the water and pay more for it at the same time. You could just dump the waste water down the drain and you're still coming out ahead. "that's wasteful" say the quasi-environmental folks but when you buy RO water from the store, where do you think their waste water goes?

 

[chemman14]

Once you have the RO or RO/DI system, you're most of the way there. You can easily run the output into a 15 gallon open head barrel and install a $10 float valve to stop filling when full.

As for long term water cost, the waste is something like 3-5 gallons per 1 gallon RO/DI. You can use the waste water for any non-drinking application like laundry or watering plants. Even if you let it go down the drain you'd use at most, 40 gallons for a 5 gallon batch. I don't know about you, but I pay my water company 20 cents for 40 gallons of water. It's the initial $100-200 for the system that's stopping me right now.

why is 3-5 gallons wasted for every 1 gallon of water???

 

[StunnedMonkey]

why is 3-5 gallons wasted for every 1 gallon of water???

The waste water containing all the solids that are stripped out goes out one tube while the "clean" water goes out another. You get about 3x as much waste water as filtered water. Like I pointed out though, it's not like turning on a hose and getting water in real time. It takes hours to produce 10 gallons of water.

While I'd never bother with it for brewing as I said, if you have the space, time, and inclination it will produce some seriously stripped down water that you can use to build good brew water.

 

[Bobby_M]

Some of the more expensive membranes will do like a 100 gallons per day so that's 4 gallons an hour. You can get a pressurized membrane tank to hold 5/10 gallons but they are not cheap. It's a lot easier to put a float valve into a barrel/bucket.

When I had a reef aquarium, I just ran the system into the sump tank with a float valve and I never had to top off.

 

[StunnedMonkey]

When I had a reef aquarium, I just ran the system into the sump tank with a float valve and I never had to top off.

How big was your aquarium? My reef tank was 100 gallons and I was really into the hobby and then...I just lost interest. Nothing worse than losing interest in 100 gallons of reef tank. Talk about a pain to deal with. Never again will I have an aquarium. What a cash vacuum.

 

[Brewinator]

Arrowhead gives as good an idea what's in their water as a muni WQR is going to tell you.

http://www.bottledwaterweb.com/frontbottlers.do

Good Website for bottled water analysis.

The problem with buying any water besides distilled is that you don't know what's in it. The dispenser might be giving you RO water which is close to distilled. It might be local tap water run through a simple carbon filter which will not do much more than strip organics and undissolved solids (as well as chlorine/chloramine if it's run slowly enough). If I had to buy my water due to KNOWING that my tap water was off the charts too hard, I'd buy an RO system for $100 which would be paid back pretty quickly. The cheapest I've found distilled water is $.88 a gallon at walmart.

 

[Bobby_M]

How big was your aquarium? My reef tank was 100 gallons and I was really into the hobby and then...I just lost interest. Nothing worse than losing interest in 100 gallons of reef tank. Talk about a pain to deal with. Never again will I have an aquarium. What a cash vacuum.

No kidding, I only had a 55gal with a 20gal sump and it was a money pit. I was running dual 250w halides for hard corals too so I also had to crank my air conditioning. Luckily I was able to sell it when I needed to move.