Well water cut with RO?

[bradthebold]

I just moved into a new house with a well. The water is hard and there is a small (~3gal) RO system for the kitchen sink. What is my best strategy for getting usable brewing water? I really would rather avoid having to wait however long it takes to generate 3 tanks of RO just to brew one batch if possible. Can I use 3/8gals RO or should I cut with more or just use all RO?

 

[Gnomebrewer]

3 parts RO to 5 parts well water would cut your alkalinity to about 120ppm, which is at the upper limits of manageable for pale beers with acid additions (assuming lactic acid - that's about the flavour threshold). All RO would be preferable though. Can't you collect RO water and store it before brew day?

 

[bradthebold]

I can if it's my only choice. I know I'm going to forget once though and have to wait or not be able to brew on a planned brew day waiting for water. I will get a TDS meter and check on the RO system and it looks like as long as it's under 20, I can just treat it as distilled. For some reason, my kitchen sink is the only faucet in the house that isn't run through the softener, which is probably hard on the RO membrane.

 

[Bobby_M]

You can put a tee on you RO output line, then a ball valve then run that into a 6 gallon bucket with a float valve. It will make you 6 gal of RO.

You may want to cut for darker beers but anything pale will need quite a bit of acid.

 

[bradthebold]

My wife may not like buckets slowly filling in the kitchen floor, but I'll look into a float valve setup. If I can just tee into a fermenter that fills the night before, that's probably the least hassle.

 

[Bobby_M]

My wife may not like buckets slowly filling in the kitchen floor, but I'll look into a float valve setup. If I can just tee into a fermenter that fills the night before, that's probably the least hassle.

The 1/4" OD PE tubing is easy to route to other locations so you're not limited to a bucket on the kitchen floor. However, even if you have to have the bucket sitting there, it's only for a few hours. With a float, that few hours can be over night and you can even put it in the sink in case the float fails.

 

[bradthebold]

The 1/4" OD PE tubing is easy to route to other locations so you're not limited to a bucket on the kitchen floor. However, even if you have to have the bucket sitting there, it's only for a few hours. With a float, that few hours can be over night and you can even put it in the sink in case the float fails.

That's a good idea. It's probably too much effort to get down into the finished basement, but leaving it in the sink overnight would work.

 

[bradthebold]

I just got my cheap TDS meter. It reads 246 TDS vs 290 from Ward's, and it says 24 for my RO water. I have no idea how old those filters or membrane is though, so I don't know if that's what it always is or if filters are starting to get clogged or the membrane is degrading. It's enough, especially with any meter error, I'd rather know what's in the water vs just thinking it's equivalent to distilled. I don't want to pay for another test if it's just going to continue getting worse and the membrane needs replaced, then it's a completely different number after that too.

 

[Bobby_M]

It actually should improve after another several gallons. If I let my system sit a while, it creeps up to 15-20 but as I let it run it will get as low as 7.

 

[Oldskewl]

I fill 1 gallon water jugs out of my RO Filter at the kitchen sink and store 8 gallons til brew day. Usually just fill one per day.