What do you use RO water for, besides brewing?

[day_trippr]

I can multiply the numbers in the city water report by 4.

I think that multiplier would be far smaller: I believe my system yields one part per four, and I think that's actually fairly typical of consumer level RO systems. That does not make the brine mineral concentration 4x stronger than the base water...

Cheers!

 

[Dog House Brew]

Haven’t bought mine yet, but I will soon. I could get by before my kid got a Panther Chameleon. That misting system has pushed me to it. I look forward to the RO options. I have 15 jugs and when I fill it is $90. Won’t take long to pay for a system.

 

[RyPA]

Haven’t bought mine yet, but I will soon. I could get by before my kid got a Panther Chameleon. That misting system has pushed me to it. I look forward to the RO options. I have 15 jugs and when I fill it is $90. Won’t take long to pay for a system.

My panther chameleon passed last August, I miss him. They are such cool animals

Did you get a Mist King?

 

[Dog House Brew]

Yes on Mist King, sorry for your loss.

 

[RyPA]

Yes on Mist King, sorry for your loss.

Solid choice, mine treated me well for 5 years, and thank you

 

[day_trippr]

Holy cow, that little dude is spectacular!

 

[Dog House Brew]

Our little man was almost lost to power outage this winter. Gave him shots and force fed him for 3 weeks before he ate a live bug. Herbert is year and a half now.

 

[RyPA]

Our little man was almost lost to power outage this winter. Gave him shots and force fed him for 3 weeks before he ate a live bug. Herbert is year and a half now.

Yeah, they are tough to keep, pretty much the only reason why I don't have 2-3 of them right now. I really want a Parsons.

You have to constantly monitor temp/humidity/UVB, keep bugs gutloaded, and worry about power outages. Finding a qualified vet is also nearly impossible. I may get another eventually, but am enjoying caring for only a dog at the moment.

 

[Buckeye_Hydro]

@Buckeye_Hydro or Bobby should correct me, but the chlorine/chloramine would be removed by the charcoal filter. The remaining metals & minerals would be removed by the RO system in the waste water. It’s this waste water that goes into the garden, perhaps a little more concentrated than straight hose water would be, but so far I haven’t seen adverse effects on my hops, grapes, tomatoes, etc.

We call RO System "waste water" CONCENTRATE because the dissolved minerals are concentrated in this water relative to the feedwater (tap water). It's tap water with most of the sediment removed, and the chlorine/chloramine treated. Then it's had about 20% of the pure H2O pulled out of it by the membrane.

So in determining if the concentrate is suitable for any particular use, the first thing to look at is the quality of the tap water. Some concentrate is better than some tap water. And the opposite is true in many cases as well.

Russ

 

[Dog House Brew]

Yeah, they are tough to keep, pretty much the only reason why I don't have 2-3 of them right now. I really want a Parsons.

You have to constantly monitor temp/humidity/UVB, keep bugs gutloaded, and worry about power outages. Finding a qualified vet is also nearly impossible. I may get another eventually, but am enjoying caring for only a dog at the moment.

I’ll second all of the above. Drove an hr to the only vet that would see him. No wonder their lifespan in the wild is so short. When he is gone, I’ll admire them from afar. More expensive that any dog I’ve owned. When you commit to one, you have to do what you have to do.

 

[gaviga]

I'm almost done installing my brewery's RO system (big thanks to Buckeye Hydro!), just need to tidy up a bit.
View attachment 820929

So I'm wondering what you guys who have plenty of RO water on hand use it for besides brewing and sanitizing?
I understand it's not tasty in coffee, or for drinking straight. Probably no tgood for ice cubes, either?
My wife's steam iron comes to mind, and car batteries.
What else?

I have had an RO in my houses for over 30 years. We use it for almost all cooking. We use it for coffee. I make my cold-steeped coffee with it. I like it because it removes the sulphur smells that we periodically get in our community well, and the salt from our water softener. When we lived in the city, the carbon filter in our RO removed the chlorine taste from the city water. I can build my brewing water from scratch with it (I got a 9-gallon tank upgrade for brewing). I won't go without one.

But you should use distilled water in an iron. RO water still has some minerals in it that will cause corrosion.

 

[Deadalus]

I have had an RO in my houses for over 30 years. We use it for almost all cooking. We use it for coffee. I make my cold-steeped coffee with it. I like it because it removes the sulphur smells that we periodically get in our community well, and the salt from our water softener. When we lived in the city, the carbon filter in our RO removed the chlorine taste from the city water. I can build my brewing water from scratch with it (I got a 9-gallon tank upgrade for brewing). I won't go without one.

But you should use distilled water in an iron. RO water still has some minerals in it that will cause corrosion.

Sure distilled water as opposed to municipal water or well water is best but the difference between distilled and RO water for an iron is neglible.

 

[Deadalus]

I think that multiplier would be far smaller: I believe my system yields one part per four, and I think that's actually fairly typical of consumer level RO systems. That does not make the brine mineral concentration 4x stronger than the base water...

Cheers!

You're correct I'd say... I was thinking of the amount of water in the concentrated waste water which is about 4x the amount of ro water obtained. So five parts water with 4 parts going into the concentrate is ~5 to 4 or about 25% more, which is a lot less as you mentioned. This is neglecting what makes it through the membrane and that which is taken out by the prefilters to the ro membrane. Hopefully I'm doing it right this time!

I totally understand though people using an RO system if the water is funky. One place I worked the water practically tasted like blood from too much iron but it passed inspections because it didn't exceed a threshhold (or there may not even have been one).

 

[Buckeye_Hydro]

Yep - the federal limit (MCL) for iron in drinking water is 0.3 ppm. That level will stain and affect taste and cause other problems. Goal for brewing water is "non detect."

 

[NeoBrew]

I almost forgot one of my favorites. I have pretty hard city well water. I hand wash all my beer glasswear so it doesn't get etched in the dishwasher. After hand washing and rinsing I use about a tablespoon of RO water from the faucet on my sink to rinse off the tap water. I can then air dry all my glasswear and have it come out spot free!

 

[gaviga]

I almost forgot one of my favorites. I have pretty hard city well water. I hand wash all my beer glasswear so it doesn't get etched in the dishwasher. After hand washing and rinsing I use about a tablespoon of RO water from the faucet on my sink to rinse off the tap water. I can then air dry all my glasswear and have it come out spot free!

I do the same but I use more RO water

 

[Buckeye_Hydro]

And another thing I forgot. We have lots of customers who wash their expensive cars, cycles, or motor homes etc., and then rinse with "spot free" RO water. Anything under about 30 ppm TDS will produce a spot free rinse.

 

[hottpeper13]

So , I can't use it on my Subaru?

 

[Tom R]

, I can't use it on my Subaru?

Subaru OK.
Yugo? Nope.

 

[Henbrew]

I use my RO for brewing, aquarium (only 50%), coffee, and drinking water (have alkaline mineral filter added). I bypass the alkaline filter when I brew since I'm adding my own brewing salts anyway. I've found many random instances where I want to use it, sometimes as a final rinse for brewing equipment. Our tap water is very hard and will spot like crazy.

 

[Buckeye_Hydro]

And although I try to avoid it, when I have to wash windows, RO water is the way to go. No spots.

 

[Braufessor]

Sourdough bread. Fermenting Veggies. Fermenting Peppers. I keep a tub of 5-10 gallons of star san mixed with RO water on hand for throwing brew stuff in while brewing, tubing, ferementers, cold side stuff, etc.

 

[Indian_villager]

I think the stuff is great for drinking, and it makes clearer ice. Other than that I use it for humidifiers, making star san, making seltzer.

I live in Delaware and I used to be a Chemical Engineer for DuPont, I don't trust the water here.

 

[TimLa]

Our well water is over 4,000 ppm tds. Basically full of dissolved gypsum. It will dissolve granite (takes a while, but the effect is noticeable). Bought the house 5 years ago, replaced the existing softener system with whole house RO, which rocks. the brine/concentrate will kill most vegetation, so it is disposed of in the drainfield, bypassing the septic tank.
What do we use RO for? Everything. There is still a small amount of mineral content - made a Dry Irish Stout that came out near excellent last month.

 

[Buckeye_Hydro]

Our well water is over 4,000 ppm tds. Basically full of dissolved gypsum. It will dissolve granite (takes a while, but the effect is noticeable). Bought the house 5 years ago, replaced the existing softener system with whole house RO, which rocks. the brine/concentrate will kill most vegetation, so it is disposed of in the drainfield, bypassing the septic tank.
What do we use RO for? Everything. There is still a small amount of mineral content - made a Dry Irish Stout that came out near excellent last month.

Hopefully you still have a softener as pretreatment to that RO system. If not, you'll be going through membranes in short order. Unless maybe you're injecting an anti-scalant? That can work too.

 

[TimLa]

Vitek 7000 anti-scalant, and I need a new jug (45 pounds) of it. Fairly spendy, but my membrane is now 5 years old, and puts out RO water with ~ 80 ppm.
That softener was consuming insane amounts of salt.