Brisbane Water - Chloramines Dammit

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lou

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Hi ya all
I have just done another AG brew - brand new 1084 yeast - made a few booboos along the way but once agaiin I have a disgusting mediciny flavour developing in the beer. I thought Brisbane used chlorine in the water supply and so i was letting the water sit out over night before brew day to sort out this problem. Turns out it was waste of time

quote/ from brisbane water
http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/BCC:BRISWAT...:pc=PC_1427,##9


ammonia and chlorine are added to form chloramine, which kills bacteria. Chloramine is maintained in the water to ensure bacteria do not re-grow in the distribution system and the water remains disinfected


dammit dammit dammit :angry: :angry: :angry:

do I need to use camdem tablets and how much -

- luckily i am still doing small test batches and have only wasted 2 12 litre batches

lou
 
Hi Lou
From memory, chloramine does break down and evaporate from water but it takes a while (a week or 2).
Boiling greatly speeds this process up but I have no figures as to how long.
I suspect when boiling the wort, this is where most of the damage occurs also.

Charcoal (activitated carbon) filters may get rid of some of it or else find a cheap bottled water.
Try asking a tropical fish keeping enthusiast or website.

http://www.aquariacentral.com/

Best of luck.
 
Camden tablets (sod or potassium met, cant remember which) are supposed to precipitate chloramines. There are several posts on HBD working out required ppm and dosing rates but I can never find them again when I go looking. I use half a tablet in 20 l which I think I worked out from one of those posts. This is also supposed to give some protection against long term oxidation. I try to warn any asthmatics to be sure they arent really sensitive to it before giving them my beer.
 
Lou - here is an excerpt lifted from http://www.brewing-forum.net/brewing/Homeb...005_408427.html

> "The required dose is simple to calculate: Take
> twice the chloramine level, add the chlorine level, and divide by
> 6. This is the number of [campden] tablets required to treat 20
> gallons. Scale this value according to how many gallons to be
> treated. For example, if I were to brew with the local water,
> which has 3 mg/L chloramine, I would need one tablet per 20
> gallons."
>
> A.J. also wrote, "My experiments have shown that perhaps 20-30%
> more potassium metabisulfite than calculated should be used to be
> on the safe side." And, "[since campden tablets may be sodium or
> potassium. If you are uncertain whether they are potassium or
> sodium salt, have the supplier check with the wholesaler, or just
> assume they are potassium. If you guess wrong, you will be adding
> 17% more bisulfite than you need -- not a significant amount."
> And, "Your beer will easily tolerate two or three times the
> required dose (vintners use one or two tablets per gallon), so if
> our answer contains a fraction of a tablet, you can just round up
> to the nearest whole tablet."

FYI you can also filter with activated carbon to reduce chloramines.

Some other info here:
http://ajdel.wetnewf.org:81/Brewing_articles/BT_Chlorine.pdf

and here:
http://www.brewinfo.com/2003WaterLecture/WATERFINAL.pdf
 
sodium met or sodium thiosulphate will remove chlorides, bromides and iodides from aqueous solution. It will also remove chloramine (or ammonium chloride) as it is a salt and dissociates into NH4+ and Cl- ions in solution.
 
Guest Lurker said:
I try to warn any asthmatics to be sure they arent really sensitive to it before giving them my beer.
[post="59916"][/post]​
GL

I'm under the impression that sodium met and potassium met dissipate to nothing during the boil. I use it (very carefully) to reduce the risk of oxidation and also am very mild asthmatic.

Do you know if a residual amount could last long enough to make it to the final product? Or do you tell them purely as a precaution?

Steve
 
SteveSA said:
Guest Lurker said:
I try to warn any asthmatics to be sure they arent really sensitive to it before giving them my beer.
[post="59916"][/post]​
GL

I'm under the impression that sodium met and potassium met dissipate to nothing during the boil. I use it (very carefully) to reduce the risk of oxidation and also am very mild asthmatic.

Do you know if a residual amount could last long enough to make it to the final product? Or do you tell them purely as a precaution?

Steve
[post="59924"][/post]​
Steve

I have no idea, well, I am reasonably sure the low levels I use and after boiling it isnt going to be a problem, certainly less than the amount in a bottle of wine, its just that when you hand someone a craft brewed beer they are expecting a preservative free product, and arguably mine isnt any more. So yes its purely a precaution.
 
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