Chlorine In Water

[moultan]

Hey guys ..

Just sifting through some info in the net and started reading about the causes of chlorine in your homebrew.

- Do not use chlorinated water (commonly referred to as "city water"). Your finished beer can have high levels of chlorophenols which are an off-flavor/flaw and are rather nasty.

I live in Melbourne and we seem to have fantastic tap water. Melbourne water website says they use the equivalent of half a cup in a an average swimming pool.

Could I be improve my brewing my removing the chlorine??

Thanks

 

[King Brown]

Most cities will use chlorinated water to a degree. There are several ways homebrewers remove this;
A using a standard household carbon water filter - These are reasonably cheap, and if you use the manufacturers reccomended flow rates will remove chlorine from the water.
B Cambden tablets - These are used for wine making and can be used for homebrewing as well, simply crush one tablet and add it to your liquor (brewing lingo for mash water) before boiling it. One table will treat up to 20 gallons, though it is harmless to one tablet for only 5 or 6 gallons.
C Bottled water is usually free of chlorine, but this can get expensive. Distilled water can be mixed with tap water to reduce the level of minerals, desirable in certain beers, ie Czech Pilsner.

-edit- damn emoticons

 

[newguy]

Depends what sort of chlorine your city is adding to the water. If they're using chlorine gas, that can be removed by simply letting the water sit for a day or two or by preboiling it. Because the chlorine is easily removed from the water, not many cities use chlorine gas anymore (ie they want the chlorine to stay in the water to disinfect it). If they're using chloramine (much more likely), it can't be removed by letting the water sit or by preboiling it. I have heard that filtration will remove it but I've also heard that filtration won't remove it. I do know, though, that campden tablets will remove it (as KB pointed out above). 1 tablet will treat 80l of water.

 

[manticle]

Hey guys ..

Just sifting through some info in the net and started reading about the causes of chlorine in your homebrew.

I live in Melbourne and we seem to have fantastic tap water. Melbourne water website says they use the equivalent of half a cup in a an average swimming pool.

Could I be improve my brewing my removing the chlorine??

Thanks

I use melbourne water and the only time I had chlorephenols in a beer coincided with using chlorine as a sanitiser and not rinsing with boiling water afterwards. Are you noticing band-aidy/disinfectant type flavours in your brew?

 

[Fourstar]

If you are worried, do as i do. Fill up your boil kettle with water the night before and leave to rest. The aeration from the tap aerator and the rest overnight is enough for me to go from some noticable chlorine aromas to nothing the next day.

 

[QldKev]

Try Bundy water, last time I setup my pool I had to wait a couple of days for the chlorine levels to drop. It was 6ppm out of the tap. :icon_vomit:

The 2 stage water filters do seem to remove the chlorine smell from our water supply.

QldKev

 

[Pennywise]

When I started brewing in Melbourne I used to buy the 10L water cubes from the supermarket, but obviously it got a bit exxy. So I braved it and started using tap water, couldn't tell the difference at all. Now I kick myself for wasting so much money on store bought water.

 

[reVoxAHB]

Link to my little ghetto carbon water filtration system.

I've since moved into the newer brita boxier style filters, and prefilter 100L into the HLT the evening before my brew day. And yes, I do notice a discernible difference in my beers by filtering the water before use. I would say the flavour is rounder, smoother.. less abrasive and the beer seems to stand up better, overall. There are plenty of commercial filtration systems available (inline via garden hose, sort of thing).. haven't gotten around to upgrading as the brita system (if you filter slowly) meets my needs. It's slightly fiddly, but so is homebrewing.

I've read the water board nuke the supply pretty heavily at the first truly hot days of summer.. and adjust chlorination throughout the year based on temp.

Best way to test this filtered (water) vs. unfiltered is do two side by side, or back to back batches. Try a style like pils or CAP that isn't going to hide a myriad of sins.

reVox

 

[Nick JD]

Does the chlorine affect the mash?

Boiling the wort would surly remove all chlorine, wouldn't it?

 

[manticle]

I've assumed the same (provided the source isn't chloramines).

 

[newguy]

I can't elaborate on the exact mechanisms but chlorine will react with organic compounds (wort) to create, amongst other things, chlorophenols. These reactions take place rather quickly and form stable compounds. Some of the byproducts are carcinogenic. Any chlorine that reacts in the mash will not be driven off in the subsequent boil because the chlorine doesn't exist in your wort as simple chlorine gas or even chloramine anymore. It has reacted with your mash's proteins and sugars to form stable compounds that aren't driven off by or broken down during the boil.

Chlorine should be removed from your brewing water prior to contact with your malt.

 

[hefevice]

Does the chlorine affect the mash?

Not in the dissolved rather than ionised state produced by the chlorination process.

Boiling the wort would surly remove all chlorine, wouldn't it?

Only if the water is treated using Chlorine gas. If it is treated with Chloramine (like the water where I live), then it does not outgas during the boil. Only way to rid the water of Chloramine is carbon filtering (which is apparently not 100% effective), or Sodium/Potassium metabisulphite (campden tablets). Added benefit of Sodium/Potassium metabisulphite is that it can limit oxidation during the mash, the down side is that some of us are sensitive to sulphites (although only a very small amount - half a tablet - is required for a 20l batch).

 

[Kai]

It's also worth pondering how much sulphite is left after the boil.

With regards to chlorophenols, I brewed a smoked beer once using unfiltered Adelaide water. Turned out as a classic example of why you should strip chlorine from your water.

 

[bigholty]

Strike and sparge water gets heated to 70- or 80-odd degrees in the HLT before touching grain, this would help drive off some of the chlorine I suppose.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

You should be just fine with Melbourne tap water. I usually brew with carbon filtered water... but I have forgotten or couldn't be bother plenty of times too and it just isn't a problem. The chlorine levels under normal circumstances are too low to lead to noticeable chlorophenols in the beer.

A very large brewery I happen to know a little about uses water straight out of the mains for its mashing and fermenting needs... and like em or not, the beers don't have chlorophenol issues.

Still - at the moment with the dam levels so low...I am not sure that these are "normal" circumstances.. Taste your water, if you can notice chlorine, then I'd treat it, if you can't - then you will be fine without doing a thing.

TB

 

[Kai]

Taste your water, if you can notice chlorine, then I'd treat it, if you can't - then you will be fine without doing a thing.

A very good way to look at it.

 

[Fatgodzilla]

The current issue of BYO (the great unwrapped issue) has a brief comment in the Beginners Block section on Smoked Beers " Always brew your smoked beers with non chlorinated water as the phenols in smoke react with chlorine, resulting in off flavours".

Yes, far from any defining argument, but more ammunition if needed about the un thought of perils of chlorine and water. I've posted before about the half dozen or so beers I chucked which had a bad taste. When I started treating my water with sodium metabisulphite, problem immediately gone. As stated previously, my local water supply is heavily chlorinated as the drought means we have to source our town water from increasingly "obscure" sources.

Thirsty Boy Posted Yesterday, 09:04 PM
A very large brewery I happen to know a little about uses water straight out of the mains for its mashing and fermenting needs... and like em or not, the beers don't have chlorophenol issues.

How you keep leading with your chin TB .. :lol:

 

[moultan]

Well ok , cheers and thanks for the replies.

I have been noticing the same funny tastes in all my beers . I ditched the first few batches, I just put that down to the fermenting temps being all over the shop .. it was a cascade pale ale, the yeast keep on dropping in and out of temp ranges i.e below 15c over night and it kicked back in during the day... but the rest have been at my new house and in the garage under the house which is has a very constant temp range even on a 40c day like this.

They all seem to have a watery taste to them as well, I heard that could be from the dextrose used for priming.. I have been bulk priming.

thanks again

 

[daemon]

Be aware that many water treatment plants are now using Chloramine, which is much harder than Chlorine gas to remove from the water. It's a big problem for fish tanks as well because of the difficulty to remove, unfortunately you need chemicals to remove it. Boiling it, letting it sit etc isn't enough to remove Chloramine, which is why it's used in the first place (ie more stable).

 

[manticle]

Well ok , cheers and thanks for the replies.

I have been noticing the same funny tastes in all my beers . I ditched the first few batches, I just put that down to the fermenting temps being all over the shop .. it was a cascade pale ale, the yeast keep on dropping in and out of temp ranges i.e below 15c over night and it kicked back in during the day... but the rest have been at my new house and in the garage under the house which is has a very constant temp range even on a 40c day like this.

They all seem to have a watery taste to them as well, I heard that could be from the dextrose used for priming.. I have been bulk priming.

thanks again

I seriously doubt that either chlorinated water or bulk priming will give you a watery beer. Chlorephenols taste like disinfectant, band-aids, smoke or sometimes mildly clovey. They're horrible but I wouldn't say watery.

120 -180 g of dex in a finished brew of 20 odd litres won't do much more than give you some bubbles either. I'd look elsewhere for your problems - maybe the recipes need more malt backbone?