Water purity/sterilization

[Jakemaca]

Gday all. I have a few questions on water and sterilisers. Im living in QLD with chlorine and Chloramine in the water supply. I dont want to buy spring water or water filters, so Is campden tablets enough to purify the water to avoid reactions and off flavours?
Can campden in the water produce off flavours?
Can no rinse sanatisers produce off flavours if you fill a bottle that has drained but still has foamy bubbles inside?

 

[sirosis]

From Townsville so also have same thing with water as well as fluoride, just use a double canister water filter to filter all my brew water, one 5 micron cartridge and a carbon cartridge and never had any problems with any brews I have done. Just need to service and replace filter cartridges every 12 mths.

 

[sp0rk]

@MHB will be able to clarify this
Also, a sediment filter and carbon filter won't remove fluoride...

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Going what I have read campden tablets or sodium met removes chlorine and chloramine, I use them as I think most brewrs do and haven't noticed any taste from them. The standard no rinse sanitisers according to the Starsan 'how to use guide' recommend letting the bottles dry.

 

[Jakemaca]

Going what I have read campden tablets or sodium met removes chlorine and chloramine, I use them as I think most brewrs do and haven't noticed any taste from them. The standard no rinse sanitisers according to the Starsan 'how to use guide' recommend letting the bottles dry.

Thanks for info. I have allowed over an hour for bottles to dry and there can still be suds stuck in the bottles. Im worried the longer i leave them the more chance they have of becoming unsterile again.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

I would imagine there would be a film inside the bottle once it has dried, I think plenty of folk use them straight away once they have emptied the sanitiser out of the bottle.

 

[MHB]

If you are going to use any cleaner its a very good idea to familiarise your self with the recommended concentration and method. Using either too strong or too week can be counter productive (fail).
Here is the how to for Star San.

SpOrk is right normal filtration wont remove Fluorine, you need RoMo or distillation, I think Metabisulfite should remove it.
I've never heard of anyone having a problem with F, its so reactive that its going to find something to bind to in a pretty permanent way, which generally removes it from any further reactions.
I always use Campden tablets, pretty happy so far and after a few minutes I cant find any trace of Cl/Cl-Amine with a Cl testing reagent that's supposed to work down to pbb ranges.
Mark

 

[Jakemaca]

If you are going to use any cleaner its a very good idea to familiarise your self with the recommended concentration and method. Using either too strong or too week can be counter productive (fail).
Here is the how to for Star San.

SpOrk is right normal filtration wont remove Fluorine, you need RoMo or distillation, I think Metabisulfite should remove it.
I've never heard of anyone having a problem with F, its so reactive that its going to find something to bind to in a pretty permanent way, which generally removes it from any further reactions.
I always use Campden tablets, pretty happy so far and after a few minutes I cant find any trace of Cl/Cl-Amine with a Cl testing reagent that's supposed to work down to pbb ranges.
Mark

Thanks mark. Great insight.

 

[peterlonz]

Gold Coast here; our water is of high quality.
You can phone your local water authority & request details of the water analysis, suspect you will discover it's well within international guidelines.
In my experience on GC (15 years) I simply pass all water through a twin filter under bench setup.
One is a sediment filter & it never blocks anything due to very clean supply, the other is a half micron carbon block filter. I am doubtful about it's ability to block chloramines (if they exist).
The long & short of this is stop fretting, filtering is sound practice but is not necessary.
Townsville of course will be under some water supply difficulties due to recent weather events, all the above presumes a normal situation. Hope the local flooding is resolvable in a reasonable time.
Oh yes campden tablets - I have never used them in 40+ years of brewing in Oz & NZ.
Some suggestions in other answers about bottle sanitation.
Here are some proven practices suitable for PET & glass bottles:
1) Sanitise your bottle (and tops) supplies by any suitable means do this to them all & be sure its well done & once only. Its the initial step.
2) Let all bottles drain dry in upside down position using a "tree". Best to do this outside in the sun & retrieve only when you are sure the bottles are dry.
3) Quickly inspect before putting on tops - screw down lightly to keep insects out.
4) You can remove the tops & use without further bother when you wish to bottle your brew. Note I have had zero bottle infections in over 40 years with this procedure. I can't recall when I last felt the need to use a sanitiser on bottles.

I should add that the dry bottles may show watermarking which can be limited by doing a final rinse in 0.5 micron carbon block filtered water.
Also you need to stick to the golden rule: Always wash your bottles thoroughly within a max 12 hours of use, then allow to dry in sun on the tree. Does not matter much how long the sun drying takes, some of my bottles are outside for 3 days.
Washing for me means two rinses in very hot water, followed by a filtered water rinse, all rinsing involves vigorous shaking
An unwashed dry bottle is a hazard.

 

[Jakemaca]

Gold Coast here; our water is of high quality.
You can phone your local water authority & request details of the water analysis, suspect you will discover it's well within international guidelines.
In my experience on GC (15 years) I simply pass all water through a twin filter under bench setup.
One is a sediment filter & it never blocks anything due to very clean supply, the other is a half micron carbon block filter. I am doubtful about it's ability to block chloramines (if they exist).
The long & short of this is stop fretting, filtering is sound practice but is not necessary.
Townsville of course will be under some water supply difficulties due to recent weather events, all the above presumes a normal situation. Hope the local flooding is resolvable in a reasonable time.
Oh yes campden tablets - I have never used them in 40+ years of brewing in Oz & NZ.
Some suggestions in other answers about bottle sanitation.
Here are some proven practices suitable for PET & glass bottles:
1) Sanitise your bottle (and tops) supplies by any suitable means do this to them all & be sure its well done & once only. Its the initial step.
2) Let all bottles drain dry in upside down position using a "tree". Best to do this outside in the sun & retrieve only when you are sure the bottles are dry.
3) Quickly inspect before putting on tops - screw down lightly to keep insects out.
4) You can remove the tops & use without further bother when you wish to bottle your brew. Note I have had zero bottle infections in over 40 years with this procedure. I can't recall when I last felt the need to use a sanitiser on bottles.

I should add that the dry bottles may show watermarking which can be limited by doing a final rinse in 0.5 micron carbon block filtered water.
Also you need to stick to the golden rule: Always wash your bottles thoroughly within a max 12 hours of use, then allow to dry in sun on the tree. Does not matter much how long the sun drying takes, some of my bottles are outside for 3 days.
Washing for me means two rinses in very hot water, followed by a filtered water rinse, all rinsing involves vigorous shaking
An unwashed dry bottle is a hazard.

Thanks mate for all the practical info. Much appreciated.

 

[altone]

Most of the time I use a sediment and carbon filter on brewing water mainly to remove chlorine.

@MHB I'm not sure meta has any/much effect on flouride.
My understanding was only RO or deionizing filters removed it.
(I'm not including alkalinizer type filters as they would increase pH and mineral content I suspect)
Glad for you to prove me wrong though

When I'm lazy I just let the water sit overnight before using.

I have in the past also used a few drops of Sodium Thiosulphate (main ingredient in most aquarium dechlorinators)

Generally here, town water is fine except for the Chlorine, no need to fret about other stuff.

Don't be concerned about possible detrimental effects from flouride, after all you're going to poison your body with alcohol

 

[Clevohead]

If you have a still, you can run your water through that, comes out near pitching temp as well as pure.

 

[MHB]

Got me to doing some research, from what I can gather -
F under 10ppm isn't a problem in beer from a flavour perspective.
F is so reactive that it usually form very stable complexes that either precipitate or wont react further.
Its a real PITA to remove (or expensive as in distilling) RoMo, Ion Exchange and Activated Alumina being the most common methods.
If it is in a free form that could form Halophenols (F,Cl,Br,I - Phenols) then Metabisulphite will remove it.

Short answer being forget it (from a brewing perspective) if you are removing Cl, any F will be either irrelevant or removed by the same processes.

 

[altone]

Got me to doing some research, from what I can gather -
F under 10ppm isn't a problem in beer from a flavour perspective.
F is so reactive that it usually form very stable complexes that either precipitate or wont react further.
Its a real PITA to remove (or expensive as in distilling) RoMo, Ion Exchange and Activated Alumina being the most common methods.
If it is in a free form that could form Halophenols (F,Cl,Br,I - Phenols) then Metabisulphite will remove it.

Short answer being forget it (from a brewing perspective) if you are removing Cl, any F will be either irrelevant or removed by the same processes.

Glad I got you to do the research and totally agree for brewing flouride is a non issue.
Can you point me to a source that shows Metabisulphite reduces flouride?
Interested for non brewing reasons.

Thanks for great info as always @MHB

 

[MHB]

That was the hardest one to pin down, most of the info is from Pro Brewer Interactive, one of the guys is a bit of a water guru. I'm pretty much giving him the benefit of the doubt on Metabisulfite working on F the same way as it does on Cl.
Mind you I tried to balance the equations and frankly any free Halide is going to react the same way, they are all so reactive, well didn't look at Astatine for obvious reasons, but looks like Met will kill the rest including I.

Bare in mind that there is a world of difference between Fluorine and Fluoride, same for Chlorine and Chloride... Met wont get rid of the Fluoride ions in solution, just like it wont remove the Chloride ions, the pathway with Met converts the Halogen to the Halide, or Chlorine to Chloide, Fluorine to Fluoride...
Most of the F is added as Sodium Fluoride or as Flurosilicic Acid (or a salt there of as FSA is really nasty ****) so its not really in the free form. Nor are naturally occurring Fluorides in the water supply (just had a look at my local water and its got zip - other than the 1ppm the water board adds, but apparently some ground water can have over 1.5ppm (probably have to be a deep bore to get that high in Australia).
Mark

 

[altone]

Great info, will have to do a bit of research tomorrow.

Yes I see the difference between the halogen and halide and makes sense it would work on them similarly

I'm not super concerned about flouride though, as soft drinks like Coke are shown at 0.7ppm
Even bottled water is listed as 0.1ppm and avacado apparently contains 0.07ppm of flouride.
Almost all town water in Australia is flourinated/flouridated whether they list it or not.
I think the max acceptable level for town water is still 1.5ppm (certainly used to be)

Thanks for the info @MHB
More research for me tomorrow - keeps me out of trouble