campden only take about 5-10 minutes to work I believe.
OK, fine, but you still have to collect all the water you are going to use before hand. That doesn’t work for me. And charcoal filtering removes that step. And it works. And its cheap. I just don’t get the campden camp I guess. 
Yeah, I fill my HLT, dose it with some potassium metabisulfite powder, stir and wait 5 minutes and test for chloramine levels.
And I bought a bag of pm from more beer 2 years ago for $5. Hella lot cheaper to just dose a little more into the water when I refill the HLT then buying new filter cartridges.
My water is prefiltered and then gets heated through an instant hot water heater to 170 degrees before going in my MT or HLT.
Did you really mean to say “full of chlorine”? If so, then it makes sense that you’re not seeing an issue. Chloramines, though, are an entirely different ball of wax.
i can see that the filtering system might be more practical for your commercial brewery, and even the home brewery if you have a lot of sediment as you say, but i am not seeing a down side to using a small spoon of powder in my 3-4 gallons i brew with.
No, I’m not saying you shuldn’t use campden. I’m just saying that filters work just as well (as in someone mentioned that they ran their water to a trickle and still got bandaid). And I don’t believe that chloramines are as much of an issue as everyone says. I thought they would not boil out of solution, but that they could be filtered out just find. Please fix my understanding, but if that is the case then how in the world do large commercial breweries get the chloramine out their water? Surely you guys don’t think they are using campden?
Super fancy filtration systems? Isn’t everything better at the commercial level?
I have seen several commercial filtartion system on teh commercial side and they are 3 stage, but they are running at a much higher rate. So I would think that chloramines could be removed by a whole house filter as well.
As far as what I have seen, they use RO or DI filtration systems. That is what both of my pro friends use locally, and in my discussions with them, it sounds as if DI is pretty much industry standard.
sorry major, didn’t mean to be antagonistic. i certainly think filters are probably worth while overall, especially at commercial level,. in my small 1 gallon brewery campden or filter would probably work equally. i don’t even know if i have a problem yet. i have had that medicinal taste but in those occasions i think i let my ferment get too hot.
I have a keg of American Brown Ale right now that is undrinkable. Tastes like bandaids/ plastic…something. I always use metabisulfite in my HLT so I chalked the flavor up to a contamination. I use the RV filter that has been mentioned above to remove the flavor that my water naturally has and the metabisulfite to remove the cloramines. For the most part, except for this batch of brown…seems to work fine.
If I owned a commercial brewery, or my own house, I’d install a nice RO or other filtration system (it would be nice for cooking and drinking as well).
However, as a renter and a brewer of 5 gallon batches, I’m happy with the campden tablets. They are cheap ($2.99 for 100 tablets, which is enough to treat 2000 gallons of water), extremely effective, and easy to use - just crush up a tablet and add the appropriate amount to the brewinq liquour while it’s coming up to temperature.
A higher flow rate, but aren’t they also the size of a small horse?
I use a filter exclusively and have had good results, but my water supply just uses Chlorine (for now), so I’m only speculating.
But maybe it depends on the amount of phenols produced by the yeast as well. An APA might taste fine, but a Belgian Tripel might not. And I’ve had some terrible Tripels by American breweries…
I’m looking at RO as a water filtration option. I’ve seen systems for less than $200 but they are low volume. If you need more volume you have to cough up some more cash.
I am definitely interested in the RO system but I am leary of the available products. Anyone have any recommendations for the hombrewer scale?
I’ve always just used my under-counter multi-pure filter that we use for drinking water. It’s a carbon filter, and I’ve never had a problem with band-aid flavor in my beers. There are certain times of the year when you can smell the chlorine/chloramines in Chicago water, and even then it’s not caused any issues.
I try to be good about changing the filter, and it’s sure easy to do so. Replacements are like $50, so it’s more expensive than campden, but it also filters all of our drinking water.
They make an RO system which, were I buying new, I would certainly consider.
Tankless - yes…instant - no.
As far as the filtering, most of our local using the muni supply have carbon filtration. I find the flow though a whole house just cuts it, but not quite all the way. The secondary filtration for brewing gets rid of what might have been missed by the whole house.
Major - I believe you have to specifically test for Chloramine, from what I read, simply testing for Chlorine will not tell you anything about the Chloramine levels.
So, in my case, I have a beer that has these flavors associated with cloramine. Is there a way to remove or reduce this flavor once you have a finished product?
As far as I’m aware, sadly, no.
Wow a lot of great discussion about this issue. The bottom line is how much control do you want to have over your end product?
Ok so here is the recommended flow rates through high quality GAC with an automated backwashing control valve and a 2 7/8 x 9 1/2 High quality Carbon block filter in a standard filter housing.
Automated backwashing GAC NSF Certified Food Grade
12 x 40 mesh size
Bulk Density 31-33 lbs per cubic ft.
Service Flow Rates @ 5 gpm per cubic ft.
Backwash flow rate 10-12 gpm per ft
High quality no fines NSF certified Carbon Block Filter with 3/4" in and out housing
Size 2 7/8" x 9 1/2"
5 micron nominal filtration
Flow rates 1 gpm @ 2 psi drop
Used as RO Post Filter 6000 gallons tested
Used as Raw water filter 600 gallons tested