water treatment

[Cellar_Rat]

The most basic water treatment is to use a Campden tablet to remove the chlorine. I do not have any.
but I have buckets of potassium metabisulphite - does anybody know the dosage please.

One Campden tablets seems to be good for 20 gallons.

Could I assume it is 50 ppm ??

[NorthernWiner]

You mean how much k-meta is in one campden tab? I'm pretty sure it's 0.55 mg. If you are wanting to treat 20 gallons of water, I would say a "pinch" would be all you need.

Ascorbic acid (vitamin C) can also be used to dechlorinate water. If you have any of that, that's what I would use.

But either way, it doesn't take much.

[Cellar_Rat]

Great minds. I thought while posting it - "about a pinch would prolly do it"

confession time: I have spent to much time, with an accurate set of scales ( and not been out enough) to know that one of my pinches is 1 g (+/-0.1)

Thank you.

[mcblades]

Brian, do you routinely treat your water? Ours is HARD here in kent. For AG brews I routinely boil, add gypsum, cool and decant off the scale then add 2g mag.sulph. For wherry I don't bother. Now, the wherry tastes good so maybe I won't bother with my next AG brew and see if it turns out OK.

[crusher]

Hi Mc,
With AG brewing the reason for water treatment is to create the right conditions for the mash (sugar extraction)
If you are using kits the extraction has been done for you.
My water is HARD also. I alway treat for AG. For kits I just use 1/2 campden tab for chlorine removal.
Cheers.

[Cellar_Rat]

I never ever have. I am in Lincolnshire, hard as nails. All brews come good (Wherry & all grain). Well all apart from my murky cascade, which was nothing to do with the water.

I was just wondering if it would make a little bit of a difference. To be honest if you want to get rid of the chlorine all you need to do is draw the water off the day before and stand in the light.

[DaveH]

I.

To be honest if you want to get rid of the chlorine all you need to do is draw the water off the day before and stand in the light.

For Chlorines, yes. For chloramines - no. Chloramines cannot be gassed off as far as i am aware - they need to be treated with Campden. There's a good thread on Jim's about it.....

Hence why i mentioned always treating your water during my chat at GF. I always use 1/2 Campden per 23L.

EDIT : However, Mr GW has this to say on the subject:" The main reason for my objection is that the use of, or lack of use of, a campden tablet has become the universal cure-all for any medicinal off-taste in beer, whereas in reality the cause of the problem is rarely, if ever, anything to do with chlorine. The real cause is almost always microbiological. This infatuation with the magic campden tablet diverts attention from the real cause, and the hapless sufferer goes round and round in circles.

Apart from being quite unnecessary (in my view) the amount of sodium metabisulphite required to neutralise chlorine in tap water is extremely small. In my area the maximum amount of residual disinfectant present in the water has not exceeded 0.35ppm over the last three water reports; usually half that. Therefore the amount of sodium metabisulphite necessary is correspondingly small. If someone wishes to neutralise chlorine with campden, only enough to do the job should be employed. There are consequences to overdoing it, certainly grossly overdoing it, particularly if there is no copper (the metal) in your brewing set up. One of the consequences is the beer smelling of rotten eggs, because some yeasts, particularly lager yeasts, can metabolise sulphur dioxide into hydrogen sulphide."

You pays your money......................

[Cellar_Rat]

ta for that - I think thats a result. I am not going to bother. I don't seem to have a problem that needs fixing.

[Delmonteman]

ta for that - I think thats a result. I am not going to bother. I don't seem to have a problem that needs fixing.

+1 to that. No point making things complicated for the sake of it...

[Cellar_Rat]

+1 to that. No point making things complicated for the sake of it...

Thanks