Chlorine

[HisDudeness]

Lots of discussion on here regarding water at the moment and while I'm not going to get into full water chemistry just yet I am wondering about chlorination. There seems to be a lot of mixed information out there with people like GW saying it probably isn't worth worrying about while others say it's going to destroy the beer!

I have had a look on the Anglian water website for my area and it says that our water is chloraminated and has 0.700mg/L total chlorine, although I imagine this value is the uppermost limit for the area. There isn't a chlorine smell or taste to our tap water and although it is quite hard it is pretty acceptable taste wise for drinking. Now I have not taken any steps to de chlorinate the water and so far haven't noticed any obvious problems (from what I can gather chlorophenol flavours should be very obvious plastic or TCP type flavours) but as usual with these things you start to doubt your own taste buds a bit and wonder whether it could make a difference.

So who treats their water for chlorine and of those that have did it make a noticeable difference? Has anyone had obvious chloro phenol tastes in their beer from using untreated tap water? Is there a threshold level at which chlorine will become a problem?

Please enlighten me!

 

[Covrich]

Well I am a guilty party in instigating this giant can of worms.. what clibit suggested which was good was if you can get a detailed report you could put them into the calculator just to see..

It does seem like a huge can or worms.. I know a few people say it is simply just do this this and this boil this add this.. I just start to think what am I getting into.

 

[HisDudeness]

Definitely a can of worms! Which was why I wanted to start with 1 thing (chlorination) and see if that was significant. Have you treated for chlorine?

 

[McMullan]

Have you tried boiling your mash water the evening before brew day? Sure I've heard it removes a lot of the chlorine.

 

[HisDudeness]

Have you tried boiling your mash water the evening before brew day? Sure I've heard it removes a lot of the chlorine.

No as I said I have not attempted to remove Chlorine at all yet and am trying to establish whether it's worth worrying about in the first place :hmm:

Boiling is also a point of contention on this as some sources say it will only remove free chlorine not chloramine (which is what tap water is sanitised with) while others say it will remove it to a certain extent but needs a long time boiling, if the latter is true then I would think that levels would be at least reduced during the wort boil anyway? Either way the campden tablet treatment of water sounds the easiest and most reliable method if one is required

 

[clibit]

I have become lazy about this. I always added campden but having forgotten and not noticed any problems I tend not to bother. I'm neither a perfectionist nor a scientist. For the miniscule effort of adding campden I recommend doing it, and I must return to making the miniscule effort myself. I reckon my water must be low in chlorine, I rarely smell it.

 

[BeerCat]

All i can say is after 6 months of drinking purified water my tap water tastes horrible. Previously i thought it was ok. A friend of mine lives in South Norfolk and his water is some of the worst have ever tasted so i reckon its worth getting rid of the chlorine if you can.

 

[Tony1951]

It is very noticeable that water tastes quite different when you move about the country and try it. I remember as a student, forty some years ago, finding the water in London tasted foul after what I thought was neutral tasting water at home. Then when I came home the end of term and drank tap water it tasted strange.

 

[MyQul]

As Clibit has said the effort to dechlorinate your water is teeny and costs about 1p a brew so it's worth doing it I think. As a belt and braces man I always dechlorinate (when I remember to do it, that is)

My salifert Alkalinity test kit arrived today so will have a go at testing my water. I already know it's pretty hard as I've discoved Thames water put last years water reports on their website.

 

[HisDudeness]

These are good points regarding regional differences and becoming accustomed to the taste, I don't think I was quite so keen on Bedford water when I first moved here from West Yorkshire

 

[clibit]

When I helped out in a Mancunian micro the brewer was an ex brewer from a much larger brewery and HD did nothing to the water except add gypsum. No de-chlorination. When I questioned this he said nothing else was needed with Manchester water. I reckon he had trimmed things down to the bare minimum, but that kind of suits me. I think campden makes sense though, and alkalinity adjustment where necessary. I bow to the more knowledgeable people obviously, willing to learn about water, but I get good beers without much effort. As that brewer said, Manchester water makes good beer, not much effort is needed.

 

[MyQul]

I stick to my 'if it aint broke don't fix it ' thinking about water. If your making good beer of all the stlyes you like to make, unless your into messing with it, water chemistry is just one more faff that I would like to avoid if I can. Unfortunately there are people who's water supply is **** for making certain styles and have to treat their water if they want to make better than medioce beer in that style - Like my water and pale ales

 

[Dads_Ale]

I have essentially ignored water treatment apart from boiling the mash liquor for 15 mins and adding 1 tsp of citric acid to get the mash ph to 5.3.

Recently though I have noticed a slight harsh alcohol taste with my pale ales. I am a bit lazy so have now simply added a campden tablet to the mash liquor to see of this helps.

fingers crossed :drink:

 

[McMullan]

All i can say is after 6 months of drinking purified water my tap water tastes horrible. Previously i thought it was ok. A friend of mine lives in South Norfolk and his water is some of the worst have ever tasted so i reckon its worth getting rid of the chlorine if you can.

I've been living in Norway for a couple of years now (great brewing water, BTW :-D). When I go back home to the UK, I put a tap on and I'm like "wow, CHLORINE!". Never really noticed it much before, when I was living there.

 

[HisDudeness]

Think I shall pop down wilkos to pick up some campden tabs, if its that easy why take the risk I suppose

 

[ManseMasher]

There's a difference here between chlorine and chloramine. My understanding is water suppliers switched from chlorine for water supplies to chloramine (they both have the same job- making your drinking water fit to drink). Chlorine dissipates after exposure to air (for our purposes, 23l of chlorinated water will 'vent' all its chlorine after about 24 hours exposure to air). In other words, if your water is chlorinated, fill your HLT 24 hours before you want to brew. If your water has been treated with Chloramine, this is what Campden tablets remove. Either way, you won't go wrong with 1/2 a Campden tablet in your liqour.

 

[DoctorMick]

It is very noticeable that water tastes quite different when you move about the country and try it. I remember as a student, forty some years ago, finding the water in London tasted foul after what I thought was neutral tasting water at home. Then when I came home the end of term and drank tap water it tasted strange.

I think it is, water is the North East is much better than water in Northampton.

I'm the same as clibit, I add a campden tablet because it's very easy. I should really do two identical brews, one with and one without to see if I can actually notice a difference.

 

[HebridesRob]

These are good points regarding regional differences and becoming accustomed to the taste, I don't think I was quite so keen on Bedford water when I first moved here from West Yorkshire

The evening before a brew, I boil the water I think I'm going to need for five minutes to kill off any bugs that might be in it. I treat with Sodium Metabisulphate for Chlorine and I add some salts to increase the hardness. I don't know if any of this has an impact but it seems easy enough to me.

 

[MyQul]

I thought you needed to boil things for 15 mins to kill bugs? e.g. not that I use a wort chiller but I've read you need to put it in the boil 15mins before flame out to santises.

 

[clibit]

Tap water shouldn't need boiling, it's treated to kill all the bugs... with chlorine. Unless you're on an unusual supply maybe, but isn't all UK mains water treated?