De chlorinating water with vitamin C.

[Budgie]

Just another quick thought on this one.

I've recently stumbled upon the revelation that campden tabs are available as both sodium Metabisulphite and potassium metabisulphite.

I know I definitely need to steer clear of the sodium version, but potassium I have no idea. I might pick some up at the LHBS next week and have a go with those. As @mabrungard mentioned it won't make it through the boil so I only have to physically get it into the water.

If I haven't reported my findings by this time next week you can assume it did not end well. :whistle:

 

[mabrungard]

While the potassium form of the metabisulfite is available. I'm not really sure that it is a better alternative than the sodium form. There is a group of brewers that use elevated doses of metabisulfite to ward off oxidation during the mashing and boiling phases and they say that the beer flavor is improved when the sodium form is used. They are using much more metabisulfite than is typically used for dechlorination, so they might be at concentrations that can be tasted.

While malt adds potassium to wort at higher concentration than sodium, it seems that adding more sodium is less problematic with respect to beer flavor. As long as your tap water doesn't have too much sodium in it, adding the few ppm of sodium via sodium metabisulfite for dechlorination, should be OK and possibly preferred for beer flavor. I find that having about 70 ppm sodium in your brewing water is OK for darker beers and having about half that concentration is still OK for pale beers. Most people won't detect a salty taste until the sodium content gets around 250 ppm.

While high sodium is not going to be preferred, it isn't an absolute beer killer if its in the moderate range mentioned above.

 

[MarkMayf]

Sodium thiosulphate is another option for dechlorinating water. A couple of drops of a 10% solution will dechlorinate a bucket of water.

 

[Budgie]

Thanks for the detailed response Mabrungard. It's probably a good idea to have a more detailed look at my water and go from there. My only argument for K-sulphite is that it might not kill me. :lol:

Sodium thiosulphate is another option for dechlorinating water. A couple of drops of a 10% solution will dechlorinate a bucket of water.

I saw a post on here a while back about sodium thiosulphate, but there were points raised about whether or not it's food safe. I'm sure it won't be too difficult to find out in the line.