Finally bought an RO system

[Fore]

Just bought a really cheap RO system from the bay, 52 quid, and a cheap TDS meter, 5 quid. They both work great. 4 stage, 100GPD.
Tap water @ 400ppm
Brita filtered tap water @ 140ppm
1 year open distilled water @ 5ppm
Just opened distilled water @ 3ppm
AND reverse osmosis water @ 0ppm

I wouldn't believe it if I didn't have the other results. Chuffed.

It doesn't come with a faucet or storage tank, and the fittings provided don't fit to my water pipes, but it was never intended as an under-counter unit. I installed it on the garage wall next to a garden tap, and can use a garden tap attachment that it came with. One bucket ready for the RO, one for waste water. I did well purge the initial run-off from the pre-filters before plugging their 'out' into the RO 'in', and I even ran water past the RO membrane before unplugging the RO 'out' and letting water run through it, so it was well looked after in that way. My water pressure is less than the 3 bar minimum it says it needs, at about 2.5 bar, but it seems to work fine. Best guess is I'd manage 30 litres in about 7 hours, so pretty much in line with the 100 gallons per day.

I have suffered "salty" homebrews ever since I moved into this house 10 years ago. I suffer this even with kits, not just all-grain. I know my tap water Sodium level is about 82ppm, and most balanced water profiles have it about 10-25ppm. So I plan to use a blend of about 80% RO and add salts to bring my calcium back up to a reasonable minimum. I also have high total alkalinity, about 244ppm, so always used reasonable amounts of acid. Water calculators show a lot less acid needed to get the mash at the right pH with an 80% blend.

Easy to get up and running. Pretty cheap considering what you get out of it. Not complicated. I should have done this ages ago. Still, jury is out until I taste the first beer made with the RO water. I also have some issues with tannins, so I'm interested to see if this is an all-in-one solution for me. I'll let you know how it goes. Will be a few weeks though, brew planned this weekend.

 

[dleary]

Interested in buying one, would you mind sharing the link if you had it handy?

 

[Pennine]

wow thats impressive, i started at 15ppm initially on mine and now up to 75ppm. new filters are on the way.

 

[mabrungard]

80 ppm sodium shouldn't trigger a salty taste in your beer, but some tasters can be more sensitive. The move to RO should alleviate the salty flavor.

While some beer styles benefit from low mineralization, recognize that many styles do need some mineralization or the beers can actually be bland.

It sounds like you're on the right track. Do keep track of your RO TDS reading since that's your early warning that the membrane is failing. A cheap RO system might be using a short-lived membrane. I prefer to use DOW Filmtec RO membranes since they are high quality. Do watch out for counterfeit membranes though!

 

[steveinUS]

My best results with extract beers are with 100% RO water. The extracts contain all of the mineral content which was in the water used to make the extract. So, straight RO or distilled water will reconstitute the original wort without adding additional mineral content.

 

[nixhaz]

@Pennine which system do you use? We have more or less the same water I think (296ppm alkalinity!)

 

[Pennine]

i have this one but can not recommend at this stage. it does make clean water though but it adds back minerals, one of the things im wondering if is adding to the smell when brewing.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/HiKiNS-Filtration-RO-125G-Efficiency-Certified/dp/B07JHJ64D1

 

[nixhaz]

Ah right, thanks for the info. I too get a weird smell from the water (only sometimes though), it is a musty kind of odour. It's particularly bad in the star san bottle like you mentioned. That's from straight tap water (though I boil it before brewing with it).

 

[strange-steve]

i have this one but can not recommend at this stage. it does make clean water though but it adds back minerals, one of the things im wondering if is adding to the smell when brewing.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/HiKiNS-Filtration-RO-125G-Efficiency-Certified/dp/B07JHJ64D1

The problem with that though is that it sort of defeats the purpose of using RO water if it's remineralising the water. Do you know the content of the output water?

 

[Pennine]

The problem with that though is that it sort of defeats the purpose of using RO water if it's remineralising the water. Do you know the content of the output water?

yeah i sort of forgot about that remineralization step after installed it and just remembered it now with that link. i was looking more for a higher GPD flow rate hence why i bought that one.

i just pulled the alkaline filter off so it is not reintroducing minerals anymore. i am running through a heat cycle in the brewer now to check for the musty smell. i am not sure about the mineral content, but it says ca, mag, sodium, and a potassium. anyway i will leave it off. it changed the tds from 70 with the alkaline filter to 25 without it.

ok just checked and no musty smell without remineralized water. so it could be either that filter or fresh flowing water to the ro system doesnt cause it.

@nixhaz do you have a water softener?

 

[strange-steve]

it changed the tds from 70 with the alkaline filter to 25 without it.

Ah OK, it's obviously only adding a little of each mineral then thumb

 

[nixhaz]

@nixhaz do you have a water softener?

No I don't.. do you need one to use the RO?
I do have a stand alone softener that I use for my commercial dishwasher at work, I reckon I could use that if necessary.....

 

[Pennine]

No I don't.. do you need one to use the RO?
I do have a stand alone softener that I use for my commercial dishwasher at work, I reckon I could use that if necessary.....

no you dont need one, i was just wondering if the softener was the cause of the smell. i just measured tds before 300 and after the softener 390, so its adding a lot of sodium that the ro needs to filter out.

 

[nixhaz]

Yeah, that is a lot. I did wonder how well an RO would cope with our insane levels of hardness. Considering just buying water from an aquarium shop once lockdown is over..

 

[Fore]

Interested in buying one, would you mind sharing the link if you had it handy?

Hi. The 4 stage one I bought seems to be out of stock from the supplier. In any case, it's the same as this 3 stage one in the link below. The one in this link misses a resin stage AFTER the RO filter. I understand that 4th stage sort of finishes the job, polishes up, but the RO filter is doing the heavy lifting.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Finerfil...hash=item41da62bd01:m:mGPJUQdh-Y1NuiFy4hsf3lA
On reading about differences before I bought, I noted that systems with standard filters that fit into the screw-on housings are recommended, as the filters are generic. But frankly, so are these units where you have to change the whole filter, including the housing. And the replacement filter prices are nearly the same. That was my thought process anyway. At my level of use, I won't be needing new filters for a long time.

 

[Fore]

80 ppm sodium shouldn't trigger a salty taste in your beer, but some tasters can be more sensitive. The move to RO should alleviate the salty flavor.

While some beer styles benefit from low mineralization, recognize that many styles do need some mineralization or the beers can actually be bland.

It sounds like you're on the right track. Do keep track of your RO TDS reading since that's your early warning that the membrane is failing. A cheap RO system might be using a short-lived membrane. I prefer to use DOW Filmtec RO membranes since they are high quality. Do watch out for counterfeit membranes though!

Yes, I might be sensitive to it. I'm the only one who's noticed. I find my best beers are Belgian, and flanders water profiles are the only ones with elevated sodium levels, so no surprise there. On my first "test", I'm pushing the sodium right down. I'll see how it comes out, with the potential to reduce the blend %. I bought the TDS for 2 reasons i) satisfy myself that the RO unit is actually working, and ii) a long term test to determine when the RO needs replacing.

 

[Fore]

@Pennine which system do you use? We have more or less the same water I think (296ppm alkalinity!)

Alsace, France, on the German border, so not the same :-). Same problems though. See system I bought above.

 

[Fore]

wow thats impressive, i started at 15ppm initially on mine and now up to 75ppm. new filters are on the way.

Honestly, I could hardly believe it. I know that a 90% reduction of TDS is normally considered working, so at 400ppm, anything less than 40ppm would have been OK. From what I have read, I guessed I would hit about 15ppm. It was only the other results, which are totally believable, had me believe the 0ppm.

 

[Fore]

I should mention that I was out with my gallons per day estimate (my maths was wrong). I could still easily fill a 30l bucket in a waking day, but it won't be a 100GPD rate in my case, probably due to my low water pressure. Best guess is something like 60-70GPD from my 100GPD system.

One other aspect I didn't mention was the waste water %. Best guess by eye is that it's at 1 part RO for somewhere between 3 to 4 parts waste. You can always use the waste for the garden or toilet. But in any case, it's still a lot cheaper and environmentally friendly than bottled water.

Finally I didn't brew this weekend, but I'll still report back.