I am working on eliminating off flavors one-by-one. Next on my list (should have been higher) -removing chlorine and chloramine from my tap water. I am thinking about a filter AND Campden tabs, would this be overkill?
For chlorine, yes. For chloramines, it wouldn’t really be overkill since a carbon filter won’t remove all of it.
+1 and with a filter you need to make sure your following the flow reguations or it might not be doing anything
Great, thanks for the input. Let me ask this one other way also, if my water tastes fine, beyond the chlorine, is there a benefit to also filtering the water or should I be OK with the campden tabs alone?
I just use campden, you water report will give you further info on if it needs salts added or diluted with distilled. Depends if your extract or AG brewing to.
I’m brewing AG and already working on pH. As I continue working on various items, I am slowly eliminating inputs that result in off-flavors. Hopefully, once I remove the chlorine/chloramine and lower/closely regulate my fermentation temperatures, I’ll have the consistent end-product I’m looking for 
I use both an active carbon filter and campden. I don’t seem to remember if my Ward water test was clear about chloramines, plus I’ve also heard that some municipalities will add chloramines seasonally so not sure if a water test will really give you peace of mind.
Honestly, it’s so cheap to add a half-tab of campden to 10 gals of H20 that it’s not even worth discussing. Just do it.
-Tom
The annual water quality report available at your local city hall should show if Chloramines are used.
Mine doesn’t.
a email or phone call to the public utilities water dept will let you know what is used in your area
But campden would remove chloramine without need for a filter, wouldn’t it?
“But campden would remove chloramine without need for a filter, wouldn’t it?”
Yep! Or sodium or potassium metabisulfite.
How much KMETA for 5 Gallons should be added?
Mine doesn’t.[/quote]
Interesting. Our city hall includes a report showing anything that has been added to the water in addition to the annual water quality report.
Mine doesn’t.[/quote]
they HAVE to supply you with it
“How much KMETA for 5 Gallons should be added?”
about 100 mg per 5 gallons
you can get chlorine tests to verify
Mine doesn’t.[/quote]
they HAVE to supply you with it[/quote]
Let me know if you see it.
http://ci.winston-salem.nc.us/Assets/CityOfWS//Documents/Utilities/WaterQlty_rept10_7.75x14.pdf
[quote=“fightdman”]Let me know if you see it.
http://ci.winston-salem.nc.us/Assets/CityOfWS//Documents/Utilities/WaterQlty_rept10_7.75x14.pdf
[/quote]
Looks like they’re using chlorine. The measured concentrations are all in excess of the EPA guideline (0.02 ppm).
Well, even though it doesn’t say specifically, I had assumed as much and have been carbon filtering my water. I tried to call the water department several times, I never got through to anybody who could answer my question.
An “activated” charcoal filter will break the bond of chloramines therefore making the chlorine and ammonia accessible now to other filter mediums, Sunlight, Air etc… but we enter into the question of flow rate and cost of filters etc… In a perfect world I would like to use a few filters in front of my municipal supply, But initially cost and ease of use were the driving factors for me. So I decided on campden/ Meta and found it works just fine w/o pre-filtering. YRMV my muni supply is typically soft at around 50-70 TDS average and 90-100 TDS on a bad day and does not have high organic residuals that some muni’s will see. If you find you have organic off odors in your supply often along with chlorine/ chloramines concerns then I would go prefiltering without a doubt, but if just chloramine/ chlorine then I recommend campden/ Meta.
A10t2 you wrote:
Chlorine In excess of the EPA guideline (0.02 ppm)
This number is pretty low.
EPA highest levels allowed in my region (upper midwest) was always 4.0 ppm
In double checking both the document you linked to in NC and my own muni report I find it confirms my suspicions on the matter.
As an aside my most recent level was reported as 3.65 ppm and it does not surprise as I always see
our levels very high typically above 3.0 ppm. Now if I look to the NC report it is listing 1.05 ppm that is actually a pretty low number in the scheme of things. Would you tend to agree with that analysis?
