Most municipal water supplies are treated with chlorine and now more than ever Chloramine which becomes a big problem for brewing bringing bad things to the flavor of your beer.
Chlorine has been used for more than 100 years for disinfection of drinking water to protect public health from diseases which are caused by bacteria, viruses, and others orgnisms. Chlorine was fairly easy to remove within the brewing process you could simply boil it off, let the water stand for a few hours, or use a basic carbon filter.
Now more than ever Chloramine is being added to our municipal water supplies and its primary purpose is to maintain disinfection for a much longer period of time in the distribution system. This is a completely different problem that is not so easy to deal with. Chloramines are produced by combining chlorine and ammonia. While highly toxic at high levels, neither pose health concerns to us at the level used for drinking water but do cause problems for Brewers large and small.
one of the problems is that yeast eat Chloramine and chlorine and produce ‘chlorophenols’. These phenols have extremely low taste thresholds; you can taste them even if they exist in only a few parts per billion. Your beer will have a difficult time on defining it’s true flavor and will have an almost chemical or medicinal after taste.
SOLUTION
The best way of treating both of these problems is by using a high quality Catalytic Activated Carbon System such as our http://www.microbrewwater.com SC System. Standard GAC or activated carbon will not remove chloramines. Our product has a high capacity and a high flow rate design to maximize its efficiency and give you the flavor you want without the after tastes and brewing problems.
Next time we will discuss the many benefits of using REVERSE OSMOSIS…
CHEERS..
Water Purification and Filtration 