Beer Forum

guys,

I just found out that the house we are planning to buy has an elavated arsenic level in its well water. Though that sounds like a bad thing, it will enable me to get a reverse osmosis system for all the drinking water in the house. Hopefully the buyer is paying a significant part of it

The water is also rather hard, which will interfer with the lighter styles that I like to brew. How much of the dissolved solids will R/O actually remove. Is the resulting water very close to distilled water?

Thanks,
Kai

Technicly RO should be equivalent to distilled....
Reality has a funny way of being a bit different, have them run a quick test on it after the RO has been running for a couple of weeks, it will be quite close but not perfect.
And how Fing big of a RO system is that to run the whole house? I think you are secretly building a bomb shelter to hide in for when the UN and "gubmit" take over with FEMA.... Uhhh ok

BUB
How come every one want to kill me like the Kaiser?

RO will remove most, but not quite all the minerals,etc. from the water. You will need to "build" your water to fit whatever profile you need for a particular brew. Sounds like you will need to also invest in a small digital scale to measure out your mineral additions accurately.

Wayne
Bugeater Brewing Company

The "holes" in the membrane for RO need to be large enough to let water through but small enough to keep minerals out. The molecule or ion radi of water and minerals may not be different enough to make sure all the minerals are kept out. I'll ask the company that will install the system and maybe I feel that it is necessary to run a water test on the RO water. I'll tell my wife that I need to check its efficiency of arsenic removal

Bub,
When I mean all the drinking water in the house I didn't mean a whole house system. Even if I wouldn't have to pay for it, maintaining it (e.g. replacing filters and membranes) would be to expensive. I plan to have the RO water run to a faucet at the kitchen sink, the fridge and the basement for brewing water. I'll also like to get an extra big storage tank so I don't have to collect brewing water a few days before brewing.

Now a bomb shelter wouldn't be a bad idea either with the way the world is heading right now . At least it's not the Germans this time.

Kai

Speaking as a water engineer, an RO system will take out "virtually all" the minerals in your water. One book I have says 90-95% of TDS and 95-97% of TOC. Another book says 95% of TDS. (that's total dissolved (inorganic) solids, and total organic carbon). You just might end up with as many minerals as Plsen. You can pretty much treat it as distilled, the margin of error on your "cocaine scale" you'll need to measure your salt additions would probably be greater than the amount of minerals you'd have in your water.

It'll do a great job on the arsenic, of course.

But... then again, don't take my word for it. I would recommend that you run the RO for a couple weeks and then send a sample to a water lab, to make sure.

markmier wrote:You just might end up with as many minerals as Plsen.

That's what I was hoping for
I guess I should start shopping for those caocaine scales now.

Kai

I use one very similar to this for my mineral additions.

http://cgi.ebay.com/0-05-GRAM-POCKET-SC ... dZViewItem

Wayne
Bugeater Brewing Company

I did some shopping around and also called a local company that sells RO systems (atlastwatersystems.com).

They quoted me $840 for a basic RO system (4 stage, 25 GPD, 2.3 gal tank) w/o installation. The installation would be free for me since I saw their ad on the RO system where I work.

Now when I look on-line, I find comparable systems for $300-$400 at the most. I was actually so frank to tell this the guy on-line and he went into this long story about their systems having better certifications and better warranty and such.

But does that really justy that their RO systems cost more than twice as much as I would pay on-line ??

Kai