Cedar Rapids Brewing Society

I have to admit that I pay minor attention to water chemistry. But, I do use a PUR filter for all my brewing water, which I had hoped would remove the chlorine/chloramine. I definitely notice the difference in using filtered water for making my coffee. I have a GE undercounter double filter system with a dedicated tap in the kitchen. Gives me an idea to do a side-by-side comparison of the 2 water sources in making coffee to see if I can tell any difference, as the GE system is more robust than the simple PUR filter. A simple taste test comparison of the 3 sources (PUR, GE, tap), I couldn't discern any major difference; but it wasn't a blind tasting, so there could have been some bias.

However, even if I filter my brewing water, should I still use a Camden tab in my brews? Is there a downside?

A couple of other points on astringency. As Lee pointed out if grain husk material is making it into the BK it can be a cause. You can reduce that a bit by skimming hot break off the top as the wort comes up to boil. Husks tend to float.

Another thing is to make sure you don't over carb. This can give a perception that many folks associate with astringency, or at least accent it. This has gotten me a few times. I think my regulator is off so I've recently started backing off the setting.

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A good carbon filter should remove chloramine if I remember correctly. You have to make sure you stay on top of changing it out though as effectiveness goes down over time/volume.

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In my research on chloramines, RO was the only way to really remove them. Camden tablets cheap. Tony, you should still treat for chloramines.

I get extremely clear runoff with my process with hardly any husk material in the BK which as Randy said, helps with the astringency issue too.

I have them, but have just gotten out of the habit of using them in the new brew room. Need to re-introduce that as part of my SOP.

Quick update on this. I had brewed an all extract beer since I had some sitting around, still has the same creeping astringent taste, makes me think it's definitely the water.

I have a SMaSH fermenting right now that I used campden in, so we'll see how that one turns out.

-Josh Peanasky

Then try RO, even better IMO.

I used a camden tab in my witbier that I brewed yesterday. I was bit concerned about astringency with this very heavy wheat grain bill. We'll see??

Yeah, my plan is RO. But I'm trying Campden as an experiment first. Northern English Brown in the mash right now having prepped the water with potassium metabisulfite at the recommended rate.

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Once you go RO.. you don't go back!

South side of Marion, I've a 140 gpd RO system (7tds) and a 20 gallon collection vessel. I can fill it up ahead of time if someone wants to pick up water fast.
The stuff at hyvee randomly varied from 10 to 40+ tds, so you never know what your are going to get there (though it is still guaranteed to be better than tap water) and takes like 20 minutes of standing around to fill 4 carboys.

They say the pressure tanks for the RO systems last only about 5 years. Does anyone have any comments on this? If they last longer I'll probably go with a 20-gallon tank. If they don't last that long I'll probably go with a smaller tank and deal with a slow fill rate.

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Well boys, it looks/tastes like the campden did the trick. Last couple of brews don't have the lingering astringent feel that I've noticed in the past. Thanks for all the help! Hopefully soon I'll get the rest of my process nailed down I can continue playing with water.

Cheers!

-Josh Peanasky

At early tasting it appears that I am getting a similar result, but have not killed all of the astringency. This may be due to not having enough campden or to too much Burton water salts or just my taste buds. Samples to at the next meeting.

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