are campden tablets worth using?

[Aleman]

- water with CTs added should be boilded up before contact with malt.

No, while boiling will get rid of chlorine, it will not touch chloramine. If you treat your water with metabisulphite, there is no need to do any further treatment for chlorine/chloramine . . .you may want to boil to reduce alkalinity for example.

It's quite difficult to chop up half tablets any further.

Dissolve a tablet in 100ml of water . . . 50 ml = 1/2 a tablet 25ml = 1/4 tablet 10 ml = 1/10 tablet etc.

- CTs are only good for treating excess chloride content, like chloramines, not free chlorine.

metabisulphite does not treat chlorides (a disassociated ion of chlorine), metabisulphite removes dissolved chlorine gas and chloramine, which the water companies use to keep the water 'sweet in the pipes'

- other water problems need other treatment solutions.

The only water 'problem' that might be considered essential for all grain brewing only is that of adjusting the alkalinity to that required for the 'style' of beer you are brewing.

- CTs have a minimal sanitising effect, compared with things like VWP, etc.
- CTs will kill yeast, if the concentration is too high. (How strong?). Have a tablet is considered enough for most UK water.

At 50ppm metabisulphite, (1 CT in 1 gallon of water), metabisulphite is an antifermentative, and is used at that concentration in wine making to prevent wild yeasts from fruit taking hold before the pitched yeast does. . . . It will also knock back brewers yeast, but if the correct dosage is used that is unlikely . . . The correct dosage is

1 Campden tablet per 20 (US) gallons (~77.5l or 17 UK gallons) is intended to deal with a worst-case scenario of 3mg/l chlorine as chloramine.

So as Graham says the actual amount required to treat the chlorine content in our water is very low, but as Residual disinfectant is something that is recorded for statutory purposes the water company should be able to tell you how much is present, and you can work out the dosage from that. If you add an excess of metabisulphite (even 1 CT per 5 gallons ~ 10 ppm metabisulphite), it has not shown itself to be a problem as metabisulphite is an excellent andioxidant, and helps to protect the beer. There is a possibility that some yeasts can produce sulphurous odours through metabolising metabisulphite, however most of the common (and not so common) strains that I have used don't do this, and those that are renowned for it do so in the presence of an excess of Sulphate . . . The dreaded 'Burton Snatch' . . . Church End Breweries beers exhibit this characteristic, but given the proximity to Burton it is understandable, and is a characteristic of their beers, not necessarily a flaw! One other thing that Graham fails to mention is that excess sulphur, in addition to tcp like phenolics, is often the signs of a bacterial infection!

- if cooling treated liquor, cover with an airlock to minimise exposure to bacteria.

Or even just pop the lid on the pan

To be honest, a lot of people add a small amount of CT and report improvement. I cannot believe all of this group were practising poor sanitation. Maybe, in the act of adding CTs or bottled water one takes more care of the brew than otherwise?

Possibly, it all depends on the amount of residual disinfectant (chlorine and chloramine) present in the water in the first place. I know mine is quite high as when I run the kitchen tap I can smell Chlorine being gassed off, I also know that there is a small amount of chloramine present (Bound chlorine). I use a special cartridge filter for all my drinking / cooking / Fish Keeping and brewing water which is designed to remove chlorine and chloramine, However if I didn't have that then I would happily use metabisulphite.

Those that get away without treating their water may well have low levels of chlorine and no chloramine in their water supply, Commercial breweries often fill the HLT from the paraflow outlet to recover the heat, for the brew the next day, and so any chlorine present would be driven off . . .

Like a lot of things in brewing, the information is there, it is up to you to try it in your system, if it works, then great, if it doesn't then you need to look at another cause / solution.