Spotless Water

[Binkie Huckaback]

Does anyone use Spotless Water to brew and/or had a sample analysed? I was thinking of sending a sample to Murphy's, but want to know if it's worth it before I shell out £35.

Something else that's just occurred to me; given that Spotless Water is in no way marketed as suitable for brewing (although the company says it's suitable for aquariums), is using a 'non-potable'supply of water I have no contol over fundamentally a bad idea?

[FUBAR]

Yes I have used it, the dispenser at the pump tells you the TDS of 0 which has been confirmed by my TDS meter at home , as it is going to be boiled for an hour or so when you brew there will be no issues . Spotless water basically state it is OK for brewing but it is not advised to drink as is , which is the general consensus wherever RO water comes from as what has been stripped away is in the main beneficial to your health .

[Binkie Huckaback]

Thanks for the swift reply FUBAR. That's very useful information. So basicly, buy a TDS meter and that's it?

Would you recomend a particular brand or stockist? I'm prepared to pay extra for a good quality one. Do you think a good quality second hand one would be worthwhile?

[FUBAR]

Mine is just basic meter from ebay , think it was only about £10 . Not really necessary to have one , but they do come in handy if you are treating your own tap water to reduce alkalinity . A quick check of the TDS before starting to make sure it hasn't shifted to much since last time will save on doing a salifert test before you begin adding acids to your water .

[vacant]

You can buy your own RO filter system for £35.

I filter around 35 ltr RO the day before a brew, top up with 10-15 ltr very hard tap water. Around 150 ltr waste water is saved for cooling the wort through my immersion chiller. This warms up the waste water which is collected again and used to clean kit at the end of the brew day.

[MashBag]

Is brewing with RO water such a good idea?

Yeast do need naturally occurring minerals and trace elements.

Not to mention that you are reducing the nutritional effect for the drinker too?

For me this falls into "could does not mean should"

[vacant]

Is brewing with RO water such a good idea?

Hence "top up with 10-15 ltr very hard tap water". In the early days I tried one brew with 100% RO and built the profile with chemicals and it worked great (and I noticed a recipe on Jim's recently that did the same). However, with my hard water at around 265, diluting with 80-90% RO is such an easy way to get liquor to brew with.

[nickjdavis]

No one should brew with 100% RO water in my opinion.

Although we may add back in Calcium, Magnesium, Chlorides, Sulphates etc etc there are other elements that are beneficial to yeast such as zinc, that we brewers do not routinely add back in.

Cutting with tap water (council pop as my grandparents used to call it) at least ensures some of these other mineral remain in your brewing water.

[Binkie Huckaback]

Vacant: what pump do you use to circulate the water? One of the reasons I was thinking of using Spotless water rather than RO is that I use about 50 litres of water to cool 23 litres of beer which I then use to clean and water the garden, but don't really want to produce any more 'waste' water, as I can't really use that much. Also time constraints.

Nickjdavies: it's funny you should say that; my girlfriend mentioned the same thing when I was telling her about. Do you think yeast nutrient goes at least some way to
Replacing what RO removes?

I used to boil all my water, but I foolishly bought an inline water filter as we have really crappy water, so it's difficult to tell how effective it is at different stages of the filters life. Plus I'm trying to lessen my impact on the environment and my pocket. Buying bottled water from Tesco reduces the electricity I use, but increases the amount of single use plastic. I also thought Spotless Water's filters might be better than is a available to the average homebrew.

[MashBag]

I was thinking of using Spotless water rather than RO

Spotless water is RO. I thought it was, but had to double check. https://www.spotlesswater.co.uk/what-is ... pure-water

Buying bottled water from Tesco reduces the electricity I use, but increases the amount of single use plastic.

We are quite rural, so a run to the supermarket has its own cost.. In diesel.

How long are you boiling for? Does your domestic hot water have a tank - you could hot-fill to save time?!?

[MashBag]

Here's a thought...

Source: https://www.realhomes.com/advice/how-mu ... l-a-kettle

'The average 2-litre kettle has a power rating of 3 kilowatts per hour (kWh), although it must be noted that it will never take a whole hour to boil your kettle! Instead, boiling a kettle for an average of 4 minutes uses 0.225kWh. As the average cost per unit of electricity now is £0.28, to work out the costs you must do the following sum:

'Power used (in this case it’s 0.225kWh) x cost of one kWh in pence (0.28)'

This means it costs the following:

To boil a full kettle (2 litres): £0.06p

So.... £0.06p x 25 (50 litres) = £1.50

I think we should be clear this is "bring to boil" not "rolling boil"

The cheapest bottled water in I found (Aldi) is £1 (5l) = £10 for 50l.
Tesco is considerably more.

Bringing it to boil is certainly cheapest & reduces plastic use.
So the question becomes ...
Is bring to boil, the day/evening before & let it cool:

A) enough boil to treat the water? It will certainly reduce the temporary hardness.
B) timely enough for your brewday? Maths is OK but it also has to work for you

[vacant]

Vacant: what pump do you use to circulate the water? One of the reasons I was thinking of using Spotless water rather than RO is that I use about 50 litres of water to cool 23 litres of beer which I then use to clean and water the garden, but don't really want to produce any more 'waste' water, as I can't really use that much. Also time constraints.

Cheap/low tech water transfer

I collect waste water in three plastic storage boxes I had spare. When cooling I use a 5 ltr jug to top up a 30 ltr fermenting vessel as a reservoir that sits next to my boiler. Inside the reservoir is a £6 submersible aquarium pump to feed the immersion chiller. I tried putting the reservoir on a step ladder on the bench but gravity alone wasn't enough to get a decent flow for some reason (air lock?) and it was a bit precarious to jug-fill.

[Binkie Huckaback]

Thanks Vacant