Water treatment

[B-boy]

Hey all,
So I have recently moved and am no longer on city water, the house I purchased is on well and septic. When we first moved in there was tons of iron staining in the toilets, pipes, water heater etc. I have since flushed the whole system several times with iron out and things are getting on track. The previous owners installed a 40,000 grain water softener, and I have adjusted it to correspond a little better with the hardness here. There is still iron settling out in the toilets etc and the taste is not great. I am looking at installing a new water treatment system, (with the softener included) and looking for advice. What are people running to get tasty water? I have yet to brew a batch here, and the thought of constantly buying jugs does not appeal to me. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. My water profile is attached.

[MitchK]

pretty high ph, pretty high carbonate levels... I would have to convert a bunch of the numbers to PPM to give much input on sulfate or chloride, but right off the bat I can tell you have considerably more alkalinity than I do, which means you will have to deal with that somehow (boil and decant, salt/acid additions, etc) if you are planning on making any pale beer. Of course, for darker beer I actually add stuff to raise the PH/carbonate (I'm on pockwock hrm water)

[Celiacbrew]

As you are probably already aware iron and sodium are your treated water's main issues, otherwise it looks fine to me. You will probably need a reverse osmosis system to get those minerals out. I don't think activated carbon filters do anything for them. I think RO systems run a couple hundred bucks (Costco.ca has one for $300 but there might be cheaper) and then you have to replace the filters which are usually pretty pricey. I think a few people on here have RO setups and others buy the jugs. The RO systems generally don't have the tank capacity to do a full batch of beer so you have to run it off into something else like a carbon over the course of a day or two. Buying it at the store is slightly more expensive but you can get all the water you need in one shot.

[B-boy]

Thanks for the replies, I guess I have some more reading to do. I know I'd rather avoid RO just due to inefficiency. I'm thinking a few filters followed by a split to the softener for tap and appliance water and a more direct feed to my brew setup and outdoor hoses. With a possible RO under the kitchen sink. The idea of buying all my brew water doesn't sit well with me. I want to get a whole home system setup that will be easy to maintain and be cost effective. I also want tasty beer and espresso.

[jacinthebox]

Canadian tire in bayers lake sells any size bucket u have for 99 cents. That's where i get my RO water. I use my 30l buckets

[amartin]

I fill up jugs of city tap water at my dad's place. It's inconvenient, but what can you do. It's that or too much sodium, or manganese if I let the softener run out. If you wanted to use RO water I'd be inclined to use at least a small amount of bottled spring water as well, just for the trace minerals.

[Albert]

Greensand filter. They're a bit pricey, somethin lots of home brewers are afraid of but they work For iron, manganese and sulfur.



The iron isn't super screaming high, only half the aesthetic objective...

Oh and MG/L=ppm


Turbidity is high, which may be some of the stuff you're seeing "settling out".??
I'd highly recommend shocking your well and system. Cleans out a lot of crud as an added bonus to of ensuring its sanitary. A cartridge filter would also fix the stuff that's "settling out" whether it's iron particles or just sand/debris.


I'm on the road so away from my references so can't dig in too much more than that!

Good luck!

Cheers

[B-boy]

Thanks Albert, I shocked the system and put a new well cap on the day we moved in. Can you tell me why Brewers are opposed to the greensand filters? I'm not so concerned with price, I just want to build the system once and have it be suitable for drinking water and decent for brewing. I don't mind some system maintenance and would rather understand and do it myself as opposed to paying culligan etc to do it. I also don't want any buyers remorse so all this feedback is helpful.

[B-boy]

So I think I am heading in the direction of an air injection water filter such as the one linked below. I already have a 2 stage 10" filter system that I can install as a pre filter for any other dirt/debris and then eventually if I need to I will put an RO system in right before my HLT. Does anyone have experience with these filter units? http://homehardware.ca/en/rec/index.htm ... ron+filter" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;