It really helps a lot to visualize the water thats coming out the other end. Plus its a surefire way to know when to change filters or the membrane

Nice!

Much better than how I do it: setting a timer for 3 hours because I did math wrong on RO gallons per hour, coming back and finding my kettle flooding lol

@@GREEENZO that's called planned housekeeping - it was time to mop the floor anyway....

I'll have to add those extra shut off valves, thats a good tip!

Sounds like a great setup!

Glad I could help!

It is a game changer!

Nice!

Glad I could help out!

Thats a great idea if you have the space for it!

I got mine down to 7 as the membrane broke in! I almost went for the RODI but thats just a bit too expensive for me.

I completely agree, thats awful!

Glad to help out! At the very least their customer service is outstanding

Great tip! No hardness means no pH change over time. I'm gonna go do that now

At this point, I'm still setting a timer based on the flow rate anyway despite seeing the float valve working well. I'd rather not have a spill, and I don't have a sink down there.

Well done! Campden tablets are a great way to help remove the chlorine/chloramine!

Chlorine (not chlorides) should be at 0 before, and after the RO membrane

I don't have any info on starting a commercial brewery, strictly a homebrewer here, but I'm glad you are enjoying the channel!

Nice Curt! It is a game changer!

Glad it was helpful!

It depends heavily on your input water hardness, and the efficiency of the membrane inside. Unfortunately some people are going to have worse RO to wastewater ratios than others. Glad you have it figured out well for your tap water though!

The reservoir is a great add-on, and I would have done that but I'm too short on space

Great tip!

Remember that a permeate pump only works on systems equipped with a pressurized storage tank.

It certainly is!

Its here: www.buckeyehydro.com/auto-shut-off-valve-kit/

I wish I had a source that cheap near me!

Awesome! Thank you!

Glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks Ed!

I wish I had a market basket near me. The big stores near me are often out of distilled water or don't stock much of it.

If that works for you, then great!

I am running at 60 PSI

But try it - the flow you get it much faster. Also at that PSI you should consider a permeate pump, you'll get much less waste water @@TheApartmentBrewer

Thats very impressive water! I hope it is consistent for you year round.

@TheApartmentBrewer it is great for most of the year except spring when there is run off, but they do weekly reports so I'll have to keep an eye on it this spring :)

Yeah it can be tough to justify making the trip sometimes, thats one of the big reasons I installed this.

I've tried it once before and I found it to be far more trouble than its worth. They increase the amount of wasted beer and are more expensive than finings, plus very tough to sanitize. I'd rather just stick to finings.

Great tips, I definitely agree on the DI resin being unnecessary, 7 ppm is practically distilled water.

Yup! It's a great way to avoid those issues

If you have good water pressure, it should work for you. Just may have to go with a slower output. I've got the same exact model - but configured for 24 gallons per day (different flow restricter and RO membrane). My source water varies from 300 - 350 TDS and pressure is pretty steady at just over 50 PSI. Output is within a point or two of 7 TDS, maybe up to 9 in the dead of winter when the ground water is in the low 50's.

The only variable that would theoretically change with a higher input TDS is the life of your filters. The system should still be just as efficient.

Yeah so you have an RO/DI system. Those are a great investment as well, and you have extremely pure water at the end!

So you have a DI filter w/out an RO. Check to make sure your DI resin is rated for potable water - most are not.

Yes, the pricing does vary. It’s ridiculous. By me it is anywhere from 1.79 a gallon to 2.79 a gallon depending upon availability and where you shop.

It's about 1.50 a gallon here in the puget sound area

I just get the Target brand distilled, and it’s ~$1.20/gallon in the Philadelphia area.

$3-4 may have been an exaggerated estimate, but I just saw over $2.50/gallon the other day. Plus there's no guarantee that stores will have enough for me to take back with me, often times they only have a few gallons handy, and I have no fill location near me.

I may make that upgrade eventually. It is far more expensive relative to the RO system though.

​​@@TheApartmentBrewerI built my system for 50 Euros plus the resin costs. But I had some.fittimgs laying around. So if from scratch it would have been maybe 70 euro. Comes with the price of throwing away 700ml of resin everytime I produce 55l of water. We have so damn hard water that it does not last long, but it is so much faster

Because I do not have the space for that at all

Some fun facts to know and tell: **The purity of the RO water coming right out of the membrane will be better than what comes out of a full pressurized tank. **You'll send much less water down the drain as concentrate if you use an UNpressurized tank rather than a pressurized tank.

The filters will last a long time, they recommend changing them every 6 months ($25) and then swapping the RO membrane once you see the flowrate go down and the TDS go up, again this should be on the order of several years ($30)

@@TheApartmentBrewer Thanks for the info! I currently use my tap water that I treat with campden tablets and adjust based on a water report from the city. I make good to great beer but I occasionally get an off batch. I can't shake the feeling that it might be an occasional source water change. So I've been trying to figure out an ROI on buying distilled from the store vs installing a RO system. Not as much of a slam dunk savings compared to you as DI is only $1.25/gal where I live.

Filters should be changed once every six months, and the RO membrane will last several years theoretically. As far as microbial contaminants, I'm not sure how quickly that would happen if left alone, but the system is easy to sanitize and theoretically only needs to be sanitized once a year. Plus any microbes would probably get filtered out anyway and then of course all the water is getting boiled.

Thank you braj !

Yes it is!

A complete filter swap runs about $25 for all three, the RO membrane is about $30, this would be something you would probably swap out every 6-12 months.

Most people get 2 to 5 years from their RO membrane

Thats awesome!!

I'm not into coffee as much as I am into beer, but it would be fun to play around with it!

I don't believe so, it may have too high hardness for healthy drinking over time, but its definitely good for cleaning or for watering most plants.

No, but the total ppm of everything in the RO water is 7 overall. It basically doesn't have anything in it.

The filters will last a long time, they recommend changing them every 6 months ($25) and then swapping the RO membrane once you see the flowrate go down and the TDS go up to something like greater than 10% of the input TDS, again this should be on the order of several years ($30)

Here's a longer-winded reply from our FAQ's: A good rule of thumb is to replace your sediment filter and carbon block(s) after six months. A more precise way to maximize the usable life of these two filters is to use a pressure gauge to identify when pressure reaching the membrane starts to decline. This is your indication one or more of the prefilters (all the filters that touch the water before it reaches the RO membrane) is beginning to clog. Also be cognizant of the "chlorine capacity" of the carbon block(s). A good 0.5 micron carbon block for example will remove much of the chlorine from 20,000 gallons of tap water presented at 1 gpm. Best to change out the carbon block at no more than 50% of the chlorine capacity. Some original equipment suppliers commonly provide carbon cartridges rated at 2,000 to 6,000 gallons. Remember that all the water you process, both waste water and purified water, goes through the carbon block. Regarding your RO membrane, use your total dissolved solids (TDS) meter to measure, record, and track the TDS (expressed in parts per million [ppm]) in two places: 1) tap water, and 2) after the RO membrane. The TDS in your tap water will likely range from about 50 ppm to upwards of 1000 ppm. Common readings are 100 to 400 ppm. So for sake of discussion, let's say your tap water reads 400 ppm. That means that for every million parts of water, you have 400 parts of dissolved solids. How do we go about getting that TDS reading down to somewhere near zero? If you do some experimenting with your TDS meter, you'll note that your sediment filter and carbon block do very little to remove dissolved solids. So with your tap water at 400 ppm, you can measure the water at the “in” port on your RO membrane housing and you'll see it is still approximately 400 ppm. The RO membrane is really the workhorse of the system. It removes most of the TDS, some membranes to a greater extent than others. For instance, 100 gpd Filmtec membranes have a rejection rate of 98% (i.e., they reject 98% of the dissolved solids in the feed water). So the purified water coming from your 100 gpd membrane would be about 2 ppm (a 98% reduction). The lifespan of an RO membrane is dependent upon how much water you run through it, and how “dirty” the water is. Membranes can function well for a year, two years, or more. To test the membrane, measure the TDS in the water coming into the membrane, and in the purified water (permeate) produced by the membrane. Compare that to the membrane’s advertised rejection rate, and to the same reading you recorded when the membrane was new. Membranes also commonly produce purified water more slowly as their function declines. Additionally, don’t forget to sanitize the entire system at least once per year, and wash and lube your housing o-rings with food-grade silicone grease every filter change.

Glad I could help out! To answer your question, I felt like the extra price on the DI was a bridge too far, but the RO system putting out only 7 ppm TDS is perfectly adequate for my brewing needs.

Having sold countless systems into the homebrew world, almost 0% of homebrewers opt for a DI stage.

The extra shutoff points is a great tip, and easy to install. I'll be sure to do that.

Improperly stored ingredients can definitely impact flavor. I don't have that much experience with extract brewing so I can't be totally sure, but I think you're probably getting some impact from the age there.

Yikes!

Good luck! A double brew day is doable but you'll be running around like crazy keeping track of everything going on at the same time. Plan as much as you can ahead of schedule and rehearse in your mind what you will be doing.

@@TheApartmentBrewer The thing is, I'm not planning two beers side-by-side. I'm planning to brew 3 back-to-back-to-back so in that sense it's less hectic but takes a LOT more time and I'm asking for any advice or tips like cook your meals before hand and microwave them, is lightly hand washing and rinsing the kettle (no taps or pumps or any fancy toys) enough or do I actually need to clean it properly? This kind of things worry me a bit. But thanks for the good luck :) it boosts my morale.

Ah ok I misunderstood. That's gonna be a lot of effort, though. I would recommend planning out your meals and having some caffeine or something handy. Just a quick rinse down between brews should be fine if you're going to brewing again right away.

Depends on the beer. I make a water profile for every beer I brew and its on every video for those brews. I would not recommend brewing with pure RO water unless you're going for something like Czech water.

A camden tablet is a great way to help remove the chlorine and/or chloramine, good alternative to the chlorine filter.

If you have the correct prefilters on the RO system, the chloramine will be removed prior to the RO membrane

Not a stupid question at all. The water profile that you would get from adding salts is for the mash and/or sparge water, not for the finished beer volume.

@@TheApartmentBrewer Thank you!! :))

Sorry not sorry

Nothing wrong with that approach, but there is generally a a fair bit of fluctuation in city water. This is one way to guarantee consistency.

No, I don't think I will stop it. There are clearly thousands of people who are interested in this topic and are hopefully benefiting from my instructions. City water profiles fluctuate all the time and are only measured at the treatment plant, so you're usually picking up tons of minerals from old pipes. Secondly, boiling only removes chlorine and some hardness, other minerals are unchanged.

@@TheApartmentBrewer They watch this because you tell them to, hence views

@@ldt_ lol I wish it worked that way, then I'd have millions of views. Nope, interest in this topic is far higher than my other recent videos.

Hard water (calcium and magnesium) is actually good for brewing beer. It's typically not hardness RO systems are used to remove. More commonly it's sodium, or chlorides, or high alkalinity or high TDS.