Ask The Brewmasters

Hello gentleman,  after seeing last years water bills I am looking for ways to increase efficiency in our water usage.  We are in town and so we use municipal water after running it through an RO system. and one of the ways I was investigating reducing waste is the waste from the RO.  It seems to be about 50 50.  I use Bruin water (Excel) to calculate what to add back to our mash water.  My question is what is a reasonable amount of Total Dissolved Solids that I should be shooting for with the RO processing.  Up to now I have been going for as few as possible.  Which means the most waste water possible it seems.  I have been very happy with the quality of our beers and I dont want to change that.  Looking for a balance.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

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Joey McClure
Owner
Fishtowne Brew House
Beaufort NC
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Much depends on the nature of the dissolved solids. Ions like iron, nitrate, nitrite, and manganese need to be kept low. Calcium, magnesium are mostly beneficial. The bypass water from RO can be used for non-brewing tasks, but not as boiler feed.

Roger Barth, PhD
Professor Emeritus of Chemistry
West Chester University
rbarth@wcupa.edu

Author of
The Chemistry of Beer, The Science in the Suds, Second Edition. ISBN 978-1-119-78333-0
Mastering Brewing Science: Quality and Production. ISBN 978-1-119-45605-6.

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This e-mail message was sent from a retired or emeritus status employee of West Chester University.

As a primer, i would listen to Master Brewers Podcast #293.

I agree with Roger.  High Calcium and Magnesium can precipitate out where you least want it and cause permanent damage to equipment.

Each of our facilities has slightly different make up depending on their wells or city water.  For instance, we irrigate landscaping if the sodium and chlorides are low.  We have also used it for our compost makeup water.

Joey,

You need to decide what your target is.  Are you looking for mineral free water?  Low mineral?  Or just Strip the yuck and chlorine out of your city wate?

You might be able to reduce your RO usage by just back blending ratios of carbon filtered and RO water to hit a spec for each style. 

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John Frederick
Principal Product and Process Innovator
E&J Gallo Winery
Modesto CA
(209) 604-5246
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We have a tank for our RO discharge that we use to flush our toilets so the water doesn't go to waste.  

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Cheers, Anthony Stone
Head Brewer
Tampa Bay Brewing Co
Palm Harbor FL
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My collogues have made excellent suggestions.  With RO technologies it is common during installation to determine the maximum recovery of water in order to reduce the overall water rejection.  The municipalities are charging for purchase of the water and charging for sending the reject water to the sewer.   A double whammy.

The least cost approach for the greatest water recovery with the least reject water is to use an antiscale injection system.  Avista Technologies will provide the water analysis and recommend the proper antiscale based on the municipal water feed quality.  Note that the antiscale will not pass the RO membrane.

Avista Membrane Treatment Solutions - Avista Technologies, Inc. (avistamembranesolutions.com)

Avista™ RO Water Analysis to Predict Scaling Potential (avistamembranesolutions.com)

Contact them to review your situation.

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Steven Smith
Bionomics Ltd.
Oakville, Ontario
905 334-5665
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