Beer is made up of 90% water and is often overlooked as a mainstream beverage. If you’ve ever been to the grocery store and bought a gallon of water boiled for reverse osmosis (RO) or fermentation, properly treated water can make the difference between good beer and good beer.
I recently had the opportunity to try Bucky Hydro’s 4-stage reverse osmosis system to test reverse osmosis water at home. Buckeye Hydro has extensive brewing experience. A portion of the company’s revenue comes directly from renting water treatment equipment to small businesses. Being new to the water world, we worked with Bucky Hydro to tailor the system to our needs. He explained everything and was very helpful. It’s as if he’s teaming up with several homebrews to establish his approach.
We will go through what we discussed and try to shed light on all our real questions.
Why exclude the RO?
Why use reverse osmosis water in the first place? The advantage of demineralized water is that it provides pure water that perfectly matches the contour of the water and the style of the beer. Pure water gives the brewer the flexibility to adjust each ingredient individually. Most of us can afford plain reverse osmosis/distilled water, but the reverse osmosis process is similar to detergent.
Low water need not be a problem. Adding minerals to water seems easy. Because of a lot of NEPA work, you are often exposed to chlorinated water in the environment. I ran into problems when I wanted to reduce the amount of chloride in my beer.
Description of the equipment
Our premium 4-stage RO system provides 100 gallons of distilled water per day. Bucky Hydro reduces pollution by 95% to 98%. Our system runs at 3-1 or 4-1. Wastewater treatment (filtration) back to filtered water (permeate) is the default for residential reverse osmosis systems and can be changed by adjusting the water pressure factor and varying the water temperature.
Things can be improved. When ordering, order according to your needs and budget. I decided to make some changes and am sharing them below. Each system consists of three color channels (blue, white, and yellow), where the blue tank is the IN water source and the yellow tank is the wastewater. (Also called retentate) The yellow tank is fast RO water (also called permeate).
System Configuration
Process Capacity: Capacity refers to rapid production of treated water. Capacity is 25-200 gallons per day (gpd). Bucky Hydro claims 100 gpd, which is more than you can drink in a day. But it is better not to wait until the day is ready. At 100 gallons per day, the system should produce a gallon of reverse osmosis water every 15 minutes. It takes about 2.5 hours to produce 10 gallons of distilled water. Water below 77 degrees or water pressure below 50 psi reduces product penetration.
Increase chloramine count: If your feed water contains chloramine, this method is designed to add more water. Chloramine or chlorine is a common disinfectant used by water companies to treat drinking water. Check your city’s water reports or call your water company to see what sanitizer they use. The addition of this system adds an additional (tertiary) clean house and additional carbon filter to the RO system.
Chlorine is naturally soluble, but chloramine requires a more aggressive extraction process.
SOV series: The automatic shut-off valve range consists of automatic shut-off valves and rotary valves with check valves (ASOVs). When the ID is filled, the flow valve closes, stopping all flow through the SOV system. At least it won’t drown. This ensures that wastewater flow does not continue after the reverse osmosis generation is stopped. Without this system, sewage is constantly flowing in and out of the system.
TDS Calculator: A TDS meter monitors the performance of reverse osmosis (RO) membranes. Several TDS calculator options are available. We chose a DM1 dual-inline TDS meter, which monitors dissolved solids in two positions. It connects to the inlet to monitor your water source, enabling an “external” probe quality. The DM1 is easy to install and can be easily converted between the two readings. I think it is a good investment at just $29 as the TDS of pure water starts going up a lot.
It feeds water. Buckeye Hydro has several options for the convenience of using home plumbing to deliver water to a reverse osmosis system. So I chose the hanging hose.
Leakblock sensor: It is recommended to add this option. If you install your system under a sink or where water has been lost. I avoid it because my reverse osmosis system lives in an unfinished basement.
Installation
Installation and setup is very easy and takes about an hour. Installation includes inserting the filter into the container, hooking up the hose, turning on the water supply before boiling the water, and performing routine maintenance before boiling the water. I won’t go into the technical details of the (also easy) installation. But I will say that the instructions given are clear and easy to follow. There are 18 steps in total and it may seem confusing at first. but it is clearly defined at every step.
The TDS meter can be installed in about 5 minutes and involves running the supplied T-joints at the inlets and outlets of the system. The only scary step is connecting the drain hose to the drain pipe. You can place it on the sink. But I decided to use my exchange. The setup looked nice as I didn’t want to risk spilling water. Remember you need a 1/4-inch drill bit to feed the yellow tub drain while other parts are included in the system.
The hardest part for me was figuring out where to put my system. The basement has concrete walls and space is limited. Instead of drilling the base, I hung it in the rafters with heavy duty nails and keyhole holes in the system bracket. The car is quite heavy and gets heavier when filled with water.
The result
According to Buckeye Hydro, 95% to 98% of dissolved solids in feedwater can be removed. And using the TDS measurement we can confirm a 96% reduction. Our feed water has 171 ppm TDS and our Bucky hydro license has 6 ppm TDS. Performance may improve within the first 6-24 hours.
We went a step further and sent two water samples to Ward’s lab for testing so we could compare water profiles before and after going through the reverse osmosis system. Below is a side by side water comparison. Tap and reverse osmosis water plus test water tap water and reverse osmosis water taste distinctly different, I personally like the taste of tap water but reverse osmosis water is clean and chlorine/chloramine free.
