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Gday, For my water prep I've so far been boiling up tap water, pouring into a sanitised plastic water container and sitting it for 24 hours to achieve decholrination. Is this an over kill? Could the water sit for a shorter time period ?

Cheers !

You could use Campden tablets (sodium metabisulfite). One tablet will do 80L of water so for 20L batches you don't need much

Boiling it should do the trick without having to let it stand - chlorine won't stay dissolved in boiling water. Of course, depending on ambient temps, you'd have to let it stand for a good few hours for it to cool to pitcing temparatures (this is assuming you're not subsequently going to do a mash or full volume boil anyway).

This was discussed at some length over at AHB recently: http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/i ... opic=64057

If you have good quality town water in your area you may not even have to boil it to sterilise or de-chlorinate. Until recently I was making kit and bit beers straight from the tap in the bath tub, without any problem that could be attributable to chlorine or chloramine, but I understand many areas are different. If it's heavily chlorinated you might get away with half a campden tablet as it will be pretty well rid of bugs. I'm not sure if campden tablets will sanitise water so if you are on tank water I would advise boiling to continue.

Boiling isn't going to do much where de-chlorinisation is concerned. Most municipal water treatment facilities treat water with chloramine, which is a less-volatile derivative of chlorine and isn't going to be removed through boiling or standing the water.

Throw a campden tablet into the water at least a day before using it and you'll get the results you're chasing. I used to do this before I realised the effect that chloramine has on the average brew is negligible and I haven't noticed a change in beer quality since ceasing the practice.

bullfrog wrote:Boiling isn't going to do much where de-chlorinisation is concerned. Most municipal water treatment facilities treat water with chloramine, which is a less-volatile derivative of chlorine and isn't going to be removed through boiling or standing the water.

The consensus in the AHB thread I linked above seems to be that most supplies in Aus aren't treated with chloramine. I suppose that as with all adjustments to brewing water, it pays to know what you're starting with before trying to alter it.

To offer a different perspective: Burleigh Brewing use Gold Coast tap water and do absolutely nothing to it, and their beers are bloody brilliant.