Campden tablet vs Chloramines

Hey everybody,

I have been struggling with a "plasticy" taste in my beers lately.  Its most noticeable in lagers.  I have been researching chloramines and found out that the city of Raleigh loves to use chloramines in the water.

Test:  Tomorrow I will be brewing 10gal of blonde ale with Nottingham yeast; very light grain bill with nowhere to hide!  I put 1 campden tablet into my water and let it sit in my rig overnight.  I have found that drawing the water the night before and letting it sit helps to remove the chlorine taste.  I will let you guys know how this turns out.  I REALLY want this taste gone!

Have you guys every used campden tablets?, does my dosage seem correct?

Thanks,

McC  

Campden neutralized both Chlorine and Cloromines.  Letting water it overnight does allow the chlorine to dissipate as well.  So does boiling.  I highly recommend using a water filter.  I started with a simple activated charcoal that screwed onto my garache line (for the washer).  I installed a culligan filter housing and use a D40 filter.  The whole steup plus water lines was about $60 and 90 minutes or so of install.

I used campden on a number of brews.  I crush the tablet and put half in my strike water and half in my sparge water.  It did a fine job of removing the plastic / medicinal taste.  I now have the same result with the filter and don't use the campden anymore.

I use them all the time.  As far as I understand it, the campden needs only a couple of minutes to do it's thing which is some sort of chemical reaction that allows the chlorine to evaporate out of the water.  I usually put it into my water right as I start to heat it up, either sparge volume or initial mash volume. 

Also, my tablets say that one little tablet is good for 20 gallons of wine.  I usually use somewhere in the neighborhood of just under 10 gallons to make beer so I guess I could get away with only have a tablet but I usually use the whole thing.  In "Brewing Classic Styles"  I think, they discuss the use of the tablets and how using a whole tab won't hurt anything even though your using twice as much as needed.

Finally, I'm not sure if your doing this or not but make sure you're looking at the level of Alkalinity in your water.  I made a blond ale the other day and had to dilute the tap water with 50% of distilled water to account for the high level of bicarbonates in my water.  If you don't do that, you could get some harsh flavors in a light beer like a blond ale. 

Hope this helps 

I use Charlotte tap water and campden tabs do the trick here.  I use one tab crushed and split between three buckets of ~ 5 gallons each, usually the night before.

The two numbers I've seen for alkalinity in Raleigh are 83 and 30, both well under a worrisome level.

Since you mention 10 gallons, are you using outdoor garden hoses?  A friend here had that same problem and we learned that garden hoses are mostly PVC, which is mostly chlorinated vinyl etc.