Age of RO water?
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FuzzeWuzze
I Love DIY
Forever? Im not sure what you think will happen?
Concerned about bacterial growth in the stored water.
Transamguy77
Well-Known Member
I think that would depend on how it would be stored, I would assume it would be good as long as any other standing water before it goes stagnant.
You could probably put a campdon tablet in the container to ward off bacteria for a bit.
You could probably put a campdon tablet in the container to ward off bacteria for a bit.
bucketnative
Well-Known Member
There's not a lot of food sources for bacteria to grow/proliferate in RO water... that's not to say that bacteria can't survive in RO water. But, you are planning on boiling the wort made with the water, right? So it will be fine.
Sounds like a good idea.
Yeah, I get that but I wouldn't plan on using stagnant water to start with, Therefor, the question.
I am giving this water to friend off my system for a future brew so that is where this question has originated. I will probably add a little campden for safety sake.
Thanks for the input.
If there's a carbon source to be had something will find it and grow on it. With pure water the carbon source is CO2 from the air. That said I never do anything to my RO water other than drain the atmospheric tank when I'm away for an extended period. I figure the inside of the pressure tank is well enough sealed that nothing will find its way in.
I suppose that there is a minute opportunity for RO water to harbor a growth of some microorganisms, but the organic content of that water is so low that there wouldn't be much of a population. In addition, I consider all brewing water to be undergoing a sanitization process via brewing, so I don't consider any sort of biologic contamination a concern. Relax, don't worry....
Thank you, AJ. I have a non-pressurized tank and will be filling 5 gallon water containers for transport and storage.
Would campden be a viable option to assist in the stability in this scenario? Or what would you recommend. We're probably only talking about 30 to 60 days.
Thanks, Martin. I'll pass this information on to the recipient of the water. Thanks to all for you input.
I wouldn't worry about it but if I did I'd put a couple of drops of household bleach in each container and then be sure to seal them well.
The storage container may harbor more microbes than the water itself. Don't forget to sanitize or sterilize if possible. Recently, I did a yeast (Brett) storage experiment. In an attempt to quantify the number of live cells I made a dilution of 1:100 using 1 ml of non-sterile RO water from a water store (mistake). Then plated 10 microliters of the dilution. Below is a picture of the disaster and may give you some idea of what may be in your water after a week of storage in a non-sanitized but otherwise clean vessel. The small beige colonies are Brettanomyces, the yellow and larger beige colonies are bacteria. The second photo shows one of the treatments that did not require dilution and is therefore clean.
FuzzeWuzze
I Love DIY
Im not a biologist or anything, so correct me if im wrong. While what you did may look nasty, in reality you took some super insigificant amount of these cells out of water and grew them up on a dish(the ideal enviornment), its not like that is how much bacteria would have grown up in the RO water without all those nutrients.
What i mean to say is i could probably take a sample out of a super clean room at a hospital or manufacturing facility, if i can get one or two cells on a dish i can grow them into a big colony like you have there as well. There's no such thing short of being in deep space that is free of bacteria.
Besides, as AJ said you are boiling all of this water anyways so its a moot point. Obviously dont use if if it smells/tastes bad or if it has actual mold growing in it...but thats not likely to happen in 30-60 days..probably not even 6 months.
For sure AJ is correct. In the image, each colony represents a single bacterial cell (perhaps more than one if clumped) that grew enough cells to be seen with the naked eye. And the number in each quadrant represents the number in 10 microliters of the sample. I did not mean to indicate that storing RO water would make it unsafe for brewing, it does not. However, you do want nice fresh water. The water will stay fresh until enough microbes reproduce to provide off flavors and odors. This depends on how many microbes (among other factors) are present at the beginning of storage. And if there are any food sources available (dirty container). But some microbes can reproduce to some extent in clean water. Water coming out of your RO system may be nearly void of microbes. So if you put it in a clean, sterile container it should last for months.
Sorry if I misled you in my post, even the EPA allows for a Heterotrophic Plate plate in count drinking water (all culturable microbes in a sample) of 500 per ml. So I think my sample would have failed but not by a lot. Here is a nice paper put out by the World Health Organization that deals with the issue: http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/HPCFull.pdf
This may call for an experiment. Two pint sized water bottles with RO water, one sanitized and the other not. Leave them out for a few weeks/months, then test. I'm guessing there's so little there in the RO to start with that bacterial growth will be insignificant.
