carbon filters vs. "brewing filters"

[robert4136]

with regards to filtration for clarity and not for brewing water...,

at my particular home depot they have 1 and 5 micron carbon filters cartridges for filtering drinking water. my question is; would this be the same as the fine and coarse filters commonly sold for beer filtration. i am thinking there is a reason why these brewing filters do not use carbon. any thoughts on this?


Rob

[Brandon]

with regards to filtration for clarity and not for brewing water...,

at my particular home depot they have 1 and 5 micron carbon filters cartridges for filtering drinking water. my question is; would this be the same as the fine and coarse filters commonly sold for beer filtration. i am thinking there is a reason why these brewing filters do not use carbon. any thoughts on this?


Rob

I believe the fine and course filters you are referring to are the ones for filtering finished beer or wine and have no carbon in them. You want a carbon filter for your brewing water and no carbon for filtering finished beer

[robert4136]

i suppose the geek in me wants to figure out how a 1 micron carbon filter is different from the 1 micron filters sold for brewing applications.

[Brandon]

one has carbon...one doesnt

[Travisty]

Also, the carbon is an activated carbon I believe. It's purpose is to remove organic impurities from your water. I would think filtering finished beer through activated carbon would remove a lot of the stuff you want in your beer. It would be an interesting experiment for sure though!

[andy77]

Also, the carbon is an activated carbon I believe. It's purpose is to remove organic impurities from your water. I would think filtering finished beer through activated carbon would remove a lot of the stuff you want in your beer. It would be an interesting experiment for sure though!

Yeah, do it on a small scale and let us know how it turns out.

The home depot filters are spun poly surrounding an activated carbon core. The spun poly works by having spaces no larger than 1 micron for the water (or beer) to flow through. Therefore, everything over 1 micron in size is trapped in a filter, like sand in a sieve. Most other flavor compounds in beer, other than yeast cells, are much smaller and pass through. The activated carbon filter works on a molecular level, and binds with certain compounds irrespective of size, trapping them in the filter. I'm not sure exactly what those are (other than chlorine), but I'd bet that some of them are are things you want in your beer.

[BayouBrew]

I'd guess that you'd loose most of your hop bittering, flavor, and aroma and probably malt character too since these are from charged molecules that would get bound up in the activated carbon. You would most likely end up with beer colored water with some alcohol in it. Yum.

[andy77]

You would most likely end up with beer colored water with some alcohol in it. Yum.

So Michelob Ultra, then?