RO/Distilled Refill stations

Yeah, I read that as "Not RO/distilled". Move along.

 

Tropical fish stores sell RO water. I get my RO water from a local tropical fish retail store. I just bring in my empty gallon jugs and they fill them up $.39 a gallon. Whole foods also sells RO water but I believe you have to buy their water jug.

 

Tropical fish store for me too, although occasionally I guy gallons of distilled from Market Basket for 50 cents each as well.

 

Kroger, Food Lion, etc, usually have them. I don't know that it says that it's RO on them all the time. I called the maintenance number on the tank and they assured me that it was RO. Also, you can check the asian marts and whole food stores. I'd be surprised if you couldn't find one within a few miles of your house. It's usually $.35 a gallon.

 

I get mine from the local King Soopers (Kroger for those not in CO). It is carbon filtered, reverse osmosis filtered, micron filtered, UV light treated and then Carbon filtered again.

They have a date on the machine for every time the machine gets cleaned and checked out by a technician.

It's great water and only $0.37/gallon.

I have (5) five gallon plastic carboy type water bottles I fill.

I also distill my own Water when I have time. But I have less and less time as the years go by...

I really want to get my own RO filter though. I have a carbon filter and I'm micron filter installed on my tap at home. But I like a blank canvas to build on for most beers I brew.

I've been looking at different units for a bit; wanna get the right one and a good one.

 

I was just in my local Walmart doing some shopping. There is Primo water filtering station there. I picked up a brochure which details that the filtering process is:

1. Sediment Filter
2. Activated Carbon Filter
3. Reverse Osmosis
4. Ultraviolet Light

www.primowater.com

Cheers!

 

I make my own. Assuming a 10:1 waste to water ratio (on the high end of what I've read - I don't know how much mine actually wastes), my marginal cost is about 3 cents per gallon. Obviously, you need to factor in the price of the unit and filters. But I don't worry about not having it on hand when I need it.

 

The machine in Walmart here (Primo, perhaps, I don't recall at the moment) delivers RO water. It's checked monthly by the local Culligan person.

 

My local HEB (Texas grocery store) has a machine out side the store that explicitly says reverse osmosis filtered, and treated with UV light.

 

The water store. $.25 per gallon.

 

The RO machines at the grocery store are bullshit in SoCal. They state that they are RO systems with two carbon filtrations, ion exchange cartridges, uv light, and one or two other things. When I got my water tested it had 180 ppm TDS, and chlorine (without camden tablets added, my beers brewed with this water ended up suffering from phenolics).

The distilled from arrowhead or other packaged water in the store has been distilled (2-5 ppm TDS when tested). I cut my carbon filtered local water with distilled (packaged) and still add camden.

 

What would a carbon filter pull out of (tap?) water?

 

You can buy a TDS meter for $15 to verify your RO water probably isn't the clean slate you want it to be.

 

Found this video with a Ward labs analysis on Primo water in case anyone is interested;

 

I'm not joking, there are water stores all over the Los Angeles area especially where Hispanic communities congregate. All are Reverse Osmosis water stores. Here is the store I go to that is in my neighborhood. There is at least one other store within the city that sells water. "Agua Pura" translates to "Pure Water". Proof: https://goo.gl/maps/S58AM, https://goo.gl/maps/XBwZI