Water Woes, part II

So I've been battling with my brewing water again. I have been getting sick of paying $10 every time I want to brew for clean water. I've done a lot of research on water quality, filtering, getting reports, etc. It seems like the problem my tap water has is high amounts of chloramine, which is similar to chlorine, but not the same... and can't be treated the same either. I looked into a few different solutions, but the one I decided on was an under-sink carbon filter. It's like a big Brita filter that you never see. Apparently a carbon filter will filter out the chlorine taste and odor. I'd still kind of stuck with the chloramine, but I may try pre-boiling my brew water, or, I might just fill up a kettle and let it sit overnight. I guess a lot of the chloramine will evaporate.

Anyways, I looked into several different kinds, but I finally decided on one from Lowes. It was ~$35, came with a filter, it should filter up to 2000 gallons (which the box says is 6 months) and new filters are about $12. So in a year's time, I would spend about $50 (And only $25 the following year(s)), where if I was still buying spring water, and brewing once a month, I'd be spending $96, but most likely that would be higher because I generally brew twice a month, using 8 gallons each batch.

So I got it all installed, let it run through for about 5 minutes, filled a glass and it tastes pretty good, but not great. I still feel like I can taste like wet paper towel stringiness on the back of my tongue. I feel like that's the chloramine. But who knows. This will at the very least allow me to fill up my kettle the night before more easily than measuring everything out quart by quart like I did in the past. The bottom line is this... water is the largest ingredient in my homebrew, so it better taste good going in, in order for it to taste good in the end!