Based on Steve’s passion for cooking, innovation and creating the best flavor in his recipes, he realizes that no ingredient is to be overlooked, including water. In 2012, Steve teamed with Kinetico to prove the notion that purified water is core to creating great-tasting dishes in his restaurant and in the home. Read more about culinary expert Steve Schimoler.

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As a chef, I’ve been very fortunate to work in various capacities within the restaurant and food arenas. My experiences have helped provide me with a unique perspective in the appreciation of flavor and product development. There are so many variables that can impact flavors during cooking, but it wasn’t until I started working with our Kinetico water filtration system that I fully realized how important our water quality affected the flavor in my foods.

After 12 months of testing and working with the different blends and levels of filtration through our system in the Crop Bistro kitchen, I have come to the conclusion that our best results were with our Reverse Osmosis (R/O) water. It seems so simple, but by using the R/O water that is absolutely pure, I was not competing with any off flavors or aromas that were interfering with the flavor of the ingredients that were being featured in the dishes we prepare. Just like painting, you need to start with a totally blank and clean canvas when cooking. As a chef, I go out of my way to find and procure the best ingredients, why wouldn’t I want pure water! Water can be the majority of so many recipes and if it’s not pure, my other ingredients suffer.

The minute I started to look at water when I was reducing or simmering sauces or soups it became so apparent that when the water contained impurities, I was concentrating them by as much as double or more. Not a good thing…

So now I’m hooked and somewhat obsessed with learning more about our most basic yet valuable ingredient.

In future blog posts, I will share more culinary insights that you can use in your own kitchen, including exploring the many benefits of purified water.  Stay tuned.

“My water smells like rotten eggs.” This is a very common complaint from many homeowners but one that may be easily explained. Hydrogen sulfide, a compound that is widely known for its distinct rotten egg or sulfur odor could be the culprit. This colorless, flammable gas occurs naturally in gases from swamps and stagnant pools of water, volcanoes, hot springs or crude petroleum. H2S is also a waste product of many industrial processes and from municpal sewers and sewage treatment plants. The production of H2S is due to a process called anaerobic digestion, a breakdown of organic matter in the absence of oxygen.  

In well water supplies, H2S is commonly formed by sulfate reducing bacteria. Well water naturally contains minerals of sulfate picked up from soil and rock formations. Sulfur reducing bacteria can change sulfates in the water to hydrogen sulfide gas. In other cases, hydrogen sulfide in well water can be caused simply by the decay of organic matter.

The human sense of smell can detect H2S in concentrations as low as 0.5 ppb (parts per billion). In addition to the odor, the taste of the water may also be affected. If left untreated, H2S can corrode steel, stainless steel and copper pipes. It can also tarnish silver and leave yellow or black stains on bathroom fixtures. While the amount of H2S typically found in most household water supplies is not high enough to pose serious health risks, slight nausea can occur due to the foul odor.

There are several options to treat H2S in a water supply. Trace amounts of the gas can be handled by activated carbon. If you have low to moderate amounts of H2S in your water, the gas can be converted to elemental sulfur and then filtered out by using an oxidizing filter. High amounts of H2S may require more advanced treatment.

It is important to note, if the rotten egg smell is only present in the hot water, not in the cold water, chances are the problem lies in the hot water heater. All hot water tanks have an anode rod, which is in place to prevent corrosion of the tank. However, if anaerobic bacteria are present in the water, they can use the electrons produced by the corrosion of the anode rod as an energy source to produce H2S. One simple fix is to switch out the anode rod in the tank. Check with a reputable dealer for replacement anode types to ensure you keep the warranty intact. Turning the temperature up on the hot water tank for a short period of time to kill the bacteria may help. But, remember to turn the temperature back down and drain the tank, otherwise scalding may occur. Shock chlorination of a private well is a temporary solution as well. Although these fixes can reduce the odor problem, they aren’t permanent.

If you suspect you have H2S in your water, it is best to contact a water professional for further on-site testing and precise treatment solutions.

Contact Cathy J.

L. Heiden has been in the water treatment business for more than 25 years. Currently, she is a National Account Executive for UL and is an active member of the Water Quality Association

Some terms in the water treatment industry can be confusing, point-of-entry (POE) and point-of-use (POU) are no exception. It is not a matter of one being better than the other, but which do you require for your needs.

POE is for the treatment of all of the water you use in your home. There are many different types of treatment that fall under the umbrella of POE. The one you need depends on the type of problem you are having with your water. The two most common issues are hard water, which causes scale build up on plumbing fixtures and in hot water tanks, and chlorine, which is associated with taste and odor.

If you have white scale on your plumbing fixtures or a film on your glass shower door that is difficult to remove, you may have hard water. Hard water is mostly made up of calcium and magnesium and these deposits are doing more harm than just making things hard to clean. They eventually build up in your hot water tank, which makes it very inefficient. According to American Water Heater Company (2006), use of a softener ahead of a hot water tank can give you up to 29% more efficiency.  Other benefits to softening the water in your home are ease of cleaning, reduced use of soaps, shampoos and detergents and softer skin and hair. Refer to the Kinetico website for more details on benefits of softened water.

When you are on a municipal water supply, chlorine is a common issue. Chlorine, or more recently chloramines, is added to your water as a disinfectant to ensure it is safe to drink.  These chemicals affect the taste and odor of the water coming into your home.  Most supplies aim for one part per million (ppm)as it distributes water to your home, the difficulty in this is that as chlorine does its job it gets used up and will also dissipate over time. This means that the levels a municipality may have to use may be higher than the one ppm to ensure that the very last house on the distribution line gets safe water. In turn the house closest to the supply may be seeing levels at times in excess of three ppm, which is about the level in a highly chlorinated pool . High levels of these chemicals may have health affects as well. A whole house carbon filter or chloramine filter will reduce these levels significantly protecting your family from high levels of chlorine or chloramine.

There are many other contaminants that may require POE water treatment solutions such as: iron, hydrogen sulfide and sediment. If you are unsure of the type of treatment you require, contact your local water treatment professional for advice. You can use the online local dealer search to find your local Kinetico water professional.

POU is another form of water treatment which is generally used after a POE system to further protect and treat the water at a particular output such as a drinking water tap. It may be a simple under the counter filter for taste and odor of the water or a more stringent treatment such as a reverse osmosis drinking water system.

While a POE system treats all the water in the house a POU system will be treating only a portion of the water in your house. These systems produce less water a day relatively. You would not typically use this type of water for bathing and cleaning. Most often a POE system will be used for your drinking water and cooking use.

A common POE treatment would be a carbon filter which simply makes the water smell and taste better. Many people prefer using Reverse Osmosis (RO) which can provide additional levels of safety in the water they drink. RO uses a barrier method which, in simplified terms, separates the good things in water from the bad things in water.  Typically an RO will have minimally five parts to it:

1. A pre-filter - carbon pre-filter for city water applications and sediment pre-filter for well water
2. A membrane which rejects the impurities in the water
3. A tank to store the processed water
4. A post-filter which removes any taste and odor from the stored water
5. A faucet to get the water out of the tank and into your glass or pot

In the end, the answer to which is the right water treatment, POU or POE is basically like asking what is better a fancy sports car or a minivan. The answer is part personal preference and part necessity. The sports car would be nice to have. Although it isn’t essential for everyone, it sure is fun and would greatly enhance your life. However for most people, the minivan is a requirement. It isn’t very exciting but provides you peace of mind. It’s a safe, reliable means to get where you need to go.

Contact L Heiden

When my wife and I bought our house in a semi-rural area, we discovered a number of things we had never dealt with before, many of which involved water. I had grown up in the suburbs. I’ve always had city water and sewers, so I never really gave too much thought to where water comes from, or where it goes after we’ve used it. It was always there. Just turn on the faucet and water comes out, whatever water ends up in the sink, goes down the drain, never to be seen again.

Now all of a sudden, we have this little structure behind our house a little larger than a doghouse. This, we were told, is the well house. It’s where our water comes from. When I opened the door, after sliding aside a few boards and some obviously mouse infested fiberglass insulation, I was surprised to see that the house sits on a deep foundation. At the bottom, about five feet down was a pump, some piping and a pressure reserve tank. My first thought after looking again at the boards and insulation is “I wonder if the pipes in here ever freeze?” We do live in northern Ohio after all, and there’s no heat in this little building. Then I started thinking about all of the other ways that our “new” water supply might not prove to be as reliable as what I’m used to. Top it all off with the realization that the water is pumped out of the ground and straight to the tap without any treatment at all and I was starting to get a little uncomfortable with this situation.

Well, it’s been almost nine years since my first encounter with the well house and I can happily report that after replacing the boards and mouse nest insulation with rigid foam, (not to mention, cleaning and painting the outside since we have to look at it everyday) the pipes have never frozen; at least not yet. I guess there’s enough heat five feet below grade to prevent that. But I can also say we have had a fair number of system failures and have also made a few other water infrastructure improvements, the details of which I can share with you in future posts. 

Contact Brian L.