# Rain Water For Brewing



## GUB

Got access to some rain water for brewing. It is outside of the city, goes through 4 filters (from coarse to fine), a carbon filter and then through a UV filter. Is it safe to assume that this brewing water is pretty much 0 for all mineral content for practical purposes?

It tastes really good, but I have become accustomed to seeing the local water report and working from there.

Cheers!


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## jimmyjack

I exclusively use it and have never had any problems. Dont go through the filtering regime you do. Perfect for Pilsners!


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## GUB

jimmyjack said:


> I exclusively use it and have never had any problems. Dont go through the filtering regime you do. Perfect for Pilsners!




Do you make any additions like chalk and gypsum etc?


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## hoppinmad

If you are doing all grain then you will need to add some salts (CaCl or CaSO4) to get the calcium up to 50ppm for yeast health


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## drsmurto

I use rainwater, unfiltered. 

I did test it myself (ICP-MS) and have results that show it is less than the detection limits of the instrument in all the brewing salts (<0.1 ppm) so when doing adjustment i can assume my rainwater is the same as distilled water.

You can probably assume your water is the same or so close to as to not cause any issues with the brewing salts.

I adjust my water depending on what style i am brewing.


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## GUB

HoppinMad said:


> If you are doing all grain then you will need to add some salts (CaCl or CaSO4) to get the calcium up to 50ppm for yeast health




I normally adjust my water accordingly using Ezy water or whatever it is called, but I am wondering if I assume that the Calcium etc are effectivly zero to begin with.


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## GUB

DrSmurto said:


> I use rainwater, unfiltered.
> 
> I did test it myself (ICP-MS) and have results that show it is less than the detection limits of the instrument in all the brewing salts (<0.1 ppm) so when doing adjustment i can assume my rainwater is the same as distilled water.
> 
> You can probably assume your water is the same or so close to as to not cause any issues with the brewing salts.
> 
> I adjust my water depending on what style i am brewing.




Cheers for that info. Sounds nice, kind of like starting with a blank canvas!


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## Ducatiboy stu

I also use rain water, and have never bothered to add anything to it and all my beers turn out fine..  

Definatly cant beat the taste,nice and sweet , when I drink town water the first thing I notice is that it smells and tastes funny


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## Brewme

Ducatiboy stu said:


> I also use rain water, and have never bothered to add anything to it and all my beers turn out fine..
> 
> Definatly cant beat the taste,nice and sweet , when I drink town water the first thing I notice is that it smells and tastes funny



Hi,

How do you catch your rainwater? I've got a 3000 litre water tank that catches the rainwater off my colorbond roof and gutters. Will this water be OK to use for AG?

Cheers


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## warra48

Brewme said:


> Hi,
> 
> How do you catch your rainwater? I've got a 3000 litre water tank that catches the rainwater off my colorbond roof and gutters. Will this water be OK to use for AG?
> 
> Cheers



Yup, you'll be fine. It will be boiled for an hour minimum in any case, if you are brewing AG.

I use rainwater from the neighbour's roof. It eliminates the awful taste we get from unfiltered tap water here, even though our tap water is quite soft.

I now do like DrSmurto, and use the BeerSmith water tool to calculate my additions, according to the style I'm brewing. 
I weigh them out on a small electronic scale, which reads down to .01 gr, so I can be reasonably accurate in calculating seperate additions for my strike water and sparge water.

Edit: spellink


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## Batz

Brewme said:


> Hi,
> 
> How do you catch your rainwater? I've got a 3000 litre water tank that catches the rainwater off my colorbond roof and gutters. Will this water be OK to use for AG?
> 
> Cheers




You city slickers make me laugh !

Batz


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## Ducatiboy stu

Unfortunatly I ONLY have 75,000 Ltrs on hand.....


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## Brewme

Batz said:


> You city slickers make me laugh !
> 
> Batz



Although I am not a 'city slicker', I am nevertheless happy that I brought a little humour into someone's life.

Cheers


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## [email protected]

All my water is rainwater.

What the water is caught on and stored in makes a big difference in minerals it absorbes, contributing to hardness, PH and how much buffering capacity it has.

I have open concrete tanks and sealed poly tanks, caught on 2 different types of roofing. The concrete tends to leach minerals into the water.

Having only done 2 mashes, i did a shit load of reading about water before hand, i decided to take half my water from the 2 different sources
and run it through a brita filter. Leaving a fairly alkaline water, but with very little buffering capacity, so when i did my mash the grains brought the PH 
down to around 5.4 - 5.6. Which seemed to work fairly well.


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## NickB

2 x 20000L sealed Poly tanks here, no problems at all. Water is not filtered before brewing, and as mentioned above, gets boiled for at least 60 mins, so no issues there!

I add nothing for Pilseners and light coloured lagers and ales, some Gypsum for amber and red beers, and Gypsum and Magnesium Sulfate (Epsom Salts) to my english bitters and dark ales. Have also just got some 5.2 PH Stabiliser, so last two batches (including the one today) have had 1/2 teaspoon of this in the mash as well.

Best advice I can give is make a brew, try it, then next time you brew it, try the salt additions and see what difference it makes to you.

Cheers


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## jeckysmith

Rainwater contain small amount of microorganism and rainwater filters are used to make rainwater clear and safe for drinking, cooking for the sake of our health.


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## NickB

Jecky - You'll find that the discussion so far has been about all grain brewing, a process in which the water used will be boiled for at least 60 minutes. I would agree, however, that if you're making kits, filter! When I used tank water, I used to filter through a sediment cartridge, then a UV steriliser, then a taste and odour removal cartridge. Beautiful water to drink. My brewing water, however, was straight out of the tap (and therefore, tank).

Cheers

EDIT: in my haste to reply, it seems I may have been suckered in by a advertising bot. Reported BTW.


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## TasChris

I use rain water and use Palmers spreadsheet and Promash to calc salt additions. I to have 2X20,000l tanks. Once they got down to 2/3 full!! 

Cheers
Chris


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## wombil

Hey Gub,
I have been using rainwater for 25 years with no trouble at all.It comes off the roof,bird shit and all to a 22500ltr concrete tank.We drink it ok with no treatment and it tastes great.Only water we have.Never had a problem with brewing.I have done many many kit brews and not chucked one.
Only thing I have heard is that it may not have enough of the right chemicals for brewing.
Mine is ok,I suppose the bird shit helps.
wombil.


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## NickB

Not to argue, but taking the points Wombil has made, and using them as a template for brewing, would not be ideal IMHO. Take for example, that I used to 'sanitise' with boiling water, and 'never had a problem'. However, when I did have a problem, it was more than once, hence the use now, of no-rinse sanitisers.

Just as I mentioned above, you may get away with using unfiltered tank water, but I think you're tempting fate.

Cheers


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## nifty9000

We have been drinking rainwater for over 20 years as scheme water does not encourage you to drink water (thats WA for you). So using rainwater for brewing was a natural progression. This has a big impact on taste of lighter brews such as pilseners but less with darker brews. The only problem I have is that the mash pH is generally too low. I add salts as per my own spreadsheet (not dis-similar to EZ) assuming zero minerals to start with. With english ales I can get up to 5.2 (with target of Burton water) but I cannot get above 4.9 for pilsener styles. I have not tested but I am wondering if this is due to rainwater combining with CO2 to form carbonic acid. I am very happy with my pilseners but still wonder could this be better.


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## ekul

anyone get their rain water tested that has a concrete tank?

I have one and i've wondered whether my water would be zero or not because of the concrete. I use the water all the time for ag, seems to work fine.


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## vic45

Had ours tested a couple of years ago and was less than 1mg/ litre in everything but bicarbonate, it is 19mg/ litre .
Also had a PH of 6.4


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## Joshisgood

Hi I use rainwater for brewing as were not connected to the town water here, seems fine so far. Was just wondering about filtering, as far as I can tell our water just goes through a ceramic filter, is this ok for brewing? (I do extract brewing so only 10 litres of my water is boiled, cheers


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## hoppinmad

It is fine to use rainwater, but you will need to make sure it has all been boiled to kill off any microbes it picks up on its way from your roof to the tank


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## yandy5000

That's great to know! A 90 minute boil should kill most things. I found tap water here to vary between 6.8 - 7.2, your chlorine gets steamed off if you strike your water for a while and seems to work fine and taste good. What about mashing with rain water, would you have to boil it first then cool down to strike temp? Or would the main boil sort it out..

best regards,
Yandy


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## mr_tyreman

yandy5000 said:


> That's great to know! A 90 minute boil should kill most things. I found tap water here to vary between 6.8 - 7.2, your chlorine gets steamed off if you strike your water for a while and seems to work fine and taste good. What about mashing with rain water, would you have to boil it first then cool down to strike temp? Or would the main boil sort it out..
> 
> best regards,
> Yandy




Good question mate, i'd love to know if anyone boils and cools there strike water to tempreture first...


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## bignath

mr_tyreman said:


> Good question mate, i'd love to know if anyone boils and cools there strike water to tempreture first...



So would i...

I've just started brewing with rainwater, got the first batch in the fermenter now. I am trying it to see if it goes okay, because the wife and i want to move the rainwater tank which is currently located on our main patio, and i was thinking of putting it around the back of my garage where i brew so i can have a constant supply of water to "the brewery". Wanted to do a test batch before i drain and shift the bloody thing.

I literally just treated the brew like any other, and we'll see what i get. So far the tasting's seem great.

I transferred to HLT from tank using buckets, brought to strike temp, mashed with it, sent it to the boiler, boiled and no chilled.

I'm assuming the main boil will sort out nasties that may be present, but i have no idea if there are any conversion issues, or ph things in the mash with straight rainwater that hasn't been preboiled.

Would love to know the answer too. (haven't searched for the answer as yet, but seeing as someone else raised the point, i'll jump in too.)


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## drsmurto

mr_tyreman said:


> Good question mate, i'd love to know if anyone boils and cools there strike water to tempreture first...



No need to boil/cool strike water as you are boiling for 60+ mins.

I use rainwater for brewing. No filter but then i happily drink my rainwater unfiltered - it tastes good.


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## komodo

if its good enough to drink its good enough to brew with imo.

I have mains but used to often brew with tank water as its closer to my old brew area
Now I brew at work its all town water.


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