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!

 

[jimmyjack]

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

 

[GUB]

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?

 

[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

 

[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.

 

[GUB]

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.

 

[GUB]

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!

 

[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

 

[Brewme]

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

 

[warra48]

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

 

[Batz]

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

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

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

 

[Brewme]

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

 

[Steve@PMF82]

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.

 

[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

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[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

 

[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.

 

[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