Rain Water

[joebejeckel]

Joe here,

sitting back enjoying the forum and a cold home brewed lager,


Question is,

I'm using rain water in my brew now and a friend suggested that i adjust the PH to neutral before I brew with it, Ok, cool, but if it needs adjusting, what can I use that is safe to consume and will not flavor my brew?

does anyone else use rainwater,


cheers ..


joe

 

[kevnlis]

I wouldn't worry about the pH if you are doing extract brews. I would however boil the entire contents of the water for 10 minutes or more to be sure it is not carrying anything that could infect your wort.

 

[geoffi]

Don't let any unboiled rainwater near your unfermented brew. It has a whole world of nasties in there. Our tummies can cope fine, but wort is a delicate creature.

 

[paul]

I always use rainwater but ive never boiled it. Ive never had an infected batch in four years of brewing.

Im going to boil up some though and see if it makes a difference.

 

[kevnlis]

I always use rainwater but ive never boiled it. Ive never had an infected batch in four years of brewing.

Im going to boil up some though and see if it makes a difference.

Either you have been very lucky, or all of your brews have been infected with the same things and you are used to it

I too use rainwater, but I always boil it!

 

[goatherder]

G'day Joe,

As mentioned earlier, it kind of matters what sort of beer you are making. If you are making kits or extract beers then don't worry about the pH of the water, unless you have some extremely hard water. This won't be a problem for rainwater or pretty much any town tap water. It might be worth giving rainwater a boil first for kits as mentioned, but only if you are getting infection problems.

If you are making all grain beer, pH is important but it's the pH of the mash, not the source water which needs to be adjusted.

 

[kevnlis]

G'day Joe,

As mentioned earlier, it kind of matters what sort of beer you are making. If you are making kits or extract beers then don't worry about the pH of the water, unless you have some extremely hard water. This won't be a problem for rainwater or pretty much any town tap water. It might be worth giving rainwater a boil first for kits as mentioned, but only if you are getting infection problems.

If you are making all grain beer, pH is important but it's the pH of the mash, not the source water which needs to be adjusted.

I beg to differ, the pH of the sparge water is important as well.

 

[Rick]

I use rain water for all my brews. I do all grain so every thing gets boiled but I think its better than chlorinated tap water

 

[goatherder]

I beg to differ, the pH of the sparge water is important as well.

ahh, correct. Unless one is batch sparging, then it doesn't matter much.

 

[0M39A]

im an extract brewer and ive never had a problem with using rain water, but it is filtered at the pump though, so i doubt there are any nasties getting through.

only ever had 1 infection, and that was a fault of my own, not due to the water.

 

[therook]

I always use rainwater but ive never boiled it. Ive never had an infected batch in four years of brewing.

Im going to boil up some though and see if it makes a difference.

I'm in the same boat as Paul and have never ever pre boiled my tank water. I also have never taken much notice of my pH and my beers have been fine

Rook

 

[Ross]

Anyone that has untreated rain water in their final brew is playing with a loaded gun.
Rainwater off your roof is full of nasties & running it through a carbon filter will make little difference, maybe even make it worse, as filters provide an idea growth medium for bugs to multiply. It's like saying you don't sterilise your fermenters & never had an infection...it's just a matter of time.
You may also have infected brews but are finding them quite palletable, as I've drunk many an infected homebrew where the guy making it swears there's nothing wrong with it.
Either boil the water, treat with campden tablets, or do as I used to do in my kit days - grab a Jerry can of mains water from a friends house on mains water.

Cheers Ross

 

[geoffi]

I think a lot of people forget the origins of brewing.

Making beer out of water that was not safe to drink was one way of cleaning the water up so that it wouldn't kill anyone. I'm not saying that good beer was made but I'm guessing if it was bad they may have just boiled it instead.

I'm not advocating that everyone stops boiling water as that is the best way to ensure you get no funkiness in your beer. I'm just saying that if you pitch a decent quantity of yeast, not much else in the wort will survive.

I've always read that it was the boiling that played the main role in making the water safe to drink. The actually fermentation and production of alcohol helped, and allowed some preservation, but the boil did the main work in rendering the water safe.

Then you had the question of yeast. In the 'good old days' they didn't even know about it. I think the Lambic method of 'open the window and let the magic happen' probably approximates most wort inoculation in the pre-Pasteur days.

Of course now with the ability to pitch large quantities of ready-to-roll yeast that can quickly out compete other bugs, you might well get away with not boiling rainwater. A couple of nasty infections lead me not to risk this.

 

[fraser_john]

I always use rainwater but ive never boiled it. Ive never had an infected batch in four years of brewing.

Im going to boil up some though and see if it makes a difference.

I think we have to get our contexts right....

Do you boil the wort after you have mixed up a kit/grain/extract? If so thats gonna kill everything regardless and no need to worry.

 

[Airgead]

I only use rainwater (cos I'm a hippy). As long as you boil it you are OK. I'm brewing AG so boiling is no issue for me. Mind you I wouldn't like to use unboiled tap water either.

Cheers
Dave

 

[puffer_pics]

Depending on the water source you have access to Tap water can vary so much. Newcastle and Central Coast water is really soft. Some brewers are unfortunate by having harder water (its easier to add salts than removing them). I use potable water as I have a fairly reliable source of soft water. If my potable water was hard then I would be using rain water when making a pilsner or something light. I would be preboiling the water (both rain and tap) to sterilise it if using this water to make a kit and kilo or topping up the wort. Tap water can still have bacteria in it

 

[mfdes]

I can tell you how easy it is to get used to the sort of infection you get coming into your rainwater: For years I was brewing extracts and topping up with unboiled rainwater. Then I went AG and my pot wasn't big enough so I did a reduced boil and topped up with unboiled water. I was so used to the infection caused by my local flora that I just thought the flavours that developed over weeks of storage were the normal way beer evolves over time...

How wrong I was. About 5 years ago I got a large brewpot and started doing full boils. Also I boiled some 10L of water the previous night and let cool in case I needed to top up.

The difference was enormous. But once you're used to the flavour, you don't know the chronic infection is there till it's gone. My beer has much better long term stability, and tastes exactly how I plan it to taste, something that was variable before.

It is little work to pre-boil some water and only takes some planning. There's no way I would ever let unboiled tank water in contact with my brews again. I mean, have you seen the SLUDGE in the bottom of your water tank???

MFS

 

[Airgead]

It is little work to pre-boil some water and only takes some planning. There's no way I would ever let unboiled tank water in contact with my brews again. I mean, have you seen the SLUDGE in the bottom of your water tank???

MFS

Yep.. thats why I boil my tank water.. and run it through a filter first. I would advise anyone using tank water to do the same.

Cheers
Dave

 

[tangent]

i just raise it to 80C which kills most crap anyway and is pretty close to my strike temp. The wrigglers become yeast nutrient
i can't drink tap water, even through a filter, so i'd never add it to my beer.

 

[sam77aus]

I pass the rainwater through an Ultraviolet Water Sterilizer, it is a stainless steel metal cylinder with an inlet/outlet connection on top of both ends, the UV germicidal lamp goes in a hole through the center of the cylinder, the hole in the center is sealed off from the rest of the cylinder by glass which allows the UV light to pass through.