Water Filtration?

[griffo17]

Hi there, sorry if this has been posted elsewhere (i have done a search and couldn't find it).

I'm going to use rainwater from a house tank for my first home brew and was wondering if anyone out there has ever tried to filter the floaties (if any) out?

I was thinking about using a paper coffee filter or similar drained through a funnel.

Keen to hear from anyone that may have used a similar technique.

Also, I live in a climate where the temperature is quite variable and the girlfriend has given me no option but to brew in the shed! Can anyone give me the run down on heating devices? Immersion or flat panel? or if there are any tricks using simple household items.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers (& Beers)

Griffo

 

[shamus]

I don;t think you'd need to worry about heating, if it gets too cold (less than 15 degrees) you can always use a diffrent yeast

 

[Pandreas]

Hey Griffo..... I'm NO expert having only attempted 3 brews so far but...........

I wouldn't worry too much about the floaties from the rainwater you're using, definately don't spend your time trying to filter them out with paper! The floaties will settle at the bottom of your fermenter along with the yeast & hops etc.

Personally, for brewing, I collect and use spring water from an open spring I know of out bush. This has a small amount of sand sediment . The sand sediment will settle at the bottom of the fermenter with the yeast and hops.

The only worry I would have if I were you, is that there may be bacteria in your rainwater from the tank, guttering or piping. If so, this might cause some concern for your beer. If this IS the case, by removing the floaties you will NOT be removing the bacteria.

But you'll never know if your water will cause infection until you try. My guess is that using rainwater will be fine. Most people use tapwater unboiled, and I don't really think every pipe and join that carries tapwater is completey sanitary either! You can boil your rainwater to sanitise it, but this is hugely time consuming, takes AGES to cool and will need to be oxygenated by shaking it up or splashing it before you can use it for your wort.

No-one ever talks about water much. Water is the most neglected ingredient I reckon, the better the quality of water, surely the better the beer will be! Good luck with your fresh, clean & pure rainwater!

Cheers!

 

[Lez87]

Yeah i agree with Pandreas, any "floaties" will settle on the bottom so dont worry about that i also have only made a small amount of brews (using normal tap water) but reakon using pure rainwater is a great idea, let us know how it comes out?

 

[griffo17]

Hey Guys (& Gals?),

Thanks for the input. Maybe I'm paying too much attention to the water side of things, it's just that our best beer (IMHO) comes from Tassie where the water quality is great.

Thanks once again.

Cheers (& Beers)

Griffo

 

[chris.taylor.98]

Hi griffo,

You don't have to worry about the floaties overly, boiling the wort should take care of most of them. For extract brewing you might find that the brewing process benefits marginally from more Calcium in the water.

If you go to all-grain you will find the rain water is too soft for a lot of styles and needs more minerals added to make it work better in the mashing process.

As far as heating is concerned I use an immersion heater during winter when brewing in the garage with very good results. In fact I think it is the best time of the year to brew if you want to have good temperature control.

The immersion heater is just a modified aquarium heater that has the cord threaded through a rubber bung.

You set it at the right temperature then drop it in after pitching and forget about it.

 

[hairydave]

You don't have to worry about the floaties overly, boiling the wort should take care of most of them.

:excl: water can be a problem...... do NOT use it immediately after rainfall unless you are going to use a decent filter & disinfectant or boil the ENTIRE amount to pasteurise it.

your rainwater may be contaminated with pathogens (disease causing organisms) immediately following a rain event, due to bird/possum shit on your roof getting washed into your tank. this can lead to illness or at the very least those microbacteria may take over from your yeast leading to bad tasting/smelly beer <_< .

the indicator organisms used by the water industry to check if water has faecal (read shit) contamination is E coli. if its in the water then pathogenic organisms could be present, if it's not then pathogenic organisms are probably also absent. but your not going to order an expensive lab test just for your home brew, so what can i do?

well you can kill it, E coli is "Inactivated by moist heat (121 C for at least 15 min) and dry heat (160-170 C for at least 1 hour)" or age the water, but e coli can survive for long periods in cold water, some reports are of to 90 days (up to 30 days in dust, >60 days on stainless steel and 80 odd days in shit) bit long to wait for a little bit of rainwater.

:excl: so best option = BOIL YOUR RAINWATER :excl:

unless you have a filter with an absolute one-micron rating (sorry coffee filter wont work) or a large scale granular activated carbon filter, that has been in use long enough to build up the required amount of biological activity in order to "eat" the pathogens and then follow up with a disinfectant like UV light, Chlorine for at least a 30min contact time(Sodium Hypochlorite, Cl2, Calcium Chlorite. Chloramine takes hours longer) or Ozone...

and yes i know alcohol will kill bacteria "but won't the alcohol in the tub kill it?", it will if it's 70% alcohol. "but beer dosn't have any pathothingys in it" thats 'cos it's has been boiled.

just boil the damn water!,

what it comes down to is this no one wants a beer made from a wild POO yeast!!!!!

mutter mutter mutter.........

sorry think i just had a seizure.

 

[domonsura]

Dude...you just take your water....you boil it...end of story......
If you are that concerned about what may be coming off your roof, run it through a proper water filter and then boil it.
Then you're good to go. Nothing wrong with rainwater at all. We're all made of it.

 

[boingk]

Only thing wrong with rainwater is that its loaded with bacteria and other things that aren't particularly beneficial to your brew. Think about it, the rain comes out of the sky, onto your roof [that birds shit on, etc], down pipes and gutters [leaves, dirt, grime] and into a tank [breeding ground for said bacteria]. Might taste pure, but it still has bacteria galore.

Tap water is the safest bet, as it has a minute amount of chlorine in it. This, while killing undesirable baceria, is no match for a sachet of yeast as this quickly overwhelms any resistance in a food-rich environment with no competition [because of the chlorine].

If you are concerned about the chlorine, use very hot tap water early in the morning before anyone has a shower etc - it will have sterilised all night in the heater and be about as good as can be. Fill the fermenter [minus your brewing stuff like malt etc] and leave with the lid resting on it so a small gap is at one side. The hot water should let most of the chlorine leach out of it and into the air - problem solved.

If you only have tank water, just boil as per above. Cheers all!

EDIT: Dude...did I get flamed or what? I should make it clear that I've got nothing against rain water - but personally I'd be using tap water for peace of mind and ease of treatment [ie: nil].

 

[griffo17]

Thanks for all of the advice.

I have the option of town water or rain water from the folks' farm, but I guess if I boil (and aerate after boiling) I can't really get it too wrong with either.

It's for my fisrt ever brew which will go into the fermenter over the weekend, so I'm just keen to get the best out of kit brewing.

Cheers (& beers)

Griffo

:beerbang: sorry, i just like this smilie!

 

[FazerPete]

I have the option of town water or rain water from the folks' farm, but I guess if I boil (and aerate after boiling) I can't really get it too wrong with either.

Griffo, don't believe all the hype from the town water fanatics. I've been brewing on tank water for ages and have never had a problem with rainwater. In fact the only time I had a funny taste in the beer was when I brewed just after we had to buy some and that was from the chorine in it. I don't treat it, boil it, filter it or anything. Pure water has to be better without the chlorine, flouride, etc, etc in it.

As for heating your brew the simplest and cheapest method is to sit the fermenter in a tub of water and put an aquarium heater in the water. The heater has a thermostat so you can just set and forget. It's also better than actually putting it in the wort because you don't have to drill holes in your fermenter and you don't have to worry about sterilising the heater. All up costs about $30 and if you put some steriliser in the water bath then it makes sure that the tap is kept clean as well.

 

[drsmurto]

Its amusing when the 'town' folk get all antsy about rainwater and preach that chemically treated water is better for you. WTF!??!

First flush diverters remove the first litre or so of water that comes into the tank each time it rains to keep all the 'shit' from getting into the tank. Modern technology does amazing things

If you use mains water and remove lots of chemicals by filtering/boiling arent you better off starting with a purer source in the first place?

I believe the appropriate term right now would be HTFU!

Wow, that felt good. Must remember to rant more in the future.

My 2 c
DrSmurto

 

[domonsura]

Absolutely DrSmurto!

 

[rwh]

I think the general rule for water is that if you can drink it, it's fine for brewing. In fact, beer brewing was originally a way to purify water, hundreds of years ago before people knew what was causing them to get sick from bad water. According to Charlie Papizan's Complete Joy of Homebrewing, no known pathogenic bacteria can survive in beer, so if it tastes good, you can't get sick from it.

 

[griffo17]

As for heating your brew the simplest and cheapest method is to sit the fermenter in a tub of water and put an aquarium heater in the water. The heater has a thermostat so you can just set and forget. It's also better than actually putting it in the wort because you don't have to drill holes in your fermenter and you don't have to worry about sterilising the heater. All up costs about $30 and if you put some steriliser in the water bath then it makes sure that the tap is kept clean as well.

Thanks for the heads up on heating. I have been a bit concerned as the air temperature drops to about 10 degs in the shed overnight nowdays. The Rat (Ballarat) is starting to get some of those chilly nights it's renowned for!

Where is the best place to source the parts from? K-Mart or Big W or somewhere like that? And do i just stick the thermometor on the outside tank?

Two last questions. I promise

1. How much of the femernter should be under water? right up to the top or half way?

2. My Draught brew kit says the best temp for frementing is between 22-24 however there seems to be a lot of info to the contary that says anywhere between 12-19 is the best for a lager style beer.

Sorry for all the dumb first time brewer questions!

cheers (& beers)

Griffo

 

[FazerPete]

Thanks for the heads up on heating. I have been a bit concerned as the air temperature drops to about 10 degs in the shed overnight nowdays. The Rat (Ballarat) is starting to get some of those chilly nights it's renowned for!

Where is the best place to source the parts from? K-Mart or Big W or somewhere like that? And do i just stick the thermometor on the outside tank?

Two last questions. I promise

1. How much of the femernter should be under water? right up to the top or half way?

2. My Draught brew kit says the best temp for frementing is between 22-24 however there seems to be a lot of info to the contary that says anywhere between 12-19 is the best for a lager style beer.

Sorry for all the dumb first time brewer questions!

cheers (& beers)

Griffo

No worries. I picked up a 100watt heater from K-Mart for $16 bucks but you could probably get one from a pet shop for a bit less. The tub is just a big plastic container that I got from The Warehouse for about $12 but I know K-Mart and practically every other shop sell them too. I leave the thermometer on the fermenter because that's the thing that's important thing. I forgot to mention before that another beauty about putting the fermenter in the water bath is that all you need to do in summer is chuck in a couple of soft drink bottles full of frozen water and it will keep the temp down as well.

I fill the tub up to about 1/3 the way up the fermenter which seems to work fine. You could go as high as you want, but being on tank water I'm always a little frugal with it. The higher you go, the more consistent the temp but I've only found fluctuations of about 1/2 a degree.

Your draught kit will have an ale yeast in it so it shouldn't go below 18c or else it will go to sleep. 20-21c will be perfect IMO.

There's no such thing as a dumb question so relax and enjoy the beer, I'm sure it'll be great.

 

[therook]

Griffo,

Have a look at Bugwan's setup, he also uses a cheap pump too keep the water at a constant temp the whole way around the fermenter.

link

Rook :beerbang:

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

You could put your water in a clean cube a week before brewing and add about 20-30ml of Hydrogen peroxide.

This will sanitize the water, but will need a week for the peroxide to break down.

I have a big 20" 1 micron filter on my tank. Personally I would dream of using the water without a filter. First flush will work, there is still a lot of crap in the gutters that continually washes in to the tank

 

[drsmurto]

You could put your water in a clean cube a week before brewing and add about 20-30ml of Hydrogen peroxide.

This will sanitize the water, but will need a week for the peroxide to break down.

I have a big 20" 1 micron filter on my tank. Personally I would dream of using the water without a filter. First flush will work, there is still a lot of crap in the gutters that continually washes in to the tank

If you clean the gutters its not an issue. I have made sure there are no overhanging trees so apart from bird shit and the occasional leaf i dont see the issue. As opposed to what they put in the mains water in the first place. I assume you know what that is?

A leaf guard should fix up the issue of leaves contaminating the water....... and the first flush diverter can be adjusted to maximise the amount of water that runs off...

Last time i checked there wasnt much cover over the dams so i reckon the odd bit of bird shit gets in there too

Not having a go here boys but its hard to take serious anyone that claims chemically treated mains water is better for you or for brewing that what falls out of the sky.

And since we are boiling it i really REALLY dont see where all the fuss comes from.

Whatever floats your boat.

 

[FazerPete]

Personally I would dream of using the water without a filter. First flush will work, there is still a lot of crap in the gutters that continually washes in to the tank

Yes it does which is why you have the tank cleaned every few years but it doesn't come through to the tap because gravity pulls it to the bottom of the tank. Are you telling me that you won't drink your tank water? If it's safe to drink and has no off flavours then it's safe to brew with IMO