Brewing with rainwater

[Ali]

Morning all.

Does anyone use rainwater to brew with?

Here in North Essex, the water is really 'hard'. As I am an all grain brewer, with access to plenty of rainwater (especially at the moment), I was wondering about filtering the water through carbon in a new external aquarium filter first to remove colours/impurities from the water. A ninety minute boil should kill off any nasties still in the water. Has anyone else tried this, and if so, how did your brews turn out?

Thoughts, comments and observations all gratefully received!
Thanks all :

 

[GlentoranMark]

Rainwater is almost pure btw so running it through a filter won't make it any purer, just remove the big nasty's like bugs and dirt.

I'm not sure you want totally pure water for home brew as it's the impurities that gives it "flavour". Starting totally pure gives you the start though to perfect certain brews like Guinness that would use Dublin water.

 

[MyQul]

Rainwater is almost pure btw so running it through a filter won't make it any purer, just remove the big nasty's like bugs and dirt.

I'm not sure you want totally pure water for home brew as it's the impurities that gives it "flavour". Starting totally pure gives you the start though to perfect certain brews like Guinness that would use Dublin water.

Might be alright for pilsners though. Someone posted a vid a while back about a brewery ( I think in greenland) that used iceberg melt water for brewing

 

[Slid]

You could use 2 parts rainwater and 1 part tapwater (or some other combination)?

If you prefer a more scientific approach, then finding out how hard your tapwater is vs good brewing water would be a useful start. I expect you could find out fairly easily a typical water composition for, say, Thames water vs United Utilities water.

I've never been convinced that bottled water is necessarily going to be the answer, as these are almost certainly going to be quite distinctive in taste and maybe unsympathetic to brewing.

 

[didinho]

you don't ave pollution in Essex?
in Milan rain comes down with all small powder present in the air. if you collect a glass it's grey...

 

[Cwrw666]

Well I kind of use rainwater - in that our water supply comes straight out of a peat bog on the Preseli Mountains. Very acid from the bog, but still basically mineral-free rainwater. Needless to say I have to boil it all as it's full of diluted sheep s**t - whether I'm doing AG (which you do anyway) or even just a kit. Just bringing it to the boil kills any nasties - you don't have to boil it for ages. Proof: when I'm making a kit I bring the water to the boil and add it immediately to the kit. All 5 gallons. But never had a brew go bad on me doing this.

 

[BeerCat]

Be aware many peoples rainwater tests are coming back with very high amount of Aluminum and other nasties from the ongoing illegal GeoEngineering operations over the UK.

 

[darkbright]

A lot of the time the rain here is South essex has a dusty quality to it. Most probably harmless but you never know. I remember reports ages ago the radioactive material from the Chernobyl disaster was found in rainwater in Greece - obvs an extreme example but food for thought.

 

[Ali]

Hi all, thanks for the advice. I think that to cover as many bases as possible, I will first check as many of the water parameters as I can (used to own two aquatic outlets so still have a lot of what I need!), filter the water with charcoal and/or resins that take out whatever isn't required/desirable in there, and then do an experimental brew through my grainfather and see how things turn out.
I do have a copy of the water chemistry that was downloaded from their (Anglian Water) website; have checked a couple of their readings which seem optimistic at best! I can't find when these readings were taken, so I may be doing them a dis-service, but I think I'll use my own findings; only myself to blame then if things go wrong!
As beer used to be made to make water safe to drink, I don't think I'll poison myself. Mind you, in medieval times that didn't have quite the levels of pollution we have now.....

 

[Ali]

A lot of the time the rain here is South essex has a dusty quality to it. Most probably harmless but you never know. I remember reports ages ago the radioactive material from the Chernobyl disaster was found in rainwater in Greece - obvs an extreme example but food for thought.

It's not just South Essex!

I put a bottle with a funnel and coffee filter paper inserted. Once the bottle was a couple of inches full, which didn't take long, I retrieved the filter paper, which had a lovely grey ring of dirt on it. So much for pollution measures for clean air. No wonder people are suffering with asthma etc with all that s**t going in the lungs!!

 

[didinho]

Be aware many peoples rainwater tests are coming back with very high amount of Aluminum and other nasties from the ongoing illegal GeoEngineering operations over the UK.

do you have any test result to post?

 

[BeerCat]

Click on any of the red dots. http://www.chemtrailsprojectuk.com/evidence/rainwater-test-kit-results-map/ Quite a few people i have spoken to have had theirs tested but i don't have the results to hand.