Brewshed and rainwater

[Mungobiscuit]

Afternoon all, I’m just in the process of getting back in to brewing as a hobby and I’ve decided to build a shed in the garden and turn it into a brewshed....What do people think about using rainwater as a brewing liquor???

 

[Joust]

There was a thread about using recycled piss to make beer the other day... I'm sure rain water would be brilliant in comparison

 

[An Ankoù]

Afternoon all, I’m just in the process of getting back in to brewing as a hobby and I’ve decided to build a shed in the garden and turn it into a brewshed....What do people think about using rainwater as a brewing liquor???

Absolutely brilliant brewing liquor. You need to let it rain for half an hour to clean the air and the roof and then catch it in a clean FV by drilling a small (and pluggable) hole in the gutter. Use within a couple of days otherwise it'll start turning a bit green and pond-smelling like. I brewed with one of these a good 10 years ago and the beer came out perfect! If you're making anything other than Pilsner, you'll need to put some salts in there, and even with the Pilsner, you'd be advised to put a bit of acidulated malt in the grist. On the other hand I've got a book by one American brewer who always uses nothing other than R O water and corrects the pH only with dilute phosphoric acid. If you're interested, I'll dig out the details.
On the other hand, I wouldn't recommend using old rainwater collected in a water butt.

Edit: The book is by Gordon Strong, "Mdern Homebrew Recipes". He starts with a quarter of a teaspoon of 10% phosphiric acid in 5 (US) gallons of R O water and build up from there with a bot of calcium chloride or a bit of calcium sulphate depending on the style.

 

[Mungobiscuit]

There was a thread about using recycled piss to make beer the other day... I'm sure rain water would be brilliant in comparison

Bloody hell...you’re right, rainwater it is.....the resultant beer might be piss though