Rainwater

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seasnan

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It seems like it's been raining every day this summer here in VT. I'm thinking I may put it all to good use. Can anyone think of a reason not to use fresh rainwater for brewing?
 
Can you do a "clean catch" for a sufficient amount of water? I wouldn't use anything that touched/ran off of/ bounced off an unclean surface.
 
Asphalt shingles, acid rain, airborne environmental pollutants, catch-basin contaminants and bacteria, ... Plenty of reasons not to do this.
 
I work in a hospital so I have access to sterile drapes that I was planning to use to make a large, sterile catch basin in a large field to prevent run off. Also, I'm in Vermont so there isn't a lot of environmental hazards or acid rain to worry about, but, just in case, who would I contact to find out about rain water quality? Wouldn't any bacteria or contaminants be neutralized during the boiling of the wort?
 
I think you should do it. If you are using it for brewing, well you will be boiling the water anyways, so no worries of contamination bacteria wise at least. All the other crap? Well, if you drink water from a city, it's probably worse than rainwater IMHO. Go for it!
 
Well, if that's the case, that means the air that we breathe is loaded with contaminants. Maybe we should all quit breathing?

Just make a one or two gallon batch, no harm no foul.
 
Well, if that's the case, that means the air that we breathe is loaded with contaminants. Maybe we should all quit breathing?

Just make a one or two gallon batch, no harm no foul.

Yep, and your breathing system has some elaborate ways to catching and removing those contaminants. How will you remove them from the rain water?
 
I'd say go for it. The level of contamination is so low as not make a difference. To all the nay-sayers I hope your kids never swim, you too, if you are concerned about contaminates think of what is in the body of water you use (pond, ocean, lake, swimming pool).
 
I'd say go for it. The level of contamination is so low as not make a difference. To all the nay-sayers I hope your kids never swim, you too, if you are concerned about contaminates think of what is in the body of water you use (pond, ocean, lake, swimming pool).

I do a pretty good job of not drinking the water I swim in.

I might be a naysayer but I also have rain-barrels..and alot of nasty stuff ends up in those barrels...

I would suggest OP put some significant thought on how he'll get a "clean catch" of a significant amount of rain water. To get 7-10 gallons of water from a single rain, he'll have to have a fairly large catch basin. Funny thing about catch basins: They tend to catch stuff from the air when they aren't catching rain. You don't realize how much stuff is in the air until you wash off a large surface like a roof...
 
The only -- ONLY -- way I'd ever do this would be to catch the water in a dedicated catch, I.e. no asphalt shingles or rain gutters, and then to RO the water. That's a minimum, and I'm not even 100% sure that's safe. But to suggest anything less stringent than this would be willfully ignorant of health issues. You'd have to do some serious research first. I've seen my rain gutters many times, and that some NASTY stuff in there. Look in anyone's rain barrel too; blech.
 
I think rainwater is on the acidic side (I've read around 5.5-6 pH) and it doesn't really have any ions in it because it is basically naturally distilled water. I would treat it like distilled water and add brewing salts (probably CaCl2 and gypsum) and maybe something to raise the pH if it's really low. I would probably filter it somehow too. I bet one of those ceramic filters you can take camping would work just fine. Or maybe even just a brita filter.

It's been raining here for like 2 weeks straight as well. I'm sick of it. This sounds like a good way to make the most of it though. Good luck!
:mug:
 
The mash and the boil will kill and sanitize everything. This is the basis of pastuerization. My only concern would be taste and sediment, which is why I would try to filter it somehow.
 
I have heard of people doing it. I've used freshly fallen snow before with no ill effect. I am pretty sure we have decent air around me. I've never got it checked though. You can also run it through a carbon filter to help get rid of any contaminants. You could just buy activated charcoal, grab a large cup from McDonald's, poke some holes through it, and voila, instant filter. I plan on doing the same thing with river water from a spring fed river.
 
You cannot boil or sanitize out metals, acids, and chemical pollutants. They require an advanced filtration system, and testing for purity not easily available to most homebrewers. Here is a list of the contaminants in the air, which could be captured by rain, according to the University of Vermont Burlington Eco Info project: ozone, particulate matter, benzene, 1,3,-butadiene, formaldehyde, styrene, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, various cleaners, solvents, paints, pesticides, tetrachloroethylene.

I am not a scientist, but they don't sound like healthy things to me.

According to the same site, in Burlington "concentrations of several toxic air pollutants regularly exceed Vermont's health-based Hazardous Ambient Air Standards."

There is a reason why our drinking water is processed and tested routinely.

Life does have risks, and we can't make ourselves immune from everything, so all such things are a personal decision, but I don't see much benefit in this particular risk.
 
You can find a wealth of information on the internet to prove either side of an argument if that's what your looking to do. I think there's a term for that. Oh yeah: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias. And in the spirit of that, here's some articles saying rainwater is great to drink:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091104091728.htm
http://www.iwawaterwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Articles/Rainwater,+Why+is+it+Safe

Also, that article you referenced is strictly about air pollution and doesn't say anything about rainwater at all. You can't just assume that rain will somehow "capture" any or all of those things you listed.
 
You can find a wealth of information on the internet to prove either side of an argument if that's what your looking to do. I think there's a term for that. Oh yeah: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias. And in the spirit of that, here's some articles saying rainwater is great to drink:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091104091728.htm
http://www.iwawaterwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Articles/Rainwater,+Why+is+it+Safe

Also, that article you referenced is strictly about air pollution and doesn't say anything about rainwater at all. You can't just assume that rain will somehow "capture" any or all of those things you listed.

My concern isn't about what is in rainwater itself (after all it is basically distilled water), its how to catch and contain it without contamination.

Can't pull it out of rainbarrels, as that rain had run over asphalt shingles and through gutter systems. Not something I would I'd want to drink.

You could have a custom built catch, but how you keep that from getting contaminated?....just check out any surface (toys, lawn chairs, etc) that was left outside for a couple of days and you'll see it accumulates airbourne contaminants just sitting there...

OP suggested access to sterile hospital drapes; not sure how you would "deploy" them or more importantly keep them from getting dirty/contaminated.
 
I was planning on hanging the drape in the middle of an empty field held up by 4 posts on each corner. I would then cut a small hole in the middle of the drape, attach a sheet of muslin cloth under the hole and place a food grade plastic bucket under the hole. That would remove most of the gross contaminants. The water would then be filtered to remove any chemical contaminants and boiled during brewing.
 
I was planning on hanging the drape in the middle of an empty field held up by 4 posts on each corner. I would then cut a small hole in the middle of the drape, attach a sheet of muslin cloth under the hole and place a food grade plastic bucket under the hole. That would remove most of the gross contaminants. The water would then be filtered to remove any chemical contaminants and boiled during brewing.

Seems like a lot of work for, well, nothing...
 
i'd go for it if you can collect it without adding more contaminates. i'd be more worried about drinking city water full of chlorine and other chemicals they use to "clean" the water. there's not too many natural sources of water i haven't drank from. ie lake, creek, river, spring, my well, snow, and rainfall. but i suppose it could be killing me.

there are much more unhealthy things in all the foods we eat that are processed. I'd be more worried about that then drinking rain water!!
 
Seems like a lot of work for, well, nothing...

Well homebrewing is a lot of work for something we could just buy in a store.

I saw somebody posted this in a recent thread that was also about brewing with rainwater:
it seems like the main point of brewing with rainwater is being able to say to your buddies "you like that? it's brewed with rainwater!"

Being able to say your beer is brewed with rainwater might not be worth the work to you or me, but I can definitely see the value of it. I'm sure most people see all the work we put into homebrewing and say "that seems like a lot of work for nothing" as well. And who knows, maybe beer brewed with rainwater is way better and it will be the new trend in craft brewing. Then seasnan could say "Yeah, I pioneered brewing with rainwater back in the day".
 
I was planning on hanging the drape in the middle of an empty field held up by 4 posts on each corner. I would then cut a small hole in the middle of the drape, attach a sheet of muslin cloth under the hole and place a food grade plastic bucket under the hole. That would remove most of the gross contaminants. The water would then be filtered to remove any chemical contaminants and boiled during brewing.

How big is the drape? It needs to be large enough to catch enough rainwater in a single rain. I have 2 50 gallon rainbarrels connected to gutters on half of my house and they fill up about half-way after a good soaking rainfall. I would guess you'd need a surface area about the size of shed roof to collect 8-10 gallons of rainwater in a single "catch".

I say you need to get this done in a single rain because standing water will turn stagnant quick and you will have mosquitoes laying eggs in the water. Then there is all of the airborne contaminants that will float down and into your container. I don't think you want to wait a couple weeks for enough rain to fill up your container...hence the recommendation on a large enough collection surface to get it all done at once.

So, is this REALLY worth your time? Just to say it you brewed with rainwater?
 
Well homebrewing is a lot of work for something we could just buy in a store.

Well, that's something.

Being able to say your beer is brewed with rainwater might not be worth the work to you or me, but I can definitely see the value of it. I'm sure most people see all the work we put into homebrewing and say "that seems like a lot of work for nothing" as well. And who knows, maybe beer brewed with rainwater is way better and it will be the new trend in craft brewing. Then seasnan could say "Yeah, I pioneered brewing with rainwater back in the day".

Yeah, I'm sure it'll be the new trend.
 
I'd want to run it through something like a whole house filter a lot of us use for brewing water from the tap.
 
Well where I live we drink well water. Some people have shallow wells that are less than 50 ft deep and the ohio epa and health department has determined the water safe to drink. Yes ground water running through the earth is somewhat filtered. However shallow wells produce water that is very reminiscent of the surface water. I think everyone is over reacting to drinking rain water. Damn city folk. The farmers around here love you guys you have made them rich with all this fake organic sh**.
 
In the documentary "how beer saved the world", they brew beer with water from a duck pound that was riddled with potentially fatal bacteria. Some people liked the beer, none who drank it got sick or could guess the source of the water.
 
CBMbrewer said:
In the documentary "how beer saved the world", they brew beer with water from a duck pound that was riddled with potentially fatal bacteria. Some people liked the beer, none who drank it got sick or could guess the source of the water.

That's pretty much like how they figured out what typhoid was in London. They realised that folk working in the local brewery and those drinking beer and nothing but, weren't dying. That's because they were boiling the **** out of everything bad in the water. Yet those drinking the local water were dropping every other second. Capture the rain water. Boil the **** out of it. As long as it isn't nuclear, you are fine. Anybody says other wise, well, I worry for them and how they passed science. As long as it isn't nuclear, and the fact that boiling kills typhoid (which is mostly caused by human and animal waste) and pretty much everything else known to this planet outside of the human body, then you are ok.

Post script. I cannot believe this ADULT site censors swearing between adults.
 
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