Brewing with rain water

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My Uncle can heat his in-ground outdoor pool in Florida to 90 °F in the winter (it does get close to freezing in the winter where he is) with hot water solar. It's basically a black (sch90) PVC array behind a glass, with a send and return line to the pool. He actually blew the pipe once because he forgot to open the valve!
 
RegionalChaos said:
I think you would just always want to have it collecting.

It would always be collecting rainwater to distill. The problem/bottleneck in the system's speed would be the actual distillation. For a 10 sgft distiller condensing surface area you get 1.5 gallons per day in the summer time and half that in winter. At this rate, I would have to collect 17 gallons for brew day 11+ days before in summer time and just over 22.5 days before in the winter time. That is a large piece of equipment for such little production. If an entire roof was made for it then fine, but even then you would have to watch your water usage to not run out for a house and brewing. I only like the idea of solar distilling for the taste aspect. The actual logistics behind it being truly feasible on a size scale knock it out right now. I think solar heating would be a better use for solar and brewing water right now. I wonder if you can get a direct fired water still that wouldn't make the water taste like crap. I think that is more space efficient, but wouldn't do it if the water tasted anything like store bought distilled, yuck. My iron and steamer like it but I couldn't palate it unless I was dying of thirst.
 
I would imagine that a simple black tank in the Arizona summer sun would get you well up to 140F in a day or two. You can put a small submersible powerhead in there to keep it circulating.
 
Yeah Bobby, I'm going to put some old 5 gallon water bottles to use.
I have some flat black spray paint and a hot corner up against a cinder block wall.
 
Baron von BeeGee said:
At a minimum I would check the pH of the water and not use it if it is acidic.

Generally the pH of rainwater is about 5.5 to 6. Depending on where you live. On the east coast you can get closer to 5 usually. And anything below 5.6 is considered acid rain. Even if there is little SOx and NOx in your air where you live, there's plenty of CO2, and that will always make the rainwater less than 7.

Here's a graphic I found. Kind of disturbing:

phlab.gif
 
OK, thought I'd post after watching the Modern Marvels on Copper this week. I wondered if copper plating the inside of a keg for rain water, or any water for that matter, storage would be a good idea due to its anti-microbial properties. I ask here because of the pH question. I wouldn't want an excessive copper taste in my brewing water or anything so I wonder about the water and the copper oxidation being stripped off. I am going under the same principle as the settlers used for milk containers with a silver dollar in the bottom to help it "last" longer. Any thoughts? Oh, and for all the "copper plating is expensive" comments, my retort to that is I accidentally found out how to cheaply plate stainless with copper, lol. I plated my brand new all-stainless Sanke tap by leaving it in a bucket with spilled beer. The tap had a penny as a stopper in one end and only half the tap was submerged, but when I discovered the bucket I had a pretty pink tap.

This is just one of those what-if types of questions, but I am a curious person so I have to ask, lol.
 
remember that only the outer coating of a penny is copper, and it's .02grams of copper per penny. At that rate you're probably spending $100 on penny's to plate something. I guess you could still use the penny's afterwards though...
 
Not pre-1982 pennies. Sorry, should have explained. For the keg project I might use copper tubing instead. All I know is it plated it in beer and now my new SS tap looks like crap unless I polish the copper, lol.
 
I'm guessing it's a bit late!

LOL - I think I brain farted on the date of the last post!

Still, there is good info in this thread, on a topic I just recently became interested in! Brewing with filtered, harvested rain sounds like a great idea, much has developed since this thread was started.
 
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