When it rains it pours

So here in northeast pennsylavina it's been raining for days. So me and my home brew apprentice (my six year old son don't worry he dosnt drink any of it he just likes to help) got to talking . What if we trapped all this rain water and used it for brewing? Or fresh snow? Has anyone tried this? Since he has the mind of a ....well six year old and I have the mind of a five year old. We thought this idea was brilliant ! But then we had no clean buckets to put it in, so we went inside and played on our "his" wii. But know I as I lay here in bad I'm kinda worried if this acid rain thing is for real.

lazarus0530 said:

But know I as I lay here in bad I'm kinda worried if this acid rain thing is for real.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_rain

Inodoro_Pereyra said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_rain

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Well shoot! Now I'm worried about my bronze statues of famous home brewers ! I ain't drinkn no rain water, for now on it's good ol deer park bottled water that's bottled right here in Pa. ..... Wait a minute where's that water come from? Good lord people! Do any of us what is really going on here? Soilent green is in effect!

Rain water is a good brewing water source. It is very soft and non-alkaline. As mentioned in the Wiki article, it is corrosive and if its coming off of roofs and things like that, it can pick up things like dissolved metals. It also picks up sulfates and carbonic acid from the air.

I would not use water collected off a galvanized roof or a roof with zinc-treated asphalt shingles, but otherwise it should be a decent water source. Rainwater makes up a lot of what your drinking if your water source is a surface water. Rainwater is going to be much purer.

Remember that there are likely to be microbes in rainwater, so it needs to be filtered and disinfected prior to drinking. Boiling is effective which is the reason beer was considered safer than water to drink in the old days. If you're just using the rainwater for brewing, you may not want to drink it. But it should be safe for brewing. Remember, that which doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.

mabrungard said:

Rain water is a good brewing water source. It is very soft and non-alkaline. As mentioned in the Wiki article, it is corrosive and if its coming off of roofs and things like that, it can pick up things like dissolved metals. It also picks up sulfates and carbonic acid from the air.

I would not use water collected off a galvanized roof or a roof with zinc-treated asphalt shingles, but otherwise it should be a decent water source. Rainwater makes up a lot of what your drinking if your water source is a surface water. Rainwater is going to be much purer.

Remember that there are likely to be microbes in rainwater, so it needs to be filtered and disinfected prior to drinking. Boiling is effective which is the reason beer was considered safer than water to drink in the old days. If you're just using the rainwater for brewing, you may not want to drink it. But it should be safe for brewing. Remember, that which doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.

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Love the last line! I'm so going to do it! But now I'm thinking what if we went to a natural spring here in the mountains of Pa. Untouched water? My buddy has a spring in his back yard that the water is crystal blue and it comes straight out of the ground . We all have drank from it before and nothing tasted funny in fact it was great tasting . Would you ever use this kind of spring?

Let's put it this way if Yuengling can make beer right from the Schuykill river (filtered of course and it's hard to make a clone of because of the water), then there is no reason why you could not make beer from a spring. I would filter it first and let it roll.

shadows69 said:

Let's put it this way if Yuengling can make beer right from the Schuykill river (filtered of course and it's hard to make a clone of because of the water), then there is no reason why you could not make beer from a spring. I would filter it first and let it roll.

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I worked in yeungling once to repair the boilers there. Not to sound gross but that place is filthy

Oh great and I love the lager. I need to go on a tour one of these days.

If you drink the spring water with no problems than you can definately brew with it.

As for the rain water, it really depends on how you collect it. You probably shouldn't brew with water collected from your roof (or drink it for that matter).

BE A MAN! you should throw a shingle or two in your brew! it'll give your beer a really chewy mouthfeel GRRRRRR

shadows69 said:

Let's put it this way if Yuengling can make beer right from the Schuykill river (filtered of course and it's hard to make a clone of because of the water), then there is no reason why you could not make beer from a spring. I would filter it first and let it roll.

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cant be that hard to clone if its the water alone.....i live ten minutes from the Schuykill. The thing is....that river is flat out nasty. That must be one hell of a filtration system they use.

I assume it is a good filter. From what I understand they built a brewery down south but couldn't make the beer because the water. I don't know how true that is but that's what i heard a couple of years ago.

lazarus0530 said:

Love the last line! I'm so going to do it! But now I'm thinking what if we went to a natural spring here in the mountains of Pa. Untouched water? My buddy has a spring in his back yard that the water is crystal blue and it comes straight out of the ground . We all have drank from it before and nothing tasted funny in fact it was great tasting . Would you ever use this kind of spring?

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Spring water is no guarantee of good water. There could be all kinds of contaminants and dissolved metals in spring water. But if it tastes good and not metallic, then you could consider it.

Sometimes its hard to tell where the groundwater that a spring is producing came from. It can pick up all sorts of stuff that you may not want to drink. Things like landfills, septic tanks, hazardous waste dumps, etc. can add nasty things. If that spring is located at the base of a mountain and there aren't sites like I mentioned above, then its probably OK.

If you like the water, you could also send it off for the typical household test at Wards so that you would know what its brewing ions are. That testing is cheap. Testing to find out if its contaminated is not cheap, so if you can satisify that there isn't anything nasty up hill from the spring, go for it.

pwndabear said:

BE A MAN! you should throw a shingle or two in your brew! it'll give your beer a really chewy mouthfeel GRRRRRR

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Haaahaaaa

jjward101 said:

cant be that hard to clone if its the water alone.....i live ten minutes from the Schuykill. The thing is....that river is flat out nasty. That must be one hell of a filtration system they use.

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I wouldnt swim in it I'd swim over hear on the Delaware only above the rt 80 bridge.