Total amount of water per batch?

[malweth]

I was talking about home water use with my family and I wondered...

What would you estimate the total amount of water used to brew a five gallon batch of beer? That includes washing bottles (keggers have the advantage here), making sanitizer, general cleaning of equipment, and of course whatever actually goes into the batch of beer.

My guess was 3-4x or 15-20 gallons of water. It could even be more -- washing bottles uses a LOT!

 

[Yooper]

Well, I don't wash bottles. I rinse them very, very well after pouring them into my class. Then they just go into the bin and are santized on bottling day. I mean, if they're already clean from rinsing them very well after pouring a beer, why wash them again?

Sanitizing- I use about 2.5 gallons of water to mix up Star-san. I save it for months, and reuse.

Equipment- a quick rinse if something is dusty, but if it's clean to the eye I don't wash it before brewing with it.

For a ten gallon batch yesteray, I used 15.5 gallons of water in the HLT. I then washed the equipment after with some of the water from the chiller, about 5 gallons for washing and 5 for rinsing. I put the rest of the water into my aquarium/fish pond.

I think the biggest place I waste water is in the chilling, so I try to save some of it for watering the garden, filling my fish pond or aquariums, cleaning the equipment, filling my washing machine, etc. I think I used about 25-30 gallons yesterday to chill a 10 gallon batch.

So, let's see. 15.5 gallons for the brewing. A negligible amount for sanitizing (again, I save the sanitizer from use to use, for a LONG time), a quick rinse on equipment before sanitizing. And using the chiller water for cleaning, and washing clothes. I'd say I used about 60 gallons of water for 10 gallons!

 

[jbsg02]

Yeah, my wort chiller wastes quite a bit of water, I'm not sure how much, I keep the faucet on very low when using it

 

[LarryC]

The chiller is the biggest water user for me as well but I move the discharge hose around my back yard and let it water the grass. So far, no issues from the initial hot water on the grass...

 

[ed2670]

I would say for a 5g batch I go through about 8 gallons in the HLT, 6 gallons in my fermentation bucket for sanitizing just about everything and another 30 gallons through the day washing different things. I reuse the sanitizer for my kegs. I also consider my chiller free because I port out into the swimming pool to make up for evaporation during the day--water I would have added anyhow. So for me, looking at about 9X at 44 gallons.

BTW, my water here in SoCal is about $4 for 700 gallons. My water cost is about twenty-five cents per batch. I believe our water rates are higher than most...

 

[Phunhog]

I have always heard that every gallon of beer brewed uses about 5 gallons of water. Based on my experience that is just about right.

 

[erikhild59]

9 gallons for just the beer, 25 gal for chlling , 5 for sanitizing, 10 for washing....around 50 or so I guess. All the chilling water goes into the laundry though, so its not a waste, actually it saves me some hot water.