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I am interested in collecting rain water, I am thinking of a clothes line cloaked in plastic which then would collect and pour into the fermenter. just a thought.

Probably a good idea to filter this water as you may collect a bit of dust, bird shit etc.

Tipsy wrote:Probably a good idea to filter this water as you may collect a bit of dust, bird shit etc.

tipsy, it would be a strict quick assemble , for rain days only.

You may also want to consider the acid content of the water. Some friends of mine put in a water tank in suburban Brisbane with the idea of using it for drinking but one taste convinced them it was not only foul to the taste but probably a good way to get ill.

Hence why filtering the water would be a good idea!

I'd personally give it a miss. It's a fair bit of work, for not much gain. If you do go ahead, you would HAVE to filter, as rain droplets often form around a dust particle, and hence each drop = at least 1 bit of grit.

luke wrote:tipsy, it would be a strict quick assemble , for rain days only.

I think it's a great idea and worth trying at least once, if the rain you collect tastes good then I see no reason you can't use it to brew. You may even get a flavour unique to your area

Chris is right that there would be some dust in there, however it would be a tiny ammount and may even settle out during the brew. If it were me I'd try it fresh from the sky (no filtering) and see how it goes.

It might be worth checking the ph and hardness, but that's a whole lot of hassle.

I may be missing something, but what is the point of collecting rainwater?

The Carbonator wrote:I may be missing something, but what is the point of collecting rainwater?

carbonator , just perfecting my beer creations , i thought the no chlorine ,, no fluoride content would be a factor in the taste.

Interesting question you pose,

I've only ever thrown out one batch of home brew and it was the one that I made using rain water.

Collected off a tin roof in Kalgoorlie WA part way through really heavy rain resulting form a cyclonic depression coming through. I decided that a couple of hours heavy rain first would clean up any dust and crap that may have been sitting on the roof before hand.

I thought it would be perfect and proceeded to brew what I thought would be the worlds best stout. Man was I wrong - it smelt funny (strange funny not ha ha funny) in the fermentor, tasted wierd at bottling time and didn't get any better after 6 months in the bottle.

Please note, I didn't boil the water after it was collected, just went straight into the ferment so I assume, in hind sight, that I got an infection in there somehow.

If you do want to persist with the rainwater idea, please consider boiling it first, and also spare a thought that whilst it may not contain chlorine, flouring etc, if your in a metropolitan area you may just be swapping those for elements of smog and other pollution.

Cheers

Brewed Kit & Adjunct for years on tank water, no ill affects noted. Also do not recall any major variance when moved home to a town watered dwelling.

Cheers,
Greg