rainwater collection..

[bigvalen]

It occured to me that Dublin water is too hard for a real Pils.  Anyone gone crazy enough to try collect rainwater for soft water beers ? How hard can it be to set something up...

[mcgrath]

Not very. Pull the last section off your downpipe and stick a bucket under it. You won't get hired for any odd jobs after it though..
I use a Brita filter and it removes enough to keep the kettle shiny..

[delzep]

South dublin water is very soft (mine is anyway)

[beerfly]

City Centre water is the same roughly 30-40 ppm hardness (caco3 I think, top of the head guess) you can basically you what you want with it.

[Shanna]

It occured to me that Dublin water is too hard for a real Pils.  Anyone gone crazy enough to try collect rainwater for soft water beers ? How hard can it be to set something up...

Collecting the water is easy. Removed any dissolved shite in it would require pretty good filters. I have a water butt that collects water for the garden (non edible plants) and you would be amazed what comes off the roof. Algae, moss and all manner of bird & animal shite (squirrels and cats), not to mention other organic matter such as seeds and leaves. Personally would not touch it for anything I would drink. I will start to use it for chilling but not making the beer.

Shanna

[HomeBrewWest]

Mate of mine in Galway uses it for everything, bird poo is the biggest problem. He has a massive sand/gravel/stone pit which the water is filtered through, and a massive concrete storage tank. I'm not sure if he fiters it at the tap.

I guess its a nice idea but not simple to do it right.

[Dr Jacoby]

I just set up a 210L water butt that I'll use for chilling. I have a submersible karcher pump to push the water through the chiller and back to the butt. I wouldn't consume the water though 

[baphomite51]

i think rain water can pick up a lot of crap as it falls from pollution so take that into account aswell if you live in a city

[bigvalen]

Hmmm. Problem with using filtered water is it swaps calcium for sodium, which is worse for the yeast. And rainwater filtered through sand would take minerals from that...I suppose one could use silica sand or something that wouldn't come off in the water...

A bit of bird poo would likely be a yeast nutrient, right? As long as its boiled....

[molc]

I'm after throwing the fermenter outside the last few days to collect rainwater for my next batch of starsan that I mix up. It's just sitting in the middle of the garden, so i'ts a slow colleciton of whatever naturally falls into. I was assuming that it would be as good as getting distilled water. Am I wrong?

[Bzfeale80]

i suppose you could make a funnel with some fine food grade ss mesh and a doubled up muslin which would take care of most of the 'foreign bodies' like leafs bird poo seeds etc. i would probably still boil the water just to be safe

[bigvalen]

Rainwater is quite different to distilled: it will have a lot of dissolved CO2 and O2, some N2 and maybe some atmospheric pollutants. For brewing, it likely won't make that much of a difference.

[molc]

Bugger. Well I guess that's means I'll just need to pick up a bottle of distiller for the stars an. Where would I get 10 litres for cheap I wonder...

[Will_D]

Bugger. Well I guess that's means I'll just need to pick up a bottle of distiller for the stars an. Where would I get 10 litres for cheap I wonder...

Pet/Aquarium store sells RO water for about €5 for 25 litres.

[molc]

Cool, cheers. I shall go on a hunt at the weekend in blanch