Septmeber 1997 Volume 20, Issue 9

Alternative Water Sources

by Loren Davidson

I read the article in the August Draught Notice about EBMUD's proposal to change from chlorine to chloramine, and the results this can have for brewing and for fish. And after sitting with it next to my elbow at table for a while, and after spending two weeks learning about alternatives to our current dysfunctional resource distribution systems, I flashed on the following responses:

First, where is the outrage? Many of you are about to have something put in your drinking and brewing water that KILLS FISH. What's it likely to do to *you*? I would like to heartily recommend that any individual living within EBMUD's demesne write a letter of protest about this to them, with a copy to your County Supervisor. Further, as this *does* affect brewing quality, I feel that the Draught Board should, as an organization, do likewise, and I will support this action.

Second, what can we as inventive brewers do to get good quality water to brew with, besides filtration? Here are some options:

1) Buy bottled water (spring water, not treated tap water) to brew with, and hopefully to drink with. Easy, but the cost adds up over time.

2) Bring fresh well or spring water in from out of the area. We do this for some of our drinking water, and will probably increase this in spite of the possible long-term effects on our local water table at our weekend place.

3) Investigate roof catchment. Rainwater, even here, is probably cleaner and better for brewing (you're going to boil it anyway, right?) than tap water. The part you have to avoid is the first part of a rainfall, because that washes all the contaminants out of the air and off your roof. I have diagrams for one or two contraptions that can be used to capture that first part of the rainfall and divert it from your catchment vessel, which I can copy & make available if anybody wants the info. These contraptions should be child's play to build for the gadget-heads among us.

The water can be caught in 55 gallon drums, which Brewmaster sells from time to time for reasonable money. You will probably need to perform surgery on your downspout. You'll also want to place screening over the openings (fine shade cloth seems to work okay) to keep mosquito larvae out. The best types of roof for clean catchment water are things like painted (anodized) metal, hot dip galvanized metal and glazed tile. The worst types are asphalt shingle (leaching petrochemicals) and wood shake (leaching tannins).

And the amount of rain you can get off even a small roof is amazing. An 8x10 foot storage shed in a place that gets 24" of rain a year (not unusual in the greater Bay area; your numbers may be a bit more or less) can theoretically capture 1200 gallons of water a year. (Actual numbers, after evaporation, "trace" rainfalls and dumping the beginning of every storm would be about 80% of that. Still enough to do quite a bit of brewing based on water captured in your "above ground well". J )

We'll probably be putting one of these up this winter at our home, more for topping off the fish pond than for our uses. I hope that others might consider trying this as well.