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Author Topic: Using your back yard creek  (Read 3507 times)

Offline DW

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Using your back yard creek
« on: April 18, 2015, 06:49:31 am »
I live in the Western NC mountains and have a nice small creek on the backside of my property.  What would it take to use that water for home brewing?  I assume i'd need to send a sample to a lab for analysis?  Plus, I would not be surprised if it had Giardia, etc in it.  Is it worth it to try and filter and make this into brewing water?  Seems kinda unique.

Offline Jimmy K

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Re: Using your back yard creek
« Reply #1 on: April 18, 2015, 06:54:52 am »
A bucket. ;)

The boil will kill anything in the water. Sending a sample to Ward would be best, but you could just try it too. People have done crazier things.
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Offline dkfick

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Re: Using your back yard creek
« Reply #2 on: April 18, 2015, 07:00:35 am »
From my understanding surface water's composition changes at least seasonally.  I would also be worried about pollutants etc... Maybe just use it for chilling?
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Re: Using your back yard creek
« Reply #3 on: April 18, 2015, 08:11:55 am »
Makes a great chiller if you can set it up right.
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Re: Using your back yard creek
« Reply #4 on: April 18, 2015, 09:19:19 am »
Why do you want to use the water?  What will you gain by doing it?
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Offline HoosierBrew

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Re: Using your back yard creek
« Reply #5 on: April 18, 2015, 09:21:21 am »
+1.  I'd be concerned about pollutant runoff, too.
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Offline DW

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Re: Using your back yard creek
« Reply #6 on: April 18, 2015, 09:58:14 am »
Why do you want to use the water?  What will you gain by doing it?

Simply to say that I brewed water from my back yard creek.  Maybe it's not a worthwhile venture.

Offline DW

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Re: Using your back yard creek
« Reply #7 on: April 18, 2015, 09:59:05 am »
+1.  I'd be concerned about pollutant runoff, too.

Would pollutants be analyzed by Ward Labs?

Offline HoosierBrew

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Re: Using your back yard creek
« Reply #8 on: April 18, 2015, 10:03:43 am »
+1.  I'd be concerned about pollutant runoff, too.

Would pollutants be analyzed by Ward Labs?

I'm not sure, but I doubt it. Regardless, at least city water as well as store bought water (RO, distilled) would have pollutants and impurities removed. Might be a safer bet.
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Offline euge

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Re: Using your back yard creek
« Reply #9 on: April 18, 2015, 10:16:02 am »
I bet it's fine for making shine it's fine for beer too. Probably better than storebought.

If you got livestock or agriculture upstream then there might be problems.
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Offline majorvices

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Re: Using your back yard creek
« Reply #10 on: April 18, 2015, 05:25:30 pm »
Mountain streams are mostly rain water run off or spring fed. Not many farm land on mountain tops. You may want to filter it, but probably fine as is. I have drank a lot of North Carolina stream water on back packing trips (via my Katadyn  water filter) and it tastes very good!

Offline case thrower

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Re: Using your back yard creek
« Reply #11 on: April 18, 2015, 06:15:12 pm »
I would still be afraid of the possibility of chemical pollution within the creek.  The EPA has made a lot of progress in cleaning the waterways but if someone handed me a beer made with water straight from, say, the Cuyahoga River here in N.E. Ohio (which runs just a mile from my house) he wouldn't appreciate my response.  After all, it wasn't that many years ago that the Cuyahoga caught fire.

With that said, there are a pair of videos on Youtube by Glenn who lives in, I believe, Denmark.  He saw a documentary on 'how beer saved the world' and tried his own experiment.  Using water from his backyard fish pond, he brewed a batch of beer.  The point was to show brewing beer purified the (non-chemical polluted) water so as to be safe to drink.  Back in the day, drinking beer was much safer than drinking water.  His fish pond, however, was a closed system, unlike a creek where you have no idea what might have gone into that creek upstream.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-SEFCOAIjc
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Offline klickitat jim

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Re: Using your back yard creek
« Reply #12 on: April 18, 2015, 06:16:25 pm »
Beaver Fever would be one reason not to.

Offline klickitat jim

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Re: Using your back yard creek
« Reply #13 on: April 18, 2015, 06:18:53 pm »
A bucket. ;)

The boil will kill anything in the water. Sending a sample to Ward would be best, but you could just try it too. People have done crazier things.
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Offline Stevie

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Using your back yard creek
« Reply #14 on: April 18, 2015, 07:04:12 pm »
Bamforth brewed a beer a few years back using Putah Creek water. Putah Creek runs through campus, and I wouldn't call it clean. It's not polluted as much as it tends to get stagnant. Couldn't find the article
« Last Edit: April 18, 2015, 07:48:38 pm by Steve in TX »