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The Characteristic Taste Of Rain Water...

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Versipelis

Versipelis

NewBee
Registered Member
Jan 1, 2015
12
0
0
Tampa, Florida
Hi All...Happy 4th Of July...

I have question regarding rain water, in short, it taste funny to me. The best way to describe it, would be a "plastic like" taste. I am catching it in a plastic carboy, but it's not sitting for more than a day, before I transfer it to a glass carboy and taste it. I also did a taste test with my GF and she preferred our well-water over rainwater. I prefer our well-water to the taste of rainwater. Does anyone have any experience with rainwater? Is it normal for rainwater to taste a bit funny, or is it because I'm not used to the taste of pure water? Finally, when making Mead with rainwater, does it produce a superior final product?

TIA,

Versipelis
 
Well I can say that rain water is absolutely not "pure water". It's usually full of all kinds of pollutants and other things.
 
It's pretty well known that rainwater is not exactly pure water. Besides the infamous "acid rain" (acidification of precipitation due to pollutants in the atmosphere mixing in and lowing its pH), there are plenty of things that can dissolve into rain as it falls to the ground and affect its flavor (e.g., smoke, smog, bacteria, spores, etc.). In some cases, depending on where you live, this can actually render straight rainwater unsafe to drink. This most likely explains why neither you nor your girlfriend are particularly fond of its flavor.

If you plan on using it, I'd suggest boiling to kill microbes it and running it through a filter.
 
Tomorrow, I've decided that I'm going to experiment with rainwater using it to make coffee. I might also try tea. I know that my well-water has Fe2O3 in it. What I desired, was water with the least amount of trace elements for mead making. I'll let you know how my coffee turns out...
 
You could always get some distilled water. It's not going to be pure, but it'll be pretty close. Probably as close as you can get without ordering lab grade molecular water.
 
Distilled water is not very good to make Mead out of. Spring water is best. The yeast like the nutrients.
 
If you like the taste of your well water, go ahead and use it. I was so used to well water growing up that I couldn't drink bottled water, city water or softened water for quite some time so there may well be some element of personal taste to it...

I'm not sure if the yeasties are interested in the iron compounds but they often like other minerals in trace amounts.

One of the other members here uses rainwater sometimes but she filters it through I think a Berkely filter? I'm not sure I'd trust using unfiltered rain water, it may well have stuff dissolved in it that could cause other stuff to react with it and release compounds from plastics or metal utensils, etc.

If your rainwater and wellwater don't make your mead taste good, I'd second the suggestions to get a big jug of spring water.
 
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