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Water on boil notice.

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  • 14-06-2013 2:44pm
    #1
    gazahayes
    Registered Users Posts: 451 ✭✭


    Would it be safe enough to use water that is on a boil notice think it said it COULD contain e-coli. Once the brew is finished would the alcohol kill the bacteria?


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    #2
    BeerNut
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 11,850 Mod ✭✭✭✭BeerNut


    For a kit brew I wouldn't chance it.

    My beer blog | The Twitter | My other beer blog



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    #3
    Carawaystick
    Registered Users Posts: 8,779 ✭✭✭Carawaystick


    BeerNut wrote: »
    For a kit brew I wouldn't chance it.

    Yeah, the alcohol would need to be killing the yeast before thee was any risk of the E. coli dying (high teens%abv levels)


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    #4
    Shiny
    Registered Users Posts: 2,259 ✭✭✭Shiny


    I would just get those cheap 5L bottles of water in Tesco for the duration of the boil notice. For the sake of a fiver I would rather do that than have to dump a batch.

    I find with brewing you have to place a value on your time. If you don't have a chiller then you would have to wait for 23L of boiled water to cool including the time taken to boil it in the first place....

    A quick google reveals that ethanol concentrations between 40% and 100% have successfully killed e coli. Given that your concentration is going to be significantly lower than that.... In addition it is the low ph of beer that inhibits bacterial activity and it generally drops as low as 4. Certain strains of E Coli can survive in ph solutions as low as 2.5 so I doubt you could rely on that either.... As a result I wouldn't rely on your brew to kill the bacteria and personally wouldn't be mad about drinking it regardless of whether it was boiled or not...


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