I don’t enjoy carrying 5-10 gallons of hot water from the kitchen to the garage so I’ve been thinking about having a source closer to where I brew. I talked to a plumber about installing a hot water hookup in the garage. He said he would do it for $150 but he suggested an easier/cheaper solution.
He said I should hook up a hose to the drainage valve of my hot water heater, run it through a whole house filter, and use it to brew. Seems fairly straightforward. Has anyone done something like this before? Any concerns or suggestions?
I haven’t had a drink from a garden hose since I was a kid, but it tasted like garden hose every time. Piping scalding hot water through the hose would probably make it worse.
I’m also not sure about running plumbing into a probably unseated space like a garage.
Personally, I’d just buy/reuse some of those big spring water tanks, I’m not sure if they’re 2 or 3 gallon.
Garden hoses and drinking water don’t mix. Despite everyone drinking from them as a kid, supposedly garden hoses leach lead into the water. There are such things as drinking water safe hoses, but not even those are safe for hot water. I ended up making a rather unwieldy PEX tubing hose to send water from my tankless hot water heater to the kettle. It works very well and is more flexible after being warmed up.
Tank style water heaters also tend to build up with minerals, which doesn’t equate to the best brewing water. Look into a tankless option or heat the water from the cold tap.
You could also use your propane burner to heat your mash water. That allows you to just drain it from the kettle into your cooler through the port and a piece of silicon tubing. When it comes time to sparge, you could use a second kettle on the burner to heat it.
Of course, you’d still need to haul cold water with that method, but that is far less dangerous. Or use a drinking water safe hose to deliver cold water.
I shouldn’t have said ‘hose.’ I was planning on using some food grade tubing. And the whole house filter hopefully would take care of the minerals in the bottom of the heater.
And I use the hot water so that I don’t have to heat it as much for mashing and sparging. I try to cut down on the amount of propane I use and the amount of time it takes to heat everything.
Am not certain if I understand your issue totally. But, I would add a short RV hose linked to a dedicated PEX line to your garage. My house has PEX and I ran a cold water line to my garage in 1/2 hour.
The fittings are easily gathered and the set up is simple.
Would I use my LP fired hot water heater for my brew? No, but for washing and cleaning is would be great.
