Is the plastic tubing you can buy at Lowe's, Home Depot, etc... ok for homebrewing purposes? Not sure if that carries a "food grade" rating on it or not. Thanks
It depends. Most of the time the tubing at Home Depot/lowes will be segregated and designated as beverage tubing, etc... So if it's good for beverage lines, it's good for brew.
The vinyl tubing at Lowe's & Home Depot should be fine, but I don't use any vinyl tubing any more. It curls and has a memory and is a pain when cold. I moved to silicone tubing from Austin Home Brew. Info Here.
It cleans easy with a soak in Oxiclean and sanitizes with starsan. When you are ready to use it to rack, it hangs down without touching everything in sight like a curly vinyl hose. It costs more, but is well worth it. It's also high temp, so you can use it to move hot wort from your mash tun or kettle.
Well sure as hell I got to looking at the fine print on the boxes and it does say for food/beverage purposes. Buying in bulk saved me close to 50% over what the home brew supply stores sell tubing for.