Using Water from Washing Machine Source

I am setting up my system in the laundry room and the only source of water is the washing machine source.

I bought a garden hose splitter today and a barb that I'm going to attach to some silicone hose.



I know that this is not ideal, but what other options do I have?

I don't see anything wrong with that

My setup is exactly the same way. No reason to think that the water going to the washer is any different from water going to the kitchen sink.

All the water in the house is from the same source - this is usually correct assumption, the only time this might not be correct is if you have some sort of filtration on the water for drinking. If you don't have a filter, then all the water in the house is the same, and as long as you get it from a pipe, it is all drink able. (ie while the water to my faucet and toilet are the same, I will only drink from the non standing source).

If the water is filter, is it is probably whole house. If you only drink bottled water in the house, then you are already proably brewing with bottled water. If the water is good for washing dishes, it is good for washing brewing equipment and good for chilling wort.

In short, if anywhere in the pipes is drinkable, everywhere is. Your pictured splitter looks good. I always like finding valves to stop the flow incase of leaks. I've debated putting a sink in by my washer/dryer and that is exactly how I would do it (with splitters and such). My only concern with the silicon hose and barb is failure over time. So I recommend that you turn it off at your splitter when not in use. When in use, you will be near by in cases of failure and can shut it off before to much water. I think standard water preasure is atleast 1 gallon per minute. Imagine being out for several hours while that leak goes!

My wort chiller I got from a brewsupplier has a barb attachement to the silicon with a hose clamp over it

I use my washing machine cold fill spout, but my solution is a bit simpler. I just turn off the water, unscrew the washing machine and then screw in my potable water hose and turn the water back on.

I don't have a need to do laundry and make beer at the same time, so it seems more simple.

25' potable water hose was about $14, no barbs needed.

Thanks for the input. My concern was more with using garden hose brass fittings to bring the water into my system. I'm not sure if the garden hose brass fittings are built to the same standard as regular plumbing brass fittings.

My conclusion is that since it is only water and not acidic wort coming into contact with the brass fittings, the risk of lead from the brass is lower.

You can go into your local hardware store and buy plastic tubing and hook that up to lead free garden hose fittings for not too much, if you want to.

I can't honestly say anything specific about that particular garden hose fitting with regards to anything leeching out of it. I'm under the assumption that unless it says it's fit for potable water - it isn't.

A potable water hose (white hose usually with blue pinstriping or silimiar and sometimes called an RV water hose) can be obtained at the big box stores next to all the garden hoses. they run about $14-15 for 25' and won't add anything nasty to your brewing. That's not a bad price and could end up being cheaper then getting barbs and tubing depending on length.

Also, where my valve is for the washer - it's in a pretty exposed area so I wouldn't want to have the chance of accidentally bumping the spare outlet and getting a lot of water or an unnoticed a slow drip. If the wife decides she needs the ability to run the washer at the same time as I run my brewing equipment, I'd probably end up doing something a little more permanent with threaded brass fittings. That's probably just me being overly cautious.

Barnesie said:

I can't honestly say anything specific about that particular garden hose fitting with regards to anything leeching out of it. I'm under the assumption that unless it says it's fit for potable water - it isn't.

A potable water hose (white hose usually with blue pinstriping or silimiar and sometimes called an RV water hose) can be obtained at the big box stores next to all the garden hoses. they run about $14-15 for 25' and won't add anything nasty to your brewing. That's not a bad price and could end up being cheaper then getting barbs and tubing depending on length.

Also, where my valve is for the washer - it's in a pretty exposed area so I wouldn't want to have the chance of accidentally bumping the spare outlet and getting a lot of water or an unnoticed a slow drip. If the wife decides she needs the ability to run the washer at the same time as I run my brewing equipment, I'd probably end up doing something a little more permanent with threaded brass fittings. That's probably just me being overly cautious.

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Good call. The other issue at hand is the actual permanent faucet that feeds the washer. I'm pretty sure that it is brass so there is already exposure.

Is this really an issue to be worrying about or should I be spending my time on brewing?

Another cool thing about brewing next to your washer is that, if you use an immersion chiller and you have a top-loading washer, you can run the chiller's exiting water into washer and do your laundry with it.

Good idea. Even better, run it back into your system for cleaning/flushing.

I'd think that a brass fitting would be fine, most of us use them in our mash tuns. Just pickle it first to remove surface lead, and if you're still worried dump out the water that was standing in the fitting.

Like others mentioned, this will be much higher pressure since it's not coming from a faucet. So be careful.

Chugmaster said:

Is this really an issue to be worrying about or should I be spending my time on brewing?

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OMG RDDWHAHB...chances are your kitchen faucet is brass...did ya pickle that, spend some time brewing IMHO!

Yup, that's just what I did. Works great. Love starting the strike water at 120 instead of 60.

One thing I did was screw an end-cap plug onto the Y-valve between brew-days. Just in case that ball valve ever leaked, the end-cap would stop it from flooding my laundry-room. It never leaked, but better safe than sorry.

I have that exact Y-valve near my washing machine. The one side comes off to feed my Reverse Osmosis De-ionizing filter unit, which is used for salt water tank. I tapped in off the second part (sediment and carbon) of the 4 part filter to feed my brew water. I remove the filter when done getting my water and use this same valve to provide cooling water to my immersion coil. I drain the water from my cooling to do a load of laundry while I finish up my brewing.

I like the idea of tapping off the hot water to fill my kettle to speed up brewing but don't think the first two elements of my filter would be happy with the heat.

I'm building a water manifold today to use tomorrow, but I'm running a straight line out to my brewing location where the manifold will be and that will allow me to control the water supply from out there instead of at the washing machine tap.

I can't use the hot water side because I'm also using the supply for my plate chiller.

Haven't decided yet if I'm going to get crazy and add a filter, we'll see what I find at Lowe's.

Let me see If this will work from my phone, here is a picture of the fitting I built yesterday. I decided against doing a manifold, it's so easy to move around hoses I couldn't justify building a whole distro system.



This is a male hose fitting to 1/2 pipe fitting screwed onto a boiler valve. Just two parts. This allows me to have a shut off at the end of the hose so I can just leave the feed on inside the house.



Saved a ton of time and made things a lot easier while brewing.