PVC Tubing: High-temp Necessary?

I'm new to home brewing and in the process of building a mash tun. I've read that some people have used a high-temperature PVC tubing for draining the mort. Is this necessary? Most tubing says it can withstand 175 degree temperatures so I assume just normal PVC tubing will be fine. Curious if anyone has any feedback of bad experiences. Thanks!

~Brian

Maximum temp for PVC is something like 140 (need citation) CPVC is much higher..

I used CPVC... It seems to work great..

Use CPVC.


_

I found this PVC tubing that says it'll work for temperatures up to 175 degrees.

3/8 in. x 10 ft. PVC Tubing-SVIG20 at The Home Depot

What do you mean by CPVC? I've found some PVC tubing that says it can be used up to 175 degree.

rancineb said:

What do you mean by CPVC? I've found some PVC tubing that says it can be used up to 175 degree.

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Chlorinated polyvinyl chloride (CPVC) is a thermoplastic produced by chlorination of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) resin. Uses include hot and cold water pipe, and industrial liquid handling.

That 170 rated PVC may work but if you accidentally Sparge with water that is 175 it could affect the flavor.. According to wikipedia CPVC is rated to 200

rancineb said:

What do you mean by CPVC? I've found some PVC tubing that says it can be used up to 175 degree.

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Are you talking about the flexible clear vinyl tubing for transferring from one container to another or the opaque white/off-white PVC pipe for a manifold?

If the former, I'm not sure how well the clear flexible tubing would work under high temps. It will probably stiffen up after a few uses though.

If the latter, CPVC pipe is safe to use with hot water compared to PVC pipe. CPVC is definitely worth the slight premium to avoid potential chemical leaching and softening.

I'm talking about the clear vinyl tubing that I will use to transfer the mort from my mash tun to my pot. Are you saying that you use the stiff CPVC tubing for your mash tun instead of the flexible clear vinyl tubing?

BTW, it's wort, not mort.

For draining the wort into the kettle, I use a flexible vinyl hose that is rated somewhere in the 175-180 degree range.

Shooter said:

BTW, it's wort, not mort.

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Opps... I knew that. That's what I get for multi-tasking at work.

rancineb said:

I'm talking about the clear vinyl tubing that I will use to transfer the mort from my mash tun to my pot. Are you saying that you use the stiff CPVC tubing for your mash tun instead of the flexible clear vinyl tubing?

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I think the CPVC bit was brought up as a valid replacement for rigid PVC pipe, not tubing. (e.g. building a lautering manifold) I'm sure you could do a CPVC hard line between containers instead of tubing, but it wouldn't be as adaptable to rearranging.

Shooter said:

For draining the wort into the kettle, I use a flexible vinyl hose that is rated somewhere in the 175-180 degree range.

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Has the tubing discolored or lost any of its flexibility over time? I've used clear vinyl tubing as temporary gas line on motorcycles when testing, it yellows and hardens. I was told heat can harden it in similar ways but I've never tried using it to move hot liquids.

I just did a quick search and all the results I found listed 175°F as the maximum operating temperature of clear vinyl tubing. I wouldn't want to maintain temperatures at or near that for any length of time.

I think I'll be fine with the vinyl tubing I found. It's similar to the same stuff I've found in numerous DIY plans for a mash tun. If it wears over time, I'll replace it with something different. Thanks for your thoughts.

If you must use the cheap vinyl tubing, at least get the braid reinforced variety so it doesn't collapse under vacuum. However, cut yourself a 2" piece and steep it in a mug of 170F water for a few minutes, let the water cool and drink it. If it doesn't taste like rubber ass, then you're good to go.

Tubing hasn't really disolored significantly. It's food grade vinyl tubing good to 175 degrees. Let me be clear though, this is the hose I use to run the wort out of the tun into the kettle via gravity during the sparge. I would not use it in any type of pump situation. I use a 220F rated drinking water drill pump to move mash and sparge water only, not wort, and use silicon and/or thermoplastic tubing for that.