MLT drain hose material?

I've seen many videos where people use regular clear vinyl hose when draining their MLT to their boil kettle... is this safe/does it affect the taste of the beer? Is there another material better suited for the high temps? Thx

I use high temp silicone tubing

I never tried vinyl but from what I gathered it may not be the best option if you are concerned about your health due to leaching of chemicals from the vinyl.

I purchased silicone tubing (3/8" ID, 5/8" OD) for around $2 a foot. While it may be expensive, you only need a few feet.

Yeah, I'd rather play it safe and go with the silicon. Where did you guys pick it up?

Most of the big home brew suppliers have it (Austin Homebrew Supply, MoreBeer, Northern Brewer). I just ordered 5-6' along with supplies for next brew. You really only need this stuff for handling the hot liquid. I use regular vinyl for bottling and siphoning the chilled wort.

But yeah, silicone for hot wort. It is temperature rated up to 500F.

Watts clear vinyl tubing says it is temperature rated for up to 175F but that is a little too close for comfort.

williamsbrewing.com has a good compromise at a good price. Or if you want the best (IMO) go to brewhardware.com

I am not affiliated with either!

VTrookie said:

[...]Watts clear vinyl tubing says it is temperature rated for up to 175F but that is a little too close for comfort.

Click to expand...

It's worse: that's the burst rating temperature, and I would expect chemical leaching occurs well below that...

Cheers!

Some people swear by vinyl tubing... I, however, prefer to only poison myself with alcohol.

I got my silicone tubing at McMaster Carr when I ordered the rest of my stuff (valves/o-rings/etc)

BassBeer said:

Yeah, I'd rather play it safe and go with the silicon. Where did you guys pick it up?

Click to expand...

http://brewhardware.com/accessories/118-silicone

Cheaper than brewhardware... HERE

And their shipping is pretty reasonable too if you order up on multiple things, say like supplies for the next brew!

VTrookie said:

Cheaper than brewhardware... HERE

And their shipping is pretty reasonable too if you order up on multiple things, say like supplies for the next brew!

Click to expand...

Cheaper than AHS... HERE



McMaster's shipping is ridiculously fast and always dirt cheap. It always comes overnight for me, even if I order at 5PM, and shipping is usually around $5 for an order of 10-15 small items.

Depends... looks like the tubing i bought, 3/8" semi clear is cheaper at AHS... $2.47 at McMaster, $1.99 at AHS.

Fair enough! Actually when I took a quick look at your link I figured they were listing it by ID, not OD. So it is in fact cheaper at AHS. I forget if I got the "soft" or "semisoft" but the "semisoft" , but it was all a good bit cheaper when I ordered it too (well over a year ago).