Water from a garden hose?

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dabassy

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Folks,

I will be brewing in my detached garage. one problem. No water. I was going to run a hose from my house hose spigot to a charcoal filter attached to my brewsystem, then into my Hot Liquor Tank.

Have any of you ever experienced a bad result from using a garden hose? I just remember as a kid on a hot summer day, drinking from the hose and it tasting like a tire.

Any suggestions for a "remote" brewery water supply?
 
Don't do it. Those hoses have all kinds of crap in them that you don't want to drink. If you want brewing water from a hose, get an RV potable water hose. They also sell RV water filters that you can hook up to them that are pretty useful for brewing purposes.
 
FWIW I brew with water from my standard, non-potable, hose and my beer turns out fine. I think the water chemistry matters more than the hose that delivers it. That is assuming your hose isn't filled with nasty swamp water muck and what-not. Any bacteria or wild yeast/mold will be boiled off.
 
FWIW I brew with water from my standard, non-potable, hose and my beer turns out fine. I think the water chemistry matters more than the hose that delivers it. That is assuming your hose isn't filled with nasty swamp water muck and what-not. Any bacteria or wild yeast/mold will be boiled off.

I think the specific hose will matter a lot. When I was a kid, the hoses we used for sprinklers tasted like hose.
 
i would think if you had a specific hose (not nessecarlity an RV hose) just for that purpose, cleaned and dried it when done, no probs.

home depot type places sell clear vinyl tubing in various sizes if "seeing" in the hose is an issue for you.

bottom line - when in doubt, test.
run some water from the ol garden hose, boil it, cool it and taste/smell using your kitchen tap water as a control.

this would satisfy me as to whether or not i would use it.

just my 2 cents. Slainte'
 
3385069954_7cca55c5f8.jpg


Take off you hoser!

Sorry, couldn't resist... :)
 
A question and a comment...

Question: What in the h**l is that post ^^^?

Comment: If you let some water run in the hose before using it, the nasty "Hose-taste" will be eliminated. At least it worked that way when I was a kid!

glenn514:mug:
 
Great tips, gang. I am installing a charcoal filter, so that will certainly help. Also, letting it run a bit and a high quality RV hose may do the trick.

Thanks!!!
 
FWIW I brew with water from my standard, non-potable, hose and my beer turns out fine. I think the water chemistry matters more than the hose that delivers it. That is assuming your hose isn't filled with nasty swamp water muck and what-not. Any bacteria or wild yeast/mold will be boiled off.

FWIW some non-potable hoses have lead and other bad stuff in the lining that will leach into the water. In fact many specifically have warnings on them not to use it for drinking water. Many gardeners won't use a "garden" hose for this reason. If you are growing vegetables and watering them with water that has traces of lead, that same lead ends up in your food.


Dangerous Lead Levels Found in Some Garden Hoses
 
Regular hoses state on the package not to drink from them. They can give you cancer. You can get real rubber hoses from an agriculteral supply that would be safe.
 
I use an RV filter attached to my regular garden hose for all of my brews. I do use a potable rated short hose from the filter to the HLT but that's only because the filter came with it. The H2O is only in the hose for a short period of time so you don't have to worry about bad tastes after a quick flush. Also, the inside of your pipes are probably dirtier than a hose since they aren't replaced very few years.
 
I had no idea about the warnings and safety issues. I never looked at the packaging on hoses. Everything gives you cancer these days, eh?
 
I use an RV filter attached to my regular garden hose for all of my brews. I do use a potable rated short hose from the filter to the HLT but that's only because the filter came with it. The H2O is only in the hose for a short period of time so you don't have to worry about bad tastes after a quick flush. Also, the inside of your pipes are probably dirtier than a hose since they aren't replaced very few years.

You have lead in your pipes?
 
I wasn't really thinking about lead when I posted. I thinking more about bacteria, scale and other deposits.

But now that you bring it up:
  • Depending on when your house was made, there very well may be lead in the solder joints of your pipes.
  • The amount of lead that could be present in a hose would have to be pretty small since it's not actually made out of lead.
  • The amount of that lead that could leach into the water in the hose is orders of magnitude smaller.
  • The amount of lead in the water flowing through said hose after the initial flush is even more orders of magnitude smaller.
Given that, you would have to consume enough home brew to make you liver jump out of your throat long before plumbism could set in.

So no, I don't worry about lead in my garden hose.
 
In my mind it's worth the extra few bucks for a hose that's labelled as safe for drinking from rather than using some nasty old garden hose. It's not like you have to buy a new hose each brew day. My fancy $30 white RV hose costs me approx. $0.50 per batch so far and shows now sign of wearing out.
 
I have made the huge mistake of using hose water while doing a big brew with our club. It was absolutely awful after primary fermentation, and I ended up dumping 45 gallons of blonde ale and brewing it all again myself, I was so ashamed of how it tasted.
 
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