Attention Plumbing Experts - RO and Tankless

Hey all,

I'd like to set up an RO system in my brewery, where I would pre-make all the water I'd need for a brewday, say 100 gallons, and store it in a tank.

Then on brewday, I would want to pump this RO water through my tankless hot water heater into the MashTun for dough-in and the rest into my HLT.

What I need help with is the plumbing from that storage tank through the RO so that when I open the inlet valve to fill the MT and HLT some pump in the storage tank will kick on and push the water through the Tankless HW heater.

Any ideas?

Wait... you brew 75 gallon batches?

The way I'd collect the water is to use a simple float valve in whatever your tank is. That would allow you to use any non pressurized vessel you wanted to. Of course, the downside is that you need a pump.

If you are willing to pony up for a diaphragm tank, you don't need the float valve or the pump as it will maintain pressure.

Moving up to 1.5 bbls, my tanks should be here in about two weeks. I have an RO system, but the bladder tank is small - just 3 gallons (from my house).

When plumbing in the simple tank w/float valve - I s'pose I need some sort of relay going to the pump that tells it I just opened the downstream outlet valve?

Thanks!

You could just wire a switch from your brewing location to supply the pump. Do you really plan to start fresh with 100% RO?

It's a thought - build it up fresh each time.

Whoa - bladder tanks = expensive. I'm sure the pump/regular tank would be cheaper.

I have a question, what is in the water that you are trying to remove with a RO system, the life of the RO membranes is rather short with high flow rates. Would a water softening system regenerated wih KCL get the job done, high flow rate with long life span, no pressure tank needed. With the RO water you are going to need replacement salts to bring water profile up to style requirements, these could be injected into the feed to the storage tank(s) with a metering pump and 5 gallon batch tank for the replacement salts. If you have the space a non pressurized Poly tank with float fill control would be the cheapest, coupled to a pressure boost pump with a 5-10 gallon bladder tank that is localy pressure controlled.