Question! I noticed today that my hot tap water is exactly 155 degrees. This seems pretty darned perfect for cutting ~30min off my brew day in the heating to mash-in step. Here's the question: is there any reason I should not do this? I'm using tap water with minimal salts (recipe dependent) and a quarter campden tablet to remove free chlorine/chloramine.
Do I need to use cold water or can I go straight to hot tap?
- Thread starter aangel
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This mostly depends on your plumbing and water heater. Tank-style water heaters typically advise to not use their hot water for cooking or drinking. Tankless styles typically do not have this advisory. If you have copper plumbing that may have lead based solder joints, I believe there is also a concern that the hot water can draw more lead out of those joints that will end up in your water.
aangel
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Electric 40gal tank with whole-house PEX plumbing. I think I might be good?
Update: nevermind. Just did some googling and apparently PEX is no panacea, and while it won't leach metals like lead or copper plumbing it WILL leach petrochemicals into the water, depending on the PEX brand. Woo. Cold water and longer brew days it is.
Update: nevermind. Just did some googling and apparently PEX is no panacea, and while it won't leach metals like lead or copper plumbing it WILL leach petrochemicals into the water, depending on the PEX brand. Woo. Cold water and longer brew days it is.
Yeah, tank water heaters are generally not considered good for that either. If you've ever flushed your tank out and looked at the water, you would probably decide that you don't want to brew with that water. Using the cold tap is probably the right move.
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