Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi All,

Another beginners question. Is there any negative aspects if I build a carbon filter out of copper rather than stainless steel ?

Thanks all.

Matt

Its not great for it...

Low ph drinks can release copper oxides
https://www.mnn.com/family/protection-s ... hol-copper

Ethanol is commonly used for removing tarnish off copper too (as recomended in the build threads)- so if the copper in the proposed filter wasnt shiney clean (citric acid bath?) any tarnish in there will wash off and leech into your product, no doubt with an accompanying taste

Dig deeply into the build threads and you will see more than once the concept of copper for the vapour path and stainless for the liquid alc

I knew something was bugging me about the copper fire extinguisher for storage recently in another thread....

Thanks mate!

RC Al wrote:Its not great for it...

Low ph drinks can release copper oxides
https://www.mnn.com/family/protection-s ... hol-copper

Ethanol is commonly used for removing tarnish off copper too (as recomended in the build threads)- so if the copper in the proposed filter wasnt shiney clean (citric acid bath?) any tarnish in there will wash off and leech into your product, no doubt with an accompanying taste

Dig deeply into the build threads and you will see more than once the concept of copper for the vapour path and stainless for the liquid alc

I knew something was bugging me about the copper fire extinguisher for storage recently in another thread....

Thanks, good info there,

Ethanol is used to remove oils and sundries from the still. The vinegar run is used to remove oxides.
Copper oxides (tarnish) is fairly stable in alcohol under normal conditions.

I'll edit that ethanol (the usual stuff you're filtering at less than 50%) is close enough to neutral that it might as well be. It should have no effect on copper and its oxides unless its mixed with something else.
However, personally, I would reccomend stainless if you can as that's a lot less reactive.