Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi all
We have lots of threads about brass on the site and lots of people saying no it contains lead and it will poison you etc. but all the threads I’ve read relate to vapour path.

So is there anything wrong with using brass plumbing fittings in wash transfer and pre filtering with abv in the range of 10% and at room temperature?

I know the simple answer is just use stainless and you will be safe but the transfer and prefiltering manifold I’ve designed uses 13 1/2” ball valves and im looking to be efficient with spending, obviously when I get up around the still itself it’s copper and stainless without question.

I guess the real question is
Does lead leach from brass with low abv at room temperature
Or just high abv and heat and vapour??

Boils down to what you are comfortable using, Personally I think if you are using .modern plumbing fittings and not some old as dirt fittings ya found in granddad's shed then for the use your proposing I would be happy to use them

Doesn't lead leach into water as well?
Which is why it is not in any plumbing solders?

I seem to recall the romans, or was it the Greeks, thinking lead pipes were a good idea.

Water isn't a solvent.

At 10% ABV there wouldn't be much to worry about. However, if you can get an easier alternative then I would take it.

Sam. wrote:Water isn't a solvent.

At 10% ABV there wouldn't be much to worry about. However, if you can get an easier alternative then I would take it.

Did you say water is not a solvent?
Water is capable of dissolving a variety of different substances, which is why it is such a good solvent. And, water is called the "universal solvent" because it dissolves more substances than any other liquid. This is important to every living thing on earth

scythe wrote:Doesn't lead leach into water as well?
Which is why it is not in any plumbing solders?

I seem to recall the romans, or was it the Greeks, thinking lead pipes were a good idea.

Yes
Yes
and yes
Try researching "plumbo solvency" to find out about water (especially hot) dissolving lead

The bloke is asking about brass fittings not in the vapour path not a lead pipe condenser, let's keep it real. Modern brass plumbing fittings have very little if any lead, they have legal standards they have to adhere to. Let's say a 40 gram brass fitting has 0.5 % lead and that is .5 of the whole weight, what % of that whole volume makes up the surface area? Pretty small eh, well OK now imagine you have done a cleaning run that has removed 90% of that . OK think we just went from ppm to ppb and that's not even in the vapour path nor ever likely to be, ever heard the term heavy as lead. If you are ultra paranoid you can pickle the brass and there are methods here outlining how to do that but the reality is there will be more lead in the water and ingredients than you are likely to get from lead free plumbing brass. BTW lead fee isn't necessarily lead free but below what is considered a safe level so very low. Some scientifically minded fella on AD did a bunch of tests to detect lead in his sight glass brass fittings made from modern plumbing brass and wasn't able to find any leaching even at ppm level. I'm not advising anyone to use anything they are not comfortable with but I will try to tell the henny pennys the shy isn't falling.

P3T3rPan wrote:

Sam. wrote:Water isn't a solvent.

At 10% ABV there wouldn't be much to worry about. However, if you can get an easier alternative then I would take it.

Did you say water is not a solvent?
Water is capable of dissolving a variety of different substances, which is why it is such a good solvent. And, water is called the "universal solvent" because it dissolves more substances than any other liquid. This is important to every living thing on earth

Fair enough if you want to take the definition of solvent being able to dissolve another substance. I don't worry about water stripping paint off my car ;-)