Copper mesh cleaning

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rezaxis
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Copper mesh cleaning

Post by rezaxis »

I got a new roll of copper mesh. I left it rolled up and completely submerged it in a solution of white vinegar and kosher salt, all contained in a SS pot. Heated it to just boiling. It brightened right up! Turned off the heat, put a lid on it and left it over night.

Took it out in the morning and rinsed it well in tap water. Now here's the problem. A seemingly endess amount of orange red rusty like stuff coming out in the rinse water. The mesh discolers immediatly after I take it from the water.

Well, that's what I've been doing. What SHOULD I be doing? Maybe I'm worrying about nothing? The roll is out in the garage turning brown and drying out right now...

Rez
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pothead
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Post by pothead »

Sounds like what happened to me....you probably bought junk. CHeck it with a magnet...it is probably just copper plated, and not safe for distilling.
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maze48
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Re: Copper mesh cleaning

Post by maze48 »

rezaxis wrote:
I got a new roll of copper mesh.
Where did you buy the mesh at?
rezaxis
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Post by rezaxis »

http://www.ppe.com/pdf06/0187-0188.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

This is the place. I found the link to this place somewhere in this forum, or the parent sight. I don't remember...

I checked it with a magnet and it is absolutly NOT magnetic. Maybe it's just that a combination of straight vinegar, a lot of salt and heat made a very agressive solvent.

Maybe the chemistry guys can comment...

rez
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rezaxis
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Post by rezaxis »

Mybe a more dilute solution of this would make a decent first run liquid for still clean out?
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copperhead
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Post by copperhead »

Try just a straight vingar soak i have never used salt for cleaning my mesh. this mite be the brown water. sometimes mine turn a littel green but never brown.but this is after i have made run.sense yours is new it could be oils and nasties in the makeing of the mesh but the vingar should clean that. unless your mesh isn't pure copper.
pothead
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Post by pothead »

I boil mine in water for about 10 miutes or so(once it is a hard boil)
then I soak it in vinegar just over night.
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muckanic
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Post by muckanic »

All the vinegar is going to do is take off the tarnish, which will promptly be replaced by exposure to moist air. If you are concerned about removing oils, then use some hooch. In fact, the first run will do that anyway. The main question to be addressed is whether the mesh contains anything sufficiently volatile to get into the distillate, and the answer is probably no. Cleaning might become more of an issue if you're planning to use that first run for backset.
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Post by Rocky_Creek »

Unless you have the wash boil up into the packing there is no need to clean the copper. Copper oxide works the same as copper. The commercials don't clean their stills under most circumstances. I get gloriously clean runs out of unwashed columns.
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rangaz
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Post by rangaz »

as it doesnt mention the composition of the mesh on the pdf, I'd say it's alloyed with something. As it produces a brown preciptate, I would say theres some iron in it which is reacting with vinegar at high temperature and then preciptating out as Fe(CH3COO)3, could also form Fe(CH3COO)2 which would be a light blue or green. cant find a solubility chart so I'm just guessing here. the salt probably enhanced the reaction as well.
rezaxis
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Post by rezaxis »

Hmmm. Thanks for the input. Can't say as I know what to make of it though.

The web site I bought it from says "Pure copper... won’t rust or contaminate." I can't make it even try to be attracted to a magnet. Is there a real and inexpensive "kitchen sink" sort of way to test it?

After the night long soak in the vinegar, salt mixture the liquid was clear + dirt. It turned a clear light blue when I heated it up, and it remains blue to this day. The rinse water was just orangish reddish brown. I threw some salt in there after I removed the mesh and this liquid turned cloudy white then as time went on it turned a cloudy blue color. Left it for a day and when I dumped it out and let the pot dry there was a thin layer of salmon colored dust in the bottom of the pot. All these colors! All this chemistry! I ain't smart enough to unnerstand it! But man, it's groovy...

I think I was just aggressively dissolving my 100% copper mesh when I was soaking it in the hot vinegar/salt mixture. I think the salt is the source of all mystery here. Sure would like some Brainiac (respectfully submitted) to clue me on what happened.

I guess I'll just run it an see what comes out...
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muckanic
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Post by muckanic »

="rezaxis"]. I think I was just aggressively dissolving my 100% copper mesh when I was soaking it in the hot vinegar/salt mixture. I think the salt is the source of all mystery here.
Your use of the salt is certainly a mystery to me. :) A quick rundown on corrosion chemistry. Most metals are corroded (oxidised) by exposure to atmospheric oxygen. Salty water speeds the process up, but doesn't actually react with the metal. The exception here are noble metals, of which copper is one (the others being silver, gold, palladium, platinum - all the precious stuff). The fact that these metals aren't corroded by oxygen doesn't mean they can't be corroded by other substances. Copper, for instance, reacts with atmospheric carbon dioxide and water to form a copper carbonate tarnish. A strong enough acid will firstly take off the tarnish and then will corrode the metal itself.

You probably formed some copper acetate with the hot vinegar, then the addition of salt would have formed some sodium acetate and copper chloride. All of these salts probably have different colours (I don't know for sure, I'm too slack to look it up). If your mesh passed the magnet test then it probably wasn't iron-plated, but I guess there is a possibility it may have contained some other metal or alloy.
Last edited by muckanic on Tue Sep 26, 2006 11:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
azeo
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Post by azeo »

hope this is of any help! hmm, ok, new copper mesh shouldn't be needing much of a de-tarnish clean, but it might need a bit of decontamintaion and de-odorising possibly depending how or what it was manufactured for. Stainless scrubbers especially seem to sometimes have an "engineering" smell that can be hard to get rid of. (but there are ways...!)

A few tips I can think of... avoid salt, not needed. If the copper is sitting in an SS pot with hot acid/water solution, there must be already plenty of galvanic corrosion going on, plus as mentioned the salt can form other unwanted compounds.

- another major, once the acid has removed the tarnish all you're doing is then corroding an already thin copper mesh and shortening it's life unneccesarily. Once it's clean, remove, rinse and preferably use straight away as tarnish forms quickly, and there seems no point storing it away just to repeat the process before use.

The brown rusty looking stuff from my experience is just the tarnish and corroded copper that has come off...

Hot wash makes an especially good cleaner and deodoriser, it's already acid and primes the material with a 'desirable' aroma! Followed by a light or heavy rinse depending on the part, or the amount of loose tarnish that might still be clinging....

Interesting to hear that commercial stills don't have the tarnish cleaned, and that the tarnish can perform like clean metal! Tarnish could actually provide a protective layer, maybe we don't need to remove it unless it has become contaminated in some way, or a very clean neutral spirit is being produced .... or maybe a spring clean of the still is needed...
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muckanic
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Post by muckanic »

.="azeo" Interesting to hear that commercial stills don't have the tarnish cleaned, and that the tarnish can perform like clean metal! Tarnish could actually provide a protective layer, maybe we don't need to remove it unless it has become contaminated in some way, or a very clean neutral spirit is being produced
As I have speculated elsewhere, the tarnish is probably required in order to remove sulphides.
markx
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Post by markx »

There is no need to perform excessive agressive acid treatments on copper packings. It will just remove the oxides for a short time and corrode some of the metal (thus turning the soaking liquid blue with Cu+2 ions). In the column the copper mesh will oxydize anyway and turn quite black with cupric oxides.
The orange brown particles you observed could very well have been pieces of copper and copper oxides that have been loosened from the surface of the mesh by the acid treatment. And since the mesh passed the magnet test I think there's no need to worry too much about any contaminants.
Another thing besides the magnet that usually betrais a copper plated mesh is that the plated mesh is extremely shiny but pure copper mesh usually has a dull texture.
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Post by rangaz »

copper chlride forms a nice faint blue/green solution so some of the copper is being reacted with the acid to form ions. normally it wouldnt react with acid but the elevated temps wouldve helped. I agree that the rusty stuff was probably just run off tarnish and other contaminants on second thought.
rezaxis
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Post by rezaxis »

Thanks for all the replies. I appreciate the interest. I read somewhere that mixing salt and vinegar to gether would clean copper, sooooo that's what I did.

Interesting chemical reactions going on though. Especially the part where it came out of the vinegar/salt mixture nice and clean, then as soon as I put it in the tap water all this rusty stuff just appears from nowhere and won't stop!

It's magic!

Thanks, Rez
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Enlikil
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Post by Enlikil »

here is what i do with my copper.
I take a 800 ML mason jar, SHove my copper mess in it. Then fill it to the top with viniger, and put a lid on it. (white viniger standard stuff).
Then i shake it up and let it sit there until i wanna use it 15 mins to 15 years.
I dump the viniger out and rinse off my packing with the garden hose until i can't smell viniger then i stick it in my column and Up up UP and away!
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Post by rezaxis »

Enlikil,

That certainly seems like the way to do it. And that's the way I'll handle it from here on in. I think I cleaned the HELL out of it the way I was doing it, so I think just letting it rest in white vinegar is going to be juuust right!

Thanks to all,

Rez
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Enlikil
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Post by Enlikil »

One more thing, just make sure you get it as full to the top with viniger as you can, try to have NO air space. I had a huge air space once and it gave me some dis-coloration.
I also have used the same viniger before, but now i just put in new stuff every time since it does not take much.
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Post by muckanic »

Geez, all you are going to achieve by resting the mesh in vinegar is to eat away some of that valuable copper. Wash it in detergent if you must, but not in the dishwasher.
junkyard dawg
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Post by junkyard dawg »

yeah, storing it in vinegar is a bad idea. Take it easy on the poor copper...
rezaxis
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Post by rezaxis »

OK, OK... I give.... UNCLE!
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artooks
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Re: Copper mesh cleaning

Post by artooks »

Hi,

I also clean my copper mash with %50 white vinegar + %50 water solution for a day than I rinse and boil it, bu during the boil I see some brown spots on the surface of the bottom part of the pot also in the sides,
is that normal ? or is it too much to boil the copper mash ?
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NZChris
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Re: Copper mesh cleaning

Post by NZChris »

The stink in the mesh is from the fusel oils from late in the run. All I do is pour some boiling water through it at the end of the run.
By the time your next run is dripping, the refluxing heads and foreshots will have flushed the fusel oils in your mesh down into the boiler.

And it's mesh, not mash. :roll: Mash is for feeding chickens or fermenting, not for stuffing into a swan neck.
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