Aluminum pot?

Production methods from starch to sugars.

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dunderhead

aluminum

Post by dunderhead »

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goose eye
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Post by goose eye »

defcon you put a copper kettle an cap - lead soldered - an a stainless still condencer an run some likker. you sayin there aint gonna be no lead in it cause it cant be carryed.
dont no nothin bout sience 101 cause i aint never had
the privlege but i seen what lead can do in life 101
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Post by defcon4 »

goose eye wrote:defcon you put a copper kettle an cap - lead soldered - an a stainless still condencer an run some likker. you sayin there aint gonna be no lead in it cause it cant be carryed.
dont no nothin bout sience 101 cause i aint never had
the privlege but i seen what lead can do in life 101
I'm not sure if I fully understand your question, but if a copper <b>pot/boiler</b> had a copper <b>lid</b> soldered onto it with lead solder and a stainless steel column was bolted onto that lid somewhere, then yes, there would be NO lead in the distillate AS LONG AS the wash did <b>not</b> foam out of the column (you would easily recognize that it had because the distillate would not be clear).

The place where lead IS NOT safe is anywhere inside or on the <b>column/lyne arm, the condenser, and any other piping past these points</b>.

You are right, lead poisoning is very fatal but distillation <b>removes the water/liquid from the lead</b> and it stays behind in the pot. Anything <b>after</b> the pot cannot have any lead in it because the distillate has been condensed back into a liquid.

Obviously, there is no advantage to using lead solder over silver solder because they cost about the same, they both work equally great, and its actually hard to find lead solder these days. I just used it as an example to illustrate my point.

Happy distilling :D
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Post by manu de hanoi »

defcon4 wrote: You are right, lead poisoning is very fatal but distillation <b>removes the water/liquid from the lead</b> and it stays behind in the pot. Anything <b>after</b> the pot cannot have any lead in it because the distillate has been condensed back into a liquid.

Happy distilling :D
Dudez, that's the theory, simplified theories. Theories, especially in chemistry, tend to be ... how can i say.... simplification of reality.


In theory, you could distill 100% alcohol at home by boiling at 78oC. But then, it doesnt happen like that, because chemistry noobs like us ignore some less taught theories.

I call the chemist to talk to us about "traces". "traces" are everywhere dude !

In theory, flushing the toilets should do it, but then ... damn traces....
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Post by goose eye »

defcon theres moren one type of cooker. im talkin a ole fashion outfit. one of thems that goes crossways then down after it comes off the kettle. im talkin bout the ones that some youngin on here mite have from there granpa or one they found in a ole barn.
if a vaper cant pick it up can it push it.


if one of yall readin an got one with lead soder or ifin it iffy. dont use it.
i dont give a dam what no book say.
they will hunt you down
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Post by defcon4 »

manu de hanoi wrote:
defcon4 wrote: You are right, lead poisoning is very fatal but distillation <b>removes the water/liquid from the lead</b> and it stays behind in the pot. Anything <b>after</b> the pot cannot have any lead in it because the distillate has been condensed back into a liquid.

Happy distilling :D
Dudez, that's the theory, simplified theories. Theories, especially in chemistry, tend to be ... how can i say.... simplification of reality.


In theory, you could distill 100% alcohol at home by boiling at 78oC. But then, it doesnt happen like that, because chemistry noobs like us ignore some less taught theories.

I call the chemist to talk to us about "traces". "traces" are everywhere dude !

In theory, flushing the toilets should do it, but then ... damn traces....
I'm sorry, but I can't seem to understand what you are saying.
Towering in gallant fame,
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standard gloriously wave,
Land of my high endeavour,
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defcon4
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Post by defcon4 »

goose eye wrote:defcon theres moren one type of cooker. im talkin a ole fashion outfit. one of thems that goes crossways then down after it comes off the kettle. im talkin bout the ones that some youngin on here mite have from there granpa or one they found in a ole barn.
if a vaper cant pick it up can it push it.


if one of yall readin an got one with lead soder or ifin it iffy. dont use it.
i dont give a dam what no book say.
they will hunt you down
Your right, if the wash were to foam over, then it would be able to carry some lead from the boiler. If it didn't foam over and there was NO lead in the LYNE ARM and anything past that point, I would gladly chug a gallon of water distilled from it with confidence that it was ok. Again, just think about how water processing plants removed lead and other metals from water before reverse osmosis, they distilled the water!

VAPOR can't push it, only FOAMOVERS could push it.

But like I said before, there's no advantage to using lead solder over silver solder so there's really no point in talking about this, just use silver solder. I just used this example to illustrate my point that metals like aluminum would stay behind in the boiler. And if anyone is using an old still that they found, they should wise up and build a new one... or maybe that's just part of natural selection :lol: , no, really, build a new still if you have a questionable old one cause chances are, they would use lead solder for the lyne arm and condenser.
Towering in gallant fame,
Scotland my mountain hame,
High may your proud
standard gloriously wave,
Land of my high endeavour,
Land of the shining rivers,
Land of my heart for ever,
Scotland the brave!
dunderhead

aluminum

Post by dunderhead »

Do a surch on copper---out side HOME DISILLER
hydrogen-sulfide+ copper=copper salfate
herbicide fungicide pesticide

yummm
The best metle maganese ???
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Post by goose eye »

defcon dont no nuthin bout city water you talkin well water i can follow you.sounds like you no what you talkin about but i aint
never gonna agree with you on this. rekon that putin me
with the world flat folks but so be it.


dunderhead some folks take rat poison everyday
so im tole
dunderhead

alumium

Post by dunderhead »

I'm not saying coppper sulfate would be inyour
houch it would be left in boiler ?if you keep
useing becsets you could kill yeast
if you could run no copper -use backset-2run
use copper -discard backset?


if any buddy ask i'm making beer
i condens it so itfits in bottle
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Post by BW Redneck »

goose eye wrote:dunderhead some folks take rat poison everyday
so im tole
Yup, they sure do:
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warfarin[/url] wrote: Warfarin was originally developed as a rat poison; however, more modern poisons are much more potent and toxic (e.g., brodifacoum). Warfarin and contemporary rodenticides belong to the same class of drugs (coumarins) and both decrease blood coagulation by interfering with vitamin K metabolism. For this reason, drugs in this class are also referred to as vitamin K antagonists. [1]....

Warfarin is prescribed to people with an increased tendency for thrombosis or as prophylaxis in those individuals who have already formed a blood clot (thrombus) which required treatment. This can help prevent formation of future blood clots and help reduce the risk of embolism (migration of a thrombus to a spot where it blocks blood supply to a vital organ). Common clinical indications for warfarin use are atrial fibrillation, artificial heart valves, deep venous thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, antiphospholipid syndrome and occasionally after myocardial infarction.[5]
From what I gather, It's used as a blood thinner for heart disease patients.

And, as far as anyone is concerned, copper poisoning is quite hard to do with distilled spirits. You'd die of alcohol poisoning first. I've swallowed whole copper pennies when I was a kid and never went to the emergency room for it.

As for killing yeast in backset mashes, the PH would stop 'em before the copper would.
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dunderhead

aluminum

Post by dunderhead »

You can control PH but not copper

ijust make beer
i condens it so it fits in the bottle
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Post by grainhopper »

I agrre with defcon, but I wouldnt build one with lead solder.
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dunderhead

Aluminum

Post by dunderhead »

I'm not saying copper is bad in still "it takes out sulfer compounds"
I'm saying it does'nt belong in the ferment, i kept fermentation
going four along time "without backsets" years
just take out all spent gran add new grain and water,
ajust ph basicly juct reusesing yest
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Post by AfricaUnite »

A FOAF left some turbo yeast mash in his 30qt alum pot for 3 weeks and it pitted like crazy. So bad that he had to silver solder up the pits to prevent leakage.
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Post by Butch50 »

I have an old cast aluminum pressure cooker that I am using for a pot still. I have been watching for pitting and/or discoloring and neither has occured yet.

Just yesterday I cooked a large pot of very spicy (hence very acidic) chili in an aluminum pot, and never once worried about the aluminum leaching into the chili - which is a far more likely occurrence than having the aluminum morph into steam in my still.

I have several pots and pans of completely unknown metal, and a few of stainless steel and some of aluminum. I use cast iron a lot too - love to cook in cast iron because of the way it heats up and holds the heat evenly. Cast aluminum also heats and cooks evenly - I tried to cook my chili in a stainless steel pot once, and it scorched the bottom, stainless is a poor cooking material because it heats unevenly, unless it is very thick.

Never in all my days of cooking have I once worried that I was poisoning myself with metals from the cooking pots or pans or utensils. Just not something that worries me.

How many of you who are worried about aluminum stills threw away your aluminum cooking pots? If you are worried about aluminum poisoning, and that is definitely your right to worry, you are about a million times more exposed from cooking in aluminum than from distilling with it. Not to mention teflon coatings. :shock:

I have consumed an awful lot of beer out of aluminum cans, and soft drinks, and fruit juices too - way more dangerous than distilling in it don't you think? Never worried about it at all. I keep two or three aluminum drinking cups in my freezer, they are used for drinking milk. The frigid aluminum makes the milk just cold as all get out and that enhances the pleasure of drinking the milk, and never worried about it at all.

I use aluminum foil for a lot of different baking and wrapping uses, never worried about it coming in direct contact with my food. I bake bread in little aluminum loaf pans, and I bake turkey in big disposable aluminum pans.

If I was worried about aluminum as somed seem to be, I would have a real hard time eating in restaurants, not knowing how many aluminum products my food came in contact with. I would scourge my kitchen of all aluminum products, never drink out of aluminum cans, and avoid eating at my parents house. :D

Just my 2 cents worth, and no I have no vested interest in the aluminum industry, other than as an end user.
Last edited by Butch50 on Mon May 19, 2008 11:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by stoker »

very spicy (hence very acidic)
is it?

I'm not pro or contra aluminium. But I've always doubted how much salt (anorganic) is brought over from boiler to distillate.
-I have too much blood in my alcohol system-
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Post by Butch50 »

stoker wrote:
very spicy (hence very acidic)
is it?
After doing a google search on the ph of peppers, it appears to be slightly acidic, averaging around a 5 or so. Add in onions in the 5 range and tomotaoes in the 4 range, and I believe you have an acidic food.

Here are a couple of related items I found whild doing the search:

There is no easy or inexpensive way to remove aluminum from tap water in the home. Steam distillation and a process called reverse osmosis are effective, but both processes require the purchase of expensive equipment and frequent maintenance.

Abstract
Aluminum is a nonessential metal to which humans are frequently exposed. Aluminum in the food supply comes from natural sources, water used in food preparation, food ingredients, and utensils used during food preparations. The amount of aluminum in the diet is small, compared with the amount of aluminum in antacids and some buffered analgesics. The healthy human body has effective barriers (skin, lungs, gastrointestinal tract) to reduce the systemic absorption of aluminum ingested from water, foods, drugs, and air. The small amount of aluminum (<1%) that is systemically absorbed is excreted principally in the urine and, to a lesser extent, in the feces. No reports of dietary aluminum toxicity to healthy individuals exist in the literature. Aluminum can be neurotoxic, when injected directly into the brains of animals and when accidentally introduced into human brains (by dialysis or shrapnel). A study from Canada reports cognitive and other neurological deficits among groups of workers occupationally exposed to dust containing high levels of aluminum. While the precise pathogenic role of aluminum in Alzheimer's disease (AD) remains to be defined, present data do not support a causative role for aluminum in AD. High intake of aluminum from antacid for gastrointestinal ailments has not been reported to cause any adverse effects and has not been correlated with neurotoxicity or AD. Foods and food ingredients are generally the major dietary sources of aluminum in the United States. Cooking in aluminum utensils often results in statistically significant, but relatively small, increases in aluminum content of food. Common aluminum-containing food ingredients are used mainly as preservatives, coloring agents, leavening agents, anticaking agents, etc. Safety evaluation and approval of these ingredients by the Food and Drug Administration indicate that these aluminum-containing compounds are safe for use in foods.
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Post by defcon4 »

You are correct Butch.
Towering in gallant fame,
Scotland my mountain hame,
High may your proud
standard gloriously wave,
Land of my high endeavour,
Land of the shining rivers,
Land of my heart for ever,
Scotland the brave!
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Post by grainhopper »

stoker wrote:
very spicy (hence very acidic)
is it?

I'm not pro or contra aluminium. But I've always doubted how much salt (anorganic) is brought over from boiler to distillate.
I have distilled seawater and the water had no salt in it. Cant use cooling water with salt.
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Post by defcon4 »

grainhopper wrote:
stoker wrote:
very spicy (hence very acidic)
is it?

I'm not pro or contra aluminium. But I've always doubted how much salt (anorganic) is brought over from boiler to distillate.
I have distilled seawater and the water had no salt in it. Cant use cooling water with salt.
This is true, desalination plants use r/o or distilling to remove salts from water/liquid
Towering in gallant fame,
Scotland my mountain hame,
High may your proud
standard gloriously wave,
Land of my high endeavour,
Land of the shining rivers,
Land of my heart for ever,
Scotland the brave!
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Post by nutmg1 »

Are all beer kegs SS?
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Post by Dnderhead »

I think all the new ones are haven't seen a aluminum in years
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In addition

Post by nutmg1 »

From the parent site.

Galvanised Metals
Tarvus explains ...
Galvanised materials are not safe to use on the condenser side, but if it's part of the boiler or at the bottom end of the column, it should be fine (provided you don't boil so vigorously that your wash bubbles up through your column and into your collecting container. Toxic salts from metals can be dissolved in liquid, but remain behind when the liquid is vaporized (as in a reflux column).

For example, you could toss a handful of lead fishing sinkers into your boiler which could well leach toxic levels of lead into the wash. But once the vapor runs through the column, it's free of the lead salts and safe. If you used lead based solder (or galvanized parts) in your CONDENSER, that would be a different story. The hot liquid condensate could leach lead salts from soldered joints or zinc from the galvanized parts and you would wind up with contaminated product.

Not that Defcon4's point wasn't already made. I was trying to figure out if I could use a galanized floor flange to join my column to a SS bowl and came across this.
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Post by theholymackerel »

Don't use anythin' galvanised.

If yer sill spits or foams over you'll contaminate yer distillate.

Usin' galvanised parts in a still is about a safe as usin' lead parts... please don't do it, or suggest to others that they do it.
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Re: Aluminum pot?

Post by amir42 »

Any thing that has a higher density than water (1 gram/cubic centimeter) will stay in the mash and not end up in the column. As for aluminum boilers, Aluminum Hydroxide (density of 3.95 gram/cu centimeter) will never leave the boiler.
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Re: Aluminum pot?

Post by Tater »

Unless it run to hard and pukes over .So its still bad idea to use anything that could be a problem. :thumbdown: :mrgreen:
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Re: Aluminum pot?

Post by Prairiepiss »

And also structural integrity. Pitting of the aluminum can cause failures of a boiler. Sometimes without notice. I have a thread showing my aluminum pot I used for a mash pot. Sprung a leak from pitting. Pitting I didn't even notice till I saw it leaking while boiling some wash. If this had been a still. And the leak happened above the liquid level. I would have had alcohol vapors spewing out just above my propane burner. And not in a place we would normally look for leaks at. Like joints and matting surfaces.

And I would agree with Tater. Don't use anything that you wouldn't want to find in your product. It's the safest line of thinking. No mater how you look at it.
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Re: Aluminum pot?

Post by babz70 »

hey guys im new to this forum, but as i was reading along i figured id just voice my opinion on this topic.

i personaly have been making stuff for the past five years now (i know there are vets out there who think its just a spit in the bucket) but ive been using a 15 gallon aluminum keg for the last 3 years and it has produced the best tasting shine I've ever tasted so far. and it has never pitted nor has it ever turned black the worst its ever gotten was a little grayish dullness on the inside of the keg. honestly it doesnt bother me and i never taste a difference between acid washes or just some soap and water. also i have done a wide variety of washes for those who think its what im stilling i have used from corn, barley, and malt to apples, peaches, and blueberries. (peaches are to literally die for) just my opinion

oh and for anyone out there who is looking to upgrade from their pressure cooker i highly advise to consider getting a half beer keg of your choice, take the alve out (youtube how to disassemble keg its mad easy) and then buy this adapter http://www.milehidistilling.com/2-inch- ... o-keg-kit/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow its a great piece its all i use and from then all you need is a thumper a condenser and some silver solder.

HAPPY BREWING EVERYONE!!!!!!
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Re:

Post by mah41 »

defcon4 wrote: Fri Oct 26, 2007 6:40 pm I've used an aluminum pressure cooker for a year now and have made tons of shine in it. Aluminum pressure cookers are a good bit thicker than aluminum pots.

To answer the common criticisms of aluminum:

Pitting: I have seen not pitting in my aluminum boiler whatsoever, but this is probably because its a pressure cooker, they are made a lot thicker

Leeching out stuff: acidic washes just keep the aluminum clean, the owners manual even recommends scrubbing the inside with lemon juice and baking soda to keep it clean. As far as leeching out aluminum goes, well its going to stay in the pot. Heavy metals or any metals for that matter do not carry over into the steam, they stay in the pot. If you don't believe me, google distilling water.


All that being said, stainless steal is a superior metal, it is stronger and way more resistant to wear, much harder to drill or cut.

But I have had zero problems with my aluminum boiler, zero
I know i'm asking this 16 years later and you probably don't remmeber about this post but for cleaning, how did you cleaned the copper pipes? i believe vinegar run is a bad idea, heated acid and aluminum... how can i clean my aluminum still's copper pipes? aluminum was the only option i had for buying a still
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