Copper poisoning

[googe]

Hey all, a work mate has been stilling for over 5 years and i was talking to him about building a pot still tonight and he recons copper is poisonous when heated?.

[Prairiepiss]

Why does he recon that? Kinda funny that most commercial stills are copper. The small amounts you get in your drink can be considered beneficial. There is a daily requirement for copper. It's not much. But neither is the amount in your drink.

Not to mention it is beneficial in the distillation process. By removing sulfates and such.

You can get copper poisoning. But it is from ingestion to much copper. A lot more then what you would ever get in your drink. Most of the time it comes from working with the metal building. By grinding and breathing in the copper dust.

When heated copper doesn't put of fumes like galvanized metals. So I'm not sire where his misinformation is coming from?

[astronomical]

perhaps hes confusing heating flux when joining copper... that aint the best stuff to be huffing

[LWTCS]

Sounds like he trickin himself so he don't have to buy that spendy copper....thats what I do.

[myles]

Hey all, a work mate has been stilling for over 5 years and i was talking to him about building a pot still tonight and he recons copper is poisonous when heated?.

Not sure about poisonous but it sure is bad for your health when you pick it up and it is still hot.

[Prairiepiss]

Hey all, a work mate has been stilling for over 5 years and i was talking to him about building a pot still tonight and he recons copper is poisonous when heated?.

Not sure about poisonous but it sure is bad for your health when you pick it up and it is still hot.

Sounds like you have first hand knowledge of it Myles?

[myles]

Yes, once or twice

[googe]

Thanks fella's, Prairiepiss he said something about it releasing chemicals when heated, i ll ask again tonight. I would have thought he was wrong as you say alot of commercial stuff is copper. I just thought he might know what he's talking about cause he does pipe fitting for a living. Haha @ myles.

[LWTCS]

Copper is a miracle metal....It has an antibacterial like quality so to speak...Ya ever get any fungus on yer shrubs? Copper is the treatment,,,and does not kill the plant....Any baddies that may be associated with copper do not come over in the distilling process. I recall reading that once the patina is formed..............

[Prairiepiss]

Thanks fella's, Prairiepiss he said something about it releasing chemicals when heated, i ll ask again tonight. I would have thought he was wrong as you say alot of commercial stuff is copper. I just thought he might know what he's talking about cause he does pipe fitting for a living. Haha @ myles.

Sounds like he is thinking about sweating a fitting with flux. But the flux is what puts off the bad stuff not the copper.

[googe]

Yeah he wasnt talking about the flux process. Goes to show we can all learn something even if you've been brewing a while. Cheers For the info .

[Oxbo Rene]

Once upon a time I had to make a beach rental shop (out of an empty room outside of a hotel by the pool).
Anyway, I got loads of bamboo (big stuff from a stand of it out in the woods (dead stuff).
Split it all up and attached it to the walls/ceiling, etc.. Looked good, however ------->
Little ole bugs were everywhere, coming out of it.
A fellow told me there was only one solution to my problem.
Take it all down and buy some "copper sulfate", then paint it on the insides (stuff's green
and like water = went on, soaked in beautifully = end of bug problem.
Here's Wiki link to the stuff -->
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper%28II%29_sulfate" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
Thought it might remotely can be connected to the poison subject, etc.......

[heartcut]

In the 60s you could buy copper arsenate (!) paint for preserving buried or ground exposed wood. Worked great, probably the least environmentally friendly thing I've ever done but I didn't question it till much later.

[cob]

Thanks fella's, Prairiepiss he said something about it releasing chemicals when heated, i ll ask again tonight. I would have thought he was wrong as you say alot of commercial stuff is copper. I just thought he might know what he's talking about cause he does pipe fitting for a living. Haha @ myles.

the only chemical in copper is copper, unless it is an alloy or contaminated.

You can get copper poisoning. But it is from ingestion to much copper. A lot more then what you would ever get in your drink. Most of the time it comes from working with the metal building. By grinding and breathing in the copper dust.

i was copper poisoned sanding copper years ago. i was to hard headed to cut my beard to fit the resperator, i still have the beard.
the symtoms of the poisoning to the degree that i got it was that ths sides of my tongue in back tasted like copper for 4-5 weeks.
the doctor that diagnosed copper poisoning said there was no medical treatment required.
subsuquent blood tests a year later showed no abnormal amounts of copper.

[AndyC]

Hey all, a work mate has been stilling for over 5 years and i was talking to him about building a pot still tonight and he recons copper is poisonous when heated?.

Not sure about poisonous but it sure is bad for your health when you pick it up and it is still hot.

Sounds like you have first hand knowledge of it Myles?

Or touch a vise or bench where a cutting operation was going on 10 minutes prior unbeknownst to yourself......writing HOT on the vise in chalk doesn't always work.

[Bro-sephus]

Myles, what your friend is talking about relates to cooking food with copper, which can cause too much copper to be leached into food cooked in copper cookware. The traditional method of preventing this was to tin the copper using a resin based flux and pure tin. The tin is foodsafe and is easily bonded to the surface of copper pans and pots. In fact it was common during the century before last to have tinners come to town a couple times a year to re-tin everyone's cookware. As it relates to distilling, this is not an issue. In fact, you would not want to use tinned copper in a still as the tin would be easily corroded and leach into the distilate!

If you're interested in tinning copper, this is an intersting thread from another site http://www.finishing.com/255/53.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Cheers,
Brosephus