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Just saw a thread on here from master distiller saying that inner tube is no good in vapour path for a seal between keg and copper column. Was is wrong with butyl rubber anyway. This is approved from rainer distillers. As per mossrubber.com chemical resistance chart butyl rubber and ethyl alcohol have an E RATING resistance.

Rubber will break down and leach in time in contact with hitemp alcohol vapors.

diesel1975 wrote:As per mossrubber.com chemical resistance chart butyl rubber and ethyl alcohol have an E RATING resistance.

"Note: all data based on 70°F unless other wise noted"
So how do you know it is safe at boiling temp?
For ethyl acetate (foreshots) it has a G rating, at room temp. The rating will be much worse at boiling temp.

I wouldn't ever want my liquor to taste like a "hundred miles of highway". Forget rubbers of all sorts. Stick with teflon ONLY.
ss

No mate seen first hand what happens to rubber used as a boiler still, it will most definitely break down, stain and adhere to the metal and naturally contaminate your distillate as it contains compounds that will carry though the vapour. I don't know if they are particularly harmful but I can see them enhancing the flavour in any positive way

Of course the people selling it say it's safe... That's what the tobacco companies said for years...

still_stirrin wrote:I wouldn't ever want my liquor to taste like a "hundred miles of highway". Forget rubbers of all sorts. Stick with teflon ONLY.
ss

yeah, what he said. I only use ptfe gaskets and a little teflon tape.

I would not use it the rubber tube smels like diesel fuel I would use silicon instead of course food rated theflon is the best.

The use of inner tube is not subject to debate... It is not an acceptable material here in these forums, plain and simple... If that is a problem then find a forum where it is acceptable and go hang out there... This isn't the biggest and best home distillation forum by just letting members post information about whatever materials they want... Just because some other site or still manufacturer uses it doesn't make it acceptable here and it's not the only questionable practice by Ranier, but that's beyond the scope of this topic...

Ask yourself a few questions before attempting to reply before this topic ends up getting locked...

Do you know exactly what every component of that inner tube is...???
Is that inner tube food safe...???
Would you let a baby gnaw on a piece as a chew toy when teething...???
Do you know the exact MSDS of the exact piece of inner tube some other novice might decide to use...???

If you can't confidently and accurately answer every one of those questions, let it go...!!!

Mikey-moo wrote:Of course the people selling it say it's safe... That's what the tobacco companies said for years...

I used to listen to a classical hour on the radio, on night shift.
The sponsor was Phillip Morris and the slogan,"You've nothing to lose but your smoker's cough".
True!
And I have had a smoker's cough most of my life, though I gave up maybe twenty years ago.
But then I did not change to Phillip Morris.....

Geoff

as long as were on the what not to use thread silicon is not acceptable here either.

papapro wrote:I would not use it the rubber tube smels like diesel fuel I would use silicon instead of course food rated theflon is the best.

The best thing you can use to seal up joints if you are not using tri clover clamps is X-Treme Tape. Its food grade. Its stands up to the heat, it really works well. I get mine from MoCap. http://www.mocap.com/silicone-tape.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

_DrPhil_ wrote:The best thing you can use to seal up joints if you are not using tri clover clamps is X-Treme Tape. Its food grade. Its stands up to the heat, it really works well. I get mine from MoCap. http://www.mocap.com/silicone-tape.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Ah, here we go again... "Food Grade" does not equate to "Alcohol Safe"... Please post an MSDS that proves what you are implying, otherwise this remains yet another item that belongs in "What Not To Use"...

_DrPhil_ wrote:The best thing you can use to seal up joints if you are not using tri clover clamps is X-Treme Tape. Its food grade. Its stands up to the heat, it really works well. I get mine from MoCap. http://www.mocap.com/silicone-tape.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

The spec sheet on their own page rates the performance against solvents as good. Not excellent. And against hydrocarbons as only good-fair. I wouldn't use this if you paid me.

Nothing touches ptfe tape... which is cheap as chips. Why risk your health with anything else? Except maybe flour paste...

You guys make me laugh. Thiamine (vitamin b) will reduce how quickly alcohols including ethanol kill us, but I laugh at how avoiding silicone contact to ethanol is advised, while we're clearly shortening life expectancy ourselves by drinking alcohol anyway.

The relative reduction of heads and tails that most of us do will reduce the shortening of our life expectancy even if drank from plastic glasses is better than those who drink commercially produced alcohol in similar quantities out of glass. The contact with plastic is brief in both examples.

NB I am referring to contact, not storage. Storage in plastics where chemical reactions and leaching would definitely take place is definitely bad.

Mulligan your point is understood by most if not all but why not promote the safest known pactices. Some materials are likely OK in brief contact and some are not, so for this very reason only those shown to be consistently shaft and reliable are promoted. I have personally seen some plastics fail with in a minute, one discoloured on contact and began to dissolve another crazy cracked. Now I'm not saying out of the many thousands of plastics there are not one or two suitable compounds but let's be sensible. As for inner tubes you have to be taking the piss surely