Copper In Beer?

[Barge]

I figure there is probably minimal risk, but i'm wondering about leaching copper during the mashing stage. I'm thinking of rolling up some copper mesh as a screen, which will create a greater surface area than a copper manifold.

Anyone think this will be a problem?

Cheers

 

[Tony M]

Both my HLT and boiler are copper. Lots of people use copper manifolds to filter their mash. Just remember back to any older distillery or brewery you have visited. Most have rows of enormous copper tuns gleaming in the background.
Copper is s'posed to be good for arthritis so brew up and drink up and live long.

 

[Kai]

s'posed to be good for the brew too innit?

 

[jgriffin]

Yeah copper is great for the yeasties apparently.

 

[big d]

and i reckon the final decider on using copper will be your taste buds.
should be fine to use.

cheers
big d

 

[Barge]

Thanks fellas.

I know there is a link between copper exposure and chirrosis of the liver...so if my years of drinking lead to this then i'll know it was the copper :beerbang:

 

[nonicman]

Moved my reply from another thread to this thread.

Copper with wort is an interesting topic, after a cautionary comment by Darren regarding copper on another thread, I did a bit of google and found a lot of interesting articles (didn't note them but could dig them up if need be). There seemed to be 2 schools of thought, 1 that the modern diet contains not enough copper and the other that it contains too much. I'm not armed with the training to tell fact from fiction. However the few measurements of copper in beer that were published were found to be well short of the 2mg recommended intake. Though beer is also listed as a good source of copper which would tallie with the breweries I've seen which contain copper kettles but maybe not with SS breweries that I suspect would make up the majority of beer produced.
Hopefully someone can confirm/expand/deny this, but, short term contact with copper at high temps will not leach too much copper and could be of benefit to the yeasties in fermenting your wort. However it seemed that long term cold storage of a slight acidic liquid (beer or even water with some article reporting high levels of copper in tap water due to old copper pipes) in contact with copper would leach unaccpectable levels of copper.

Edit, I have copper HLT, and copper piping in the Mash tun and in the kettle, hence the interest in copper

 

[vlbaby]

Moved my reply from another thread to this thread.

Copper with wort is an interesting topic, after a cautionary comment by Darren regarding copper on another thread, I did a bit of google and found a lot of interesting articles (didn't note them but could dig them up if need be). There seemed to be 2 schools of thought, 1 that the modern diet contains not enough copper and the other that it contains too much. I'm not armed with the training to tell fact from fiction. However the few measurements of copper in beer that were published were found to be well short of the 2mg recommended intake. Though beer is also listed as a good source of copper which would tallie with the breweries I've seen which contain copper kettles but maybe not with SS breweries that I suspect would make up the majority of beer produced.
Hopefully someone can confirm/expand/deny this, but, short term contact with copper at high temps will not leach too much copper and could be of benefit to the yeasties in fermenting your wort. However it seemed that long term cold storage of a slight acidic liquid (beer or even water with some article reporting high levels of copper in tap water due to old copper pipes) in contact with copper would leach unaccpectable levels of copper.

Edit, I have copper HLT, and copper piping in the Mash tun and in the kettle, hence the interest in copper

[post="86584"][/post]​

i have to admit that i have been concerned about the quantity of copper that leaches into my beer. Given that my copper mash tun manifold starts of dull and ends up shiny, then the copper oxide it has removed must have ended up in by beer.
Also, I like to use iodophor for sterilising my cfc which is made of copper tubing. The iodophor has a similar cleaning effect to the copper as does the mash. I have wondered if i should rinse with water after this to prevent the copper being washed away by beer.
To be honest i havent noticed any strange flavours due to the copper, but has still made me wonder how much is a bad thing.

vlbaby.