zinc plated brass?

I put this in another thread but got no response!!

I am building my MLT, the only ball valve that I could find in the 3/8ths size was zinc plated brass. Is this going to pose a problem? I contacted the company and they said that it shouldn't lead to off flavours. Maybe the inside of the ball valve is SS or something. Anyone know about this?

the_bird said:

Anything that is in contact with wort needs to be stainless, brass, or copper - NOT GALVANIZED. Galvanized will leech zinc into the wort - a very, very bad thing.

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I can only assume that zinc-plated brass is just as bad as galvanized steel, since galvanized steel is just coated in zinc.

morebeer sells a nickel-plated brass ball valve - part H400. as long as the nickel plating is not removed/scracthed, it should protect against lead leaching out. that's a 1/2 inch valive. don't know if they have a 3/8ths but you could check.

It depends on your set up. Zinc is a An-iode. This means that if a electrical charge is present that it with give up electrons. On Ocean going boats they use zinc rods to protect the other mettle parts. So it is posable that it could be bad. How bad? I am not sure. The other thing to consider is that zinc is not bad for you. Galvinized coatings are bad, not because of the zinc, but because of the other additives it contains so it will adhere to the iron.

Brass IS an alloy of zinc and copper...

Are you certain that the brass is zinc coated? I have worked with metals for years, and I have only heard of zinc coated brass for wire EDM work. And even then, it isn't always really brass, but copper coated with zinc that is furnaced, so that you end up with a zinc covered copper wire, with a brass intermediary.

I'm not saying it isn't what you say, I certainly don't know all of the metals out there.... I just don't see any benefit to plating a relatively non-corroding metal with a sacrificial metal, which is what zinc is used for in a plating sense.

Is it perhaps a carbon steel body, zinc coated, with brass guts?

The company told me that it is zinc plated brass, so I am taking their word for it. I really do not know what the benifit would be, but maybe I am going to go find a brass one instead since there seems to be people that seem to think that plated pieces should be avoided.

go with stainless valves if you can. lots of people use plain brass valves, but you should pickle them if you do. on the other hand, the nickel-coated brass valves from morebeer should do really well too, and you don't have to pickle them.

Well......I have now officially gone to 5 different stores. All of them had the zinc plated brass, except one and it had what they called forged brass. Maybe the same thing I may be stuck with this.

Is it possible that this is a translation issue, or does the English part of the packaging say the same? Not trying to be a pain, I have just seen this with some of the French ASTM standards.

So I finally found a brass ball-valve. The guy at the store however, said that the interior of the valve is the same thing and since this is what is coming into contact with the wort, it makes no difference? Sound right?

If it has a yellowish gold look inside and out it is brass, and you are in business. Pickle it per Palmer's instructions in How to Brew, Appendix B.