Owly055
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- Feb 28, 2014
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I'm trying to get a friend started in brewing using equipment he has on hand. Last week we brewed using minimal equipment at his house. We crushed grains from my inventory... 6 pounds total, of which 5 were two row and 1 munich 10, for a three gallon brew. IBUs at 33, we used Magnum for bittering, an ounce of Tet at 10 min, and half an ounce of Amarillo in whirlpool, for what should be a fairly tame decent beer.
The idea was to use hops I had in inventory without opening new packages.
The process was single vessel BIAB using a stock pot he had which had a spigot on it...... I thought the pot was stainless for some reason. We used the same pot we had mashed and boiled in to ferment, taping the lid on with electrical tape, and using a starsan soaked paper towel over the vent hole in lieu of a bubbler.
Unfortunately, it did not occur to me until about 4 days later that the pot was probably actually aluminum. I had him do the "scratch test", and sure enough. I treated an empty grain bucket (Home Depot bucket) with starsan, and we transferred the brew to it.
Aluminum is clearly not toxic, but it does corrode over time, and due to the acidity of brewing beer, I'm sure it is present in some quantity in the brew. The PH of beer being brewed is not low enough to be a serious corrosion issue in the short term, and of course there is no visible degradation.
I'm not terribly concerned about this, but I would like to hear well considered opinions based on personal experience and that of others........ Not "chicken little" stuff, real valid and supported views please.
H.W.
The idea was to use hops I had in inventory without opening new packages.
The process was single vessel BIAB using a stock pot he had which had a spigot on it...... I thought the pot was stainless for some reason. We used the same pot we had mashed and boiled in to ferment, taping the lid on with electrical tape, and using a starsan soaked paper towel over the vent hole in lieu of a bubbler.
Unfortunately, it did not occur to me until about 4 days later that the pot was probably actually aluminum. I had him do the "scratch test", and sure enough. I treated an empty grain bucket (Home Depot bucket) with starsan, and we transferred the brew to it.
Aluminum is clearly not toxic, but it does corrode over time, and due to the acidity of brewing beer, I'm sure it is present in some quantity in the brew. The PH of beer being brewed is not low enough to be a serious corrosion issue in the short term, and of course there is no visible degradation.
I'm not terribly concerned about this, but I would like to hear well considered opinions based on personal experience and that of others........ Not "chicken little" stuff, real valid and supported views please.
H.W.
