Lead Free?

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Bonanzer

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Well built my first mash tun and ran into a little issue. I used the steel mesh from a water heater hose as the filter and after cutting the brass ends off the hose I noticed that the label said "low lead". From what I have researched it appears that the only part of the tube that has lead is the brass fittings which I discarded. Anyone else run into this?
 
Wouldn't worry about it.

People worry about lead in there brewing equipment and water (because of a small part) but the fact of the matter is they are likely ingesting much worse when they eat gmo based food, drink their city water, and/or take lab created medication.

Seriously, you will likely get mixed reponses on this but that single above fact remains.

A small amount of lead in no different than a small amount of mercury (fish), flouride (water), or a small amount of alcohol.

It's good or bad depending on who you talk too.
 
Most brass has lead, it make it easier to machine threads and similar features. The reality is the amount of lead is so small that you could eat all the lead in most fittings at one sitting and not have any problems. Lead has a really bad name but the reality is that lead is most harmful to children, and even then it is a matter of concentration. Also yeast like lead and many metals, and will probably consume anything that make it to the fermentation vessel. The low lead label is probably the result of law makers who don't understand the technical side passing a law due to a scare (like how everything seems to cause cancer in California).
 
It's such a tiny piece, very little time exposure to your wort, and also low lead to begin with- it would be almost impossible to detect in the finished product after the yeast eat everything. If you're truly worried you can pickle the brass but i wouldn't worry about it.
 
Thanks for the feedback. I'm pretty confident that steel mesh I used is lead free. It seems the low lead on the label pertains to the brass fittings which I didn't need anyways.
 
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