is a Copper Cooling coil safe in your Fermenter?

[Mirilis]

So I am trying to find a way to cool my blichmann conical. I cant fit it in my fridge and i cant wrap it with one of those water jackets because of the legs and handles. I put together a copper version of FTSS for it using a spare corny lid for my conical. Ive seen some places say its fine and others say be careful but nothing definitive. Anyone have some input? Im only into this project like $15 so its not like Im out much if i have to do something different.

 

[Mirilis]

to be more clear.. the worry is that the low pH of fermenting wort and the time in primary typically 4 weeks will cause leaching of copper into the beer.

 

[LarMoeCur]

No it's not safe. Like Mirilis said pH of beer is to low and will leach bad things out of the copper. What size is that tubing? 3/8" OD? Stainless tubing is about 40 bucks.

 

[stz]

I wouldn't use copper on the cold side for the same reasons you are concerned. Any extra at the start of fermentation is supposed to be metabolised by yeast during the growth phase, but after that point the advice is to avoid it.

 

[dyslexda]

I would avoid that. Copper leaches from pipes below about 7.0 pH, and it's sped up by high temperatures (such as what you'd get during mashing and boiling). While I can't find anything looking at exactly how much copper would leach into the wort, and whether or not that would be above safe levels, you definitely would get some leaching. Further, copper ions participate in something called the Fenton Reaction, which basically produces Reactive Oxygen Species, that then cause lots of oxidative damage. In other words, copper ions would oxidize your beer, even if the levels were still safe to drink. The time a wort chiller is in contact (~30-60 minutes) is negligible, but these four weeks would be too excessive.

tl;dr: You might be okay (especially if you aren't using beer brewed here as your primary liquid intake) drinking a bottle or three of this, but you'll get oxidized beer at the very best, and partially toxic beer at the worst.

 

[Mirilis]

Well crap.. originally I read Palmer's thoughts that copper is inert to wort and beer as long as it has the oxidized layer on it...now I need to find a way to maintain lager temps with the thing

 

[AF1HomeBrew]

Well crap.. originally I read Palmer's thoughts that copper is inert to wort and beer as long as it has the oxidized layer on it...now I need to find a way to maintain lager temps with the thing

Look into Stainless Brewing to see if he can fabricate something for you.
http://www.stainlessbrewing.com/

 

[Mirilis]

Look into Stainless Brewing to see if he can fabricate something for you.
http://www.stainlessbrewing.com/

Thanks for the link.. it looks like he already makes someting HERE but $130 plus shipping is out of my brewing budget at the moment. Maybe for my birthday or Christmas. (spent all my cash on the conical LOL)

Im glad I am not the first person to think of using copper there is a thread here where i guy did it.. but that was almost 10 years ago... he likely died of copper poisoning

 

[AF1HomeBrew]

I've bought several things from Stainless Brewing (& NorCal). I've been pleased with the purchases. Another place you could check is Jay @ http://www.norcalbrewingsolutions.com/ . Both Stainless Brewing & NorCal will do custom and quality work. You should contact them and give them the specs of your current coil and see if they can make something in your budget (or close to it).

 

[LarMoeCur]

I normally agree with Palmer 100%. I think he is talking about short term contact. If you've ever put a penny into a glass of coke then you know that oxidation layer last about 30 minutes in a low pH environment.

You can buy same size stainless tubing for 40 bucks and bend it yourself. As long as you keep the compression fittings out of the beer you will not need to change them. or you can buy stainless compression fittings. The entire setup in stainless shouldn't be more than 50 bucks.

 

[dyqik]

You can buy same size stainless tubing for 40 bucks and bend it yourself. As long as you keep the compression fittings out of the beer you will not need to change them. or you can buy stainless compression fittings. The entire setup in stainless shouldn't be more than 50 bucks.

You could probably also buy a stainless immersion chiller and just cut the input and output tubes to fit to new compression fittings if you didn't want to bend all the tube yourself, although you might have to make a couple of wide bends yourself to connect up to the compression fittings. Stainless compression fittings would be best, but the brass ones you have shouldn't be too bad for a while as they aren't immersed in the wort/beer.

e.g. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013S1TBIO/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 might fit.

 

[sensortech]

Following this thread......Going to be ordering a 6" diameter coil from stainlessbrewing next week for my 14g Blichmann. Got my HERMS coil from them and was very happy with it.

 

[Mirilis]

I did email Blichmann customer support to see if they intend to release a cooling solution for their conicals... Maybe if enough people ask them they will look into it

 

[Mirilis]

Friend of mine at NHC asked the guys in the blichmann booth if they were going to put out an offering for cooling conicals. They said they were working on it and their prototypes used copper to which they didnt note any issues (they probably used a conical full of water is my guess). The production version of course will be stainless... and just a few minutes ago they showed this in Instagram Conical Cooling by Blichmann

notice they will have their own insulating jackets and coils.. hopefully this comes out this year ill just save for it.

 

[AF1HomeBrew]

Friend of mine at NHC asked the guys in the blichmann booth if they were going to put out an offering for cooling conicals. They said they were working on it and their prototypes used copper to which they didnt note any issues (they probably used a conical full of water is my guess). The production version of course will be stainless... and just a few minutes ago they showed this in Instagram Conical Cooling by Blichmann

notice they will have their own insulating jackets and coils.. hopefully this comes out this year ill just save for it.

Great News.Hope Blichmann can help you out!

 

[jcav]

You did a nice job making it though! To bad you can't use your fridge. I have a 14 gallon Blichmann and I found a Frigidare upright freezer that it fits right in just fine. Been working great for awhile now with no issues. Just something to think about if you are thinking about going that route.....

John

 

[Mirilis]

You did a nice job making it though! To bad you can't use your fridge. I have a 14 gallon Blichmann and I found a Frigidare upright freezer that it fits right in just fine. Been working great for awhile now with no issues. Just something to think about if you are thinking about going that route.....

John

I'm working on a glycol chiller diy project also. Hopefully I can get cool zone jackets for them an then I won't have to need a bunch of refrigerators (edit: them meaning my Speidels)

 

[augiedoggy]

I'm working on a glycol chiller diy project also. Hopefully I can get cool zone jackets for them an then I won't have to need a bunch of refrigerators (edit: them meaning my Speidels)

the legs on the side of the blichmann conicals prevent the coolzone jackets from working unless somethings changed... I have a coolzone jacketr it does work well but $25 of blue discharge hose is stronger and works more effectively... of course to have to insulate them too otherwise they are unsightly which is a dealbreaker for some.

 

[etk29321]

I wrapped a blichman 7gal on the outside using copper coil a few years back. Works great. You just have to unscrew the legs and flip them around to give you clearance

Pics of it are in this build thread: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=507618

 

[Mirilis]

Those look pretty good. I saw that blichmann is releasing a jacket and stainless coil in the next three months so ill probably start saving for that and just use a discharge hose till then. I saved a lot of cash on that conical so i should have some left to make it look nice.. and still finish my dehumidifier chiller project.

 

[Mirilis]

the legs on the side of the blichmann conicals prevent the coolzone jackets from working unless somethings changed... I have a coolzone jacketr it does work well but $25 of blue discharge hose is stronger and works more effectively... of course to have to insulate them too otherwise they are unsightly which is a dealbreaker for some.

the cool zones would be for my speidel fermenters.

 

[Mirilis]

Update: I reached out to Palmer and asked the same question. I copied his response in the image below:

 

[Yooper]

Pshaw- that guy. Like he knows anything about metallurgy.

PS- Soper and I put a large HBT sticker on his back Friday night and he wore it all night without knowing. So maybe he's not such a smart guy?!?!!?

 

[Mirilis]

Pshaw- that guy. Like he knows anything about metallurgy.

PS- Soper and I put a large HBT sticker on his back Friday night and he wore it all night without knowing. So maybe he's not such a smart guy?!?!!?

LOL

 

[jcav]

^
That is pretty funny Yooper!

John