Tin and beer haze

[nostalgia]

An interesting question was brought up in our recent podcast. We were talking about soldering, and someone asked the question if the tin from the solder causes beer haze.

Even silver solder is only 4-6% silver and 94-96% tin. Silver brazing rod, while up to 56% silver, still has 5-6% tin in it.

The dip tube in my kettle is soldered together, and my chiller has a bunch of solder joints. I'm using regular lead-free plumbing solder, which I believe is also 95%ish tin. My beers are clear. I'm curious if anyone else has experienced haze in their beers that they can attribute to tin. Or just a discussion of same

A quick Google search yields a few hits on the subject. Brew Rats says:

Tin, zinc, and aluminium can also give rise to beer hazes, but in practice during homebrewing these do not arise.

Then the Handbook of Brewing by Hardwick says:

...tin must be included as a very serious thread to beer quality - particularly its clarity. The slightest trace of tin in wort or beer causes a dense and irreversible haze...As little as 0.1 gamma/g of tin produces a haze in malt liquors.

-Joe

 

[scinerd3000]

i use a cfc soldered with tin and ive never had haze problems....

 

[Gremlyn]

My IC is soldered and though I have had cloudy beer, I've also had crystal clear beer. I would think that you'd need more tin exposed to wort than the small quantities we have to cause a problem.