Using copper fitting safe?

blazingsun81 · Aug 30, 2015

I was always told not to use copper fittings when making a mash tun, however when I look up how to make a manifold for my mash tun it is all done in copper, unfortunately I can not find c-pvc fittings where I live .

dmcman73 · Aug 30, 2015

The only place that is not good to use copper is in fermentation, otherwise copper is safe in the MT. If you solder it together (most don't) make sure you use silver solder.

mabrungard · Aug 30, 2015

Depending upon your water source, you may actually need some copper tubing in your system to infuse that element into your wort. There are some breweries that are all stainless steel with no copper anywhere in the system and they can suffer from sulfur compounds in the beer. The copper complexes with the sulfides and drops them out of your beer.

davidgaines · Aug 31, 2015

mabrungard said:
Depending upon your water source, you may actually need some copper tubing in your system to infuse that element into your wort. There are some breweries that are all stainless steel with no copper anywhere in the system and they can suffer from sulfur compounds in the beer. The copper complexes with the sulfides and drops them out of your beer.

Looking at your water report, what would you be looking for to think that copper would be a good idea to have? I was thinking about putting together a copper manifold myself for my new MLT.

mabrungard · Aug 31, 2015

davidgaines said:
Looking at your water report, what would you be looking for to think that copper would be a good idea to have? I was thinking about putting together a copper manifold myself for my new MLT.

Copper has to be at very low levels in drinking water, so I'm not sure that you could get much out of reading the report. The brewers that really need to worry are those using RO or distilled water. The copper content is almost certainly very low. If your house has copper piping, then its possible that the tap water has enough copper. My house is newer and has PEX tubing, so there is little opportunity to pick up copper excepting in my brewing system.

By the way, yeast consume virtually all copper in typical wort, so you don't end up with copper in beer.