Copper chemical reactions?

Law_Of_Ohms

whats your pitch rate of us-05?

jbierling

Hard to say since I typically repitch but initially 2g/gal.

Law_Of_Ohms

Thats a bit underpitched to begin with but re-pitch should be ok.

Here is my guess, but what is your starting gravity and ending gravity?

punkin

Adjust final gravity down, i assume no boil so the enzymes are not denatured.

jbierling

@Law_Of_Ohms said: Thats a bit underpitched to begin with but re-pitch should be ok.

What would you pitch for US-05?

Here is my guess, but what is your starting gravity and ending gravity?

OG is in the ball park. FG is typically 1.04 or so.

Law_Of_Ohms

Manufacture says over 1.050 that it should be ~ 1g per L - so double your initital pitch rate for a healthy ferment.

punkin

You probably mean 1.004 for FG yeah?

jbierling

@punkin said: You probably mean 1.004 for FG yeah?

Ooops, yes, 1.004.

bentstick

Well to let you know jbierling I had this happen in my column yesterday,which is home built and a copper 5 Perf plate,it had affected my j-cup and the walls around the j-cup and bottom of plate above it,this was the fist time I have ran an AG thru this column in 2.5 + yrs,every run up until this one, they have all been sugar washes!

My Ag was a rye wheat,with malted rye and enzymes

jbierling

So I'm not crazy!

Electric elements?

bentstick

yes a 5500 watt Camco on a controller not a low density but my low density elements arrived to day, Did you end up with your elements having a crusty coating on them when done with the run(bake on yeast and grain particles very small) and porous looking?

bentstick

yes I use 1-5500 watt Camco on a controller When you were done running did you have a very porous film of yeast and small grain particles on your element, yes mine was black! I did ferment on the grains and let it settle but there was still fine particles that went through my 5 micron screen in the filter I pump through to fill boiler. I am done fermenting on the grain.

CothermanDistilling

I am not saying you should do this for legal reasons, as you could kill yourself and burn down the town... but I have baked the crust off the element by holding the EGK in my gloved hand while turning the element on to about half power until it smokes, then gently flows a faint red in low ambient light... let it cool, and a light brushing removes anything that did not fall off..

Lloyd

Noobies beware of the previous post, as in "don't try this at home - we are professionals".
@CothermanDistilling is a professional and lives life on the edge. ^:)^

But that really does sound like a good way to break in an element and get the factory coating off. *-:)

At the very least it will let you know when you have a bum element before you take the trouble to power a boiler with it. Once I have the boiler charged I am committed to finishing the run because I have no viable way to drain and save the boiler contents should my element(s) fail without a ton of trouble.

And it sucks for me to limp along with 2 elements when 3 are needed for maximum results.

bentstick

@CothermanDistilling said: I am not saying you should do this for legal reasons, as you could kill yourself and burn down the town... but I have baked the crust off the element by holding the EGK in my gloved hand while turning the element on to about half power until it smokes, then gently flows a faint red in low ambient light... let it cool, and a light brushing removes anything that did not fall off..

It was not baked on element as a hard shell,just very crusty,and once I drained the boiler and pulled the Element Guards the elements were easy to clean up with a old tooth brush! but Damn was it a nasty smell that stuck in the nose for awhile! Have now since replaced my elements with the Ultra low density wavy ones!

jbierling

@bentstick, I've burnt the ULWD wavy ones too, its easy to do with beer mashes. I suspect somewhere between 1500-4500w per element is the dividing line and even pump circulation doing during the heatup and boil doesn't help. I'll probably end up getting a heating jacketed boiler.

In terms of testing elements, I've immersed elements up to the hilt in a 5 gallon bucket of water to see if they work. That way you don't have to touch anything and bubbles quickly forming on the element are a dead give away that the element is functional.

I have a barley mash coming up for stripping here in the next few days. Crossing my fingers again...

bentstick

@jbierling I am going to do some All Wheat AG after my UJ is done and Use my VM/LM to run it so we shall see but going to try biab this time and see what happens with the elements and the coating that showed up on my plated column. Dont know but we shall see!

Grudaire

I run the lwd 5500 watt camcos for brewing. Never burnt anything even with 50%+ wheat brews. I recirc during heat up running the elements at 100% and then drop them down to around 80% on and 20% off during the boil as I don't have amperage control on my pid. I use a scotch brite pad to scrub them down after each brew to clean off the gunk.

brantoken

ok the drama is killing me, any end result here?

bentstick

Not yet here,have not got the mash done,waiting on getting the UJ run,so will be a bit yet!

Whitecap

I ran a double boiler today (so the elements were in a completely seperate chamber) and got the metalic film on my plates. It can't be the elements.

Mash is all corn and I added enzymes, fermented on the grain and distilled on the grain with four plate column. The bottom plate has the thickest silvery coating on most of the plate, next plate has less and next plate has even less to the top plate that appears to be clean.

jbierling

Stirrer/mixer?

Whitecap

@jbierling said: Stirrer/mixer?

Its only 26 gallons jacketed sides and bottom so its small enough where no agitation is needed.

bentstick

@jbierling Well 4 stripping runs and a spirit run with all Wheat AG,with enzymes,through my column that was configured with 3 perf plates on bottom and a 36"/.9 meter 3"/76 mm scoria packed section on top. I had let the ferments set a little bit to clear as not have so much crap in the boiler charge,no issues with elements,or any coatings on the plates,so I have no real input on this batch,will be doing a AG Bourbon the next go around,may take awhile as it takes time to go through my ferments,strips,and spirit runs as time is short,due to work. I am keeping a close eye on the plates to see if it does start to get the coating!

Lloyd

I have many, many runs under my belt but precious few all grain runs so I'm hesitant to speak on this thread as I've never seen this reaction. Is this limited to all grain mashes instead of sugar washes or my re-distilling cheap local booze?
Is this coming from the equipment somewhere or is it coming from an all grain mash? I'm not being facetious, I really want to know.

bentstick

@Lloyd I may not have as many runs under my belt as you,but do have have a few,most have been sugar and barring one NCHooch batch of bourbon yrs ago have not played around with AG until last winter,I did have a coating starting with a rye/wheat AG,but not with the all wheat so far,will be doing another Bourbon Mash different grain bill than the NCHooch bill,so I am interested in seeing where this coating is coming from myself. I did however have a coating show up with the 250 lbs of Panela I did run through it but is was not metallic I figured it was just from the"Rum" type wash which has been know to cause build ups! Maybe with us all,and the vast type of equipment,material,and recipes we use we will narrow it down sooner or later!

Lloyd

Strip run for me or store bought low wines and, as I said, never seen a plate/plating problem so I have no way to figure out how to resolve it and I've refrained from commenting about this because I've never experienced the problem... yet I am intrigued by the mystery.

I bet its a simple fix if we can isolate it and @jbierling has been asking for help for months now. Seems a bit silly we can't replicate it and offer a solution.

grim

@jbierling - ever try throwing a few copper scrubbers or some copper pipe fittings in the boiler during the run? Wondering if providing a reaction point in the wash will keep it from settling on the plates.

My money is still on the Zinc (coming from the grain - and in some cases molasses as well), being absorbed and stored by the yeast.

Mickiboi

Some of my chemical engineer mates follow this forum now. They think it's all very interesting the problems that come up here and the solutions you come up with to overcome them. You are all very ingenious they reckon. Collaboration is always the answer.

So here is their 2 cents worth. They were doing a pill production line in India and everything worked fine for about 12 months. When they use water in the pharmaceutical industry in Australia it is usually triple RO (Micropure) or triple distilled. In the case of water in India they were doing both for obvious reasons. After about 12 months they got a call that the RO membranes and the water distiller were getting a fine silvery film in them, which eventually broke down and clogged the membrane and the silvery substance was then being carried over to the water distiller. They analysed it and it turned out to be zinc. Now this problem wasn't present for 12 months and all of a sudden the water quality was shit.

It turns out that the local water plant had gradually replaced the ageing pipes and pumps with new ones. The new equipment was hot gal dipped which was not handling the local water conditions too well. The dip was about 5mm thick when the pipes were installed. After a month the coating was down to 1-2mm and in some places was completely gone. I think the Ganges has a pH of about 4.9-5.1.

@jbierling Have you checked your water quality before you ferment? Something may have happened external to your house. Do you use RO water in your wash? Have you distilled a straight load of water to see if the same thing happens?

If it was something that you were using to make your wash apart from the water, then just like no one else is having this problem with SD equipment, then anyone using your wash components would presumably be having the same problem.

To check for a current leak, disconnect the neutral and the earth from the still and the element, fill the still and turn the power on and DO NOT touch the still. Get a meter, put it on volts and check to see if you have a voltage between the boiler of the still and earth and then neutral. Do the same on amps. You should have zero volts and zero amps. If these are zero then you have ruled out a power leak and a galvanic reaction. EDIT. Disconnect all water connections etc, make sure the only thing going to the still is the single active to the element. Also put the feet of the still on some wood, rubber, plastic etc to eliminate a ground leak here during the test.

captainshooch

How about sending a sample to this guys.

Brewing and Distilling Analytical Services, LLC.

At least you can tell what thell it is and go from there.