Jump to content

maybe time to rethink copper stills


Austontatious

Recommended Posts

http://www.futurity.org/health-medicine/copper-exposure-likely-key-player-in-alzheimers/

I am not one of those alarmists about everything that we eat, but as long as we have distillers concerned about GMO corn going in their whiskey, it makes sense to at least think about copper compounds as well, at least in the downstream part. Just food for thought, this comes out of a reputable university and is published in a peer reviewed journal. If there is a demand for stainless stills, manufacturers will step up to the plate.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The study doesn't specifically say but i think the USDA recommended upper limit for Cu is 10mg/day for an adult. A European study found that commercially produced spirits contain between 1 and 5 mg Cu/kg of spirit. You'd have more problems than copper ingestion if you were drinking a kg of spirit/day. Add to that the study mentioned that its findings should be considered carefully as Cu is also an important metal in other systems in the body. And lastly, without copper, spirits would taste awful. There was a copper scare in the brewing world back in the 90's and the USDA determined there wasn't enough of a concern to regulate and I'm certain that would extend to distilling. It's an interesting article, and certainly worth watching.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Copper salts in final product is one of the reasons some of us choose to avoid the use of copper condensers and parrots. That doesn't mean you can't make good, safe spirits with copper downstream of the still head, just that it does make one more thing you would have to monitor and control.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://www.futurity....-in-alzheimers/

I am not one of those alarmists about everything that we eat, but as long as we have distillers concerned about GMO corn going in their whiskey, it makes sense to at least think about copper compounds as well, at least in the downstream part. Just food for thought, this comes out of a reputable university and is published in a peer reviewed journal. If there is a demand for stainless stills, manufacturers will step up to the plate.

I suppose I could take a line on the copper and Alzheimer's disease (ironically, I have published in PNAS and the paper was about copper biochemistry), but medical isn't my area of specialty and I've see enough of hypotheses about AD over the years to know to stay out of that mess.

However, if one is going to worry about copper in a still, the issue to consider is the ethylcarbamate (urethane) level in the product. Ethyl carbamate is really quite carcinogenic, and is going to be present in rather high levels in certain distillates made from cane and types of fruit (http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/11409971). There is certainly a strong argument for stainless heads/condensers/parrots/etc. in the final distillation. Copper catalyzes a lot of reactions, including the formation of ethyl carbamate... though ethly carbamate is effectively not volatile (in a beverage still setting), so doing a stripping run in copper (or having copper in reflux path of a rectifying run) would likely be a good thing (assuming the last condenser was not copper).

Unrelated - I am very confused when I see talk on "non-GMO corn" or "gluten free" on a bottle of spirits. I suppose I could see being opposed to GMOs in general, but DNA doesn't go over a still any better than gluten does.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Unrelated - I am very confused when I see talk on "non-GMO corn" or "gluten free" on a bottle of spirits. I suppose I could see being opposed to GMOs in general, but DNA doesn't go over a still any better than gluten does.

Yay! Thank you.

However, I think a lot of the push against GMO corn is actually push against the business practices of Monsanto, among others, rather than an objection to the corn itself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

The study doesn't specifically say but i think the USDA recommended upper limit for Cu is 10mg/day for an adult. A European study found that commercially produced spirits contain between 1 and 5 mg Cu/kg of spirit. You'd have more problems than copper ingestion if you were drinking a kg of spirit/day. Add to that the study mentioned that its findings should be considered carefully as Cu is also an important metal in other systems in the body. And lastly, without copper, spirits would taste awful. There was a copper scare in the brewing world back in the 90's and the USDA determined there wasn't enough of a concern to regulate and I'm certain that would extend to distilling. It's an interesting article, and certainly worth watching.

I have made rum and whiskey in a 100% stainless steel reflux still. And in a blind taste test all said they loved the this was 75 people. So I think it is embedded in people's what they think they need. All tho copper does help with sulfides. But never put copper on the down fall side of the still ( the condenser)

That's my two cents!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...