Brewing plastic

Discussion on brewing beer from malt extract, hops, and yeast.
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snakepie@hotmail.com

Brewing plastic

Post by snakepie@hotmail.com » Sun Apr 03, 2016 6:45 pm

Hey guys, so I'm stepping down from all grain, because I don't have the time any more, to extract brewing... This way it's a Halfway house. I have an electrim boiler but I think it's made of the wrong plastic as it always imparted phenolic flavours. I want to take the electrics off it and apply it to another food grade plastic container, 30 litre, which would be suitable. What is the right type of plastic to buy which wouldn't make my beer taste horrible and impart bad flavours!?

Thanks in advance!

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Kev888
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Re: Brewing plastic

Post by Kev888 » Mon Apr 04, 2016 1:15 pm

Unless it has been changed to something unusual, it seems very unlikely the electrim plastic would be at fault. Its much more likely to be an infection, your cleaning/rinsing process or possibly phenols arising from issues with the brewing process itself.

But if its past its best then I would suggest replacing with a polypropylene bucket (PP) such as this. Short of more exotic containers, PP is about the only common cheap type of plastic container thats suitable for boiling temperatures and still largely considered food grade if made so.

HDPE is slightly more impervious and also food grade where specified, currently I don't think there are any specific/credible health concerns about it. Unfortunately it isn't suitable for boilers as it softens hugely at 100c and I would personally never use it in the standard available forms. Some choose to however, which is why I mention it - the blue barrels are thick enough that they usually tend to get away with it, just the occasional report of sagging and splitting, and its your choice. Though some tend to curve towards the bottom, not sure how that would fit with your electrim parts.

Best of all (if the electrim parts are compatible) would be the stainless stock pots that are very popular, such as this. More expensive, but very impervious, very food save, very heat proof.
Last edited by Kev888 on Tue Apr 05, 2016 8:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Hanglow
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Re: Brewing plastic

Post by Hanglow » Mon Apr 04, 2016 11:39 pm

If it's phenolic then you probably have an infection of sort imo. I've never had that from using some plastics in my brewing process, from mash tun to boiler to fermentor to hoses/tubes. do you treat your water with campden for cholrine/chloramine?

Do you use other plastics in your brewing process? Some hoses can impart plasticky flavours for example, so you need to make sure they are food safe at whatever temperature you are using them at

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Re: Brewing plastic

Post by ciderhead » Tue Apr 05, 2016 12:26 am

You don't get phenolic tastes from plastic used in the brewing process so before you do anything drastic take a long hard look at your sanitation process.
Do you also use bleach in your process?

snakepie@hotmail.com

Re: Brewing plastic

Post by snakepie@hotmail.com » Fri Apr 08, 2016 6:52 pm

Guys- hugely useful!!! Thank you so much. I have looked at the safety signs on the plastic and it is pp so your more than right that my sanitation process is bad. I don't use camp den tablets... Stopped a while ago and that's when the issues started come to think of it. Really useful so will be extra careful next time round. Any ideas on good places to get dme by the kilo cheap. I look about and the heap eat I have found is about 7.50 plus postage. Is this the going rate? Cheers and happy Friday!

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