Stainless, copper, or Silicone

[whitehause]

So I'm building a single pump "stacked" system. Basically the mash tun stacked on top of the HLT which will gravity drain to the boil kettle, similar to the commercial systems. I'm going to have a manifold for the valves to control mash in, recirculation, sparge, and whirlpool(maybe counterflow or plate chiller) using a single pump.

I would love to do all sanitary stainless, but the cost would be pretty high(higher than I would like to go). I'm leaning in the direction of copper because I have all the equipment to cut and sweat joints and would like it to be hard plumbed. The last option would be Silicon tubing, but even though it's the easiest, I just think it looks crappy. I have camlocks, and stainless valves for all my kettles, this would just be for the manifold and circulation between the different stages.

OK.....now the question, what have people found to be positives and negatives of each. I know what I think are the pros and cons to each, I'm just looking for reasons (good and bad) that I might not have considered for the different materials.

 

[Zamial]

Stainless is the best, silicon is the 2nd best and sweated copper screams unsanitary to me. I am not saying the copper will not work but I personally would be happier with something else.

 

[whitehause]

I thought about the sanitation issue. If I keep everything that's sweated on the hot side that should be fine. I'm thinking I'll gravity feed through a counterflow chiller from a dedicated Boil kettle drain. I love the idea of all sanitary stainless, but damn, it starts adding up really quick.

 

[Doctor_M]

With copper won't you have the verdigris to deal with.....

 

[whitehause]

With copper won't you have the verdigris to deal with.....

This is the one concern I have with copper. I have to research if there is a way to prevent this. I would think running boiling water through the system when I'm done to clean it, and blowing air through to dry would help. My other thought was to use Gatorbite fittings so it could be easily disassembled and cleaned. They are rated to 250deg, so they would work.