Zinc plated/coated fasteners in mash

[stever1000]

I have 4 nuts on my pizza screen-false bottom in contact with 7 gallons of water and 10lbs of grain while mashing...

The nuts are zinc coated/plated. I understand this is BAD but how bad is it? I have mashed 4 separate batches with 7 gallons water, 10 lbs of grain each and just remembered I didn't switch to stainless nuts (used zinc for the mockup)

Comments?

 

[FVillatoro]

I have 4 nuts on my pizza screen-false bottom in contact with 7 gallons of water and 10lbs of grain while mashing...

The nuts are zinc coated/plated. I understand this is BAD but how bad is it? I have mashed 4 separate batches with 7 gallons water, 10 lbs of grain each and just remembered I didn't switch to stainless nuts (used zinc for the mockup)

Comments?

Stick to stainless:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showpost.php?p=189164&postcount=6

 

[csurowiec]

You'll live. No big deal. Your next batch will taste even better without the extra metals dissolved into it.

 

[stever1000]

Stick to stainless:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showpost.php?p=189164&postcount=6

This just tells me not to do it and that it's really bad...I have already done it...

I'm trying to determine "how bad" it is. I know 100-150mg of Zinc per day is safe...

how much zinc could leach out of the nuts during the mash vs the overall volume of the wort?

 

[z-bob]

A little bit of zinc is good for the yeasties.

 

[day_trippr]

I suspect trying to come up with a number would be a lot more work than just replacing the fasteners with stainless.

You were going to do that anyway...

Cheers!

 

[stever1000]

I suspect trying to come up with a number would be a lot more work than just replacing the fasteners with stainless.

You were going to do that anyway...

Cheers!

True, as long as someone convinces me that drinking this beer won't kill me

I picked up stainless nuts today

 

[LiquidChemistry]

Definitely swap them for stainless, but it's more aesthetics than anything else (i.e. mild metal taste). I highly doubt you'll even notice and it definitely won't hurt you. It's not really toxic unless you ingest a pretty good amount of it all at once (somewhere around 250 milligrams). Even if you dissolved all of your zinc coating into 5 gal of beer you wouldn't even be close...

Why do I know this? I'm an environmental geochemist, it's literally what I do. :-D

Andrew

 

[stever1000]

Definitely swap them for stainless, but it's more aesthetics than anything else (i.e. mild metal taste). I highly doubt you'll even notice and it definitely won't hurt you. It's not really toxic unless you ingest a pretty good amount of it all at once (somewhere around 250 milligrams). Even if you dissolved all of your zinc coating into 5 gal of beer you wouldn't even be close...

Why do I know this? I'm an environmental geochemist, it's literally what I do. :-D

Andrew

This is the exact answer I was looking for!!

 

[mattd2]

Definitely swap them for stainless, but it's more aesthetics than anything else (i.e. mild metal taste). I highly doubt you'll even notice and it definitely won't hurt you. It's not really toxic unless you ingest a pretty good amount of it all at once (somewhere around 250 milligrams). Even if you dissolved all of your zinc coating into 5 gal of beer you wouldn't even be close...

Why do I know this? I'm an environmental geochemist, it's literally what I do. :-D

Andrew

Yep - a while back I did calculate it based on a few factors and the maximum thickness of zinc coating on the washers (that specific question was someone that forgot to swap their washer from ss) and got pretty much that answer - by the time you dilute it in 5 gallons of beer and drink it reasonably steadily (4 a day I think) your still going to be fine even if after 1 batch all the zinc coating had weared off