So lets spare ourselves the age old debate over whether brass fittings have any place in a home brewery and get right to it. I do have a couple fittings that are brass, for example a garden hose splitter (cant find a stainless one anywhere!) that feeds into the water filter. I noticed that it had some areas that were beginning to turn black and tarnish. From reading on here and other forums I understood that to mean that the lead in the alloy was beginning to expose itself to the surface. I tried using John Palmer'stechnique to "pickle" the brass and it only seemed to make things worse. I tried starting over several times like he describes, but it only got worse. The process seems to be a one way street for dissolving other elements from the surface and only LEAVING the black in place. Has anyone had any experience/ luck with this? Are there any other "food-safe" techniques for restoring brass fittings? thanks
I don't know just how much of a problem you have. Not all brass contains lead to begin with and when it does it's only up to 2%.Then there is the question of just how much area of the wort actually comes into contact with the brass.If it's just a small fitting or two the amound of leached lead will be pretty small and remember this isn't like having a fitting in the household plumbing where you are swallowing the result all the time! If you are really worried-and personally I'd consider the risk to health from the lead to be significantly lower than from the alcohol anyway-might it be possible to coat the internals of the brasswork with something?
Agreed, in terms of health risks. I probably should have mentioned its more about the appearance as much as anything else. It just looks old and dingy, especially when compared to all the pretty, shiny stainless and copper everywhere else in the setup. I just can't help but think, there must be a way to clean brass. Everywhere I look I always end up on the John Palmer page linked above, but it doesn't seem as though anyone has ever tried, or challenged the technique he offers. I was hoping there might be a commercial kitchen product or something like that.
