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PVC and Alcohol: A Compatibility Study
Any problems with using PVC fittings (Home Depot style) in the flow path of pumps and filters? I used PVC adapters with different pieces of equipment with different openings to maintain a 1″ flow. I also used a short section of PVC pipe in a mixing tank to connect to a jet eductor. By the way, the eductor works good for increasing the mixing flow by 400%.
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10 Replies
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PVC is fine for water, but with solvents, it’s not okay. Want your booze to taste like plastic? Just use PVC. Soft PVC is worse than the hard stuff, but if you can stick with PE and PP, you’ll be much happier.
If you can avoid plastic all together, even better. Metals are superior, and rarely contribute flavor.
Good luck,
Will
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PVC is fine for water, but with solvents, it’s not okay. Want your booze to taste like plastic? Just use PVC. Soft PVC is worse than the hard stuff, but if you can stick with PE and PP, you’ll be much happier.
If you can avoid plastic all together, even better. Metals are superior, and rarely contribute flavor.
Good luck,
Will
Will,
you always give good advise. I was wondering about the use of PETE bottles for spirits. Locally, I’ve seen 190 proof GNS in PETE bottles as well as many vodka brands, in the liquor stores. Does anyone have any experience with these “bottles” and how they effect the spirits?
Dick G
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I don’t like plastic. I do like glass.
There’s a world famous dive bar near the Sweetwater Distillery in Petaluma called the Buckhorn. This has been the site of many rallies of the students of the ADI distilling classes. It has a well deserved reputation as a place of merriment and laughter.
The Buckhorn is old enough to have both an on-sale and off-sale license, but hardly anyone buys off-sale there…so the bottles just sit forever. Many of those bottles are PET or PETE – no difference. Now, you remember the stories about the biker chick who could suck-start a Harley – some of the older bottles look like she took a hard toke on them. They’re collapsed. Why does this happen? The story I’ve heard is that water molecules, being somewhat smaller than ethanol molecules, can actually escape through the plastic bottle…and this increases the ethanol concentration in the bottle – the proof increases. That does not sound like such a bad thing, but you have to ask yourself what else is happening in the bottle. What kind of exchange is taking place between the traces of petrochemicals in the polyethylene matrix and the stuff you’re going to drink. Do you want to drink those petrochemicals, even if they’re in trace amounts?
I’ll be attending an eight-bells celebration today for a friend who was a victim of breast cancer. One has to ask how and why the incidence of this cancer is higher in Marin County than in other parts of the country. Is it because the people there are more affluent and prefer bottled water? Water bottled in PET, that is. What happens to trace amounts of chemicals that our bodies can’t metabolize or discard? They get deposited into fatty tissues. (No comments about my brain, please!)
I think glass is safer, and it’s what I choose to purchase.
That said, I do understand that some producers need to offer a “value priced” product, and arguments can be made that lower weight products take less energy to transport, and not all consumers are health or quality conscious. But I also know that one never has to apologize for quality.
Good luck,
Will
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What about the braided PVC tubing on bottling machines? I have an Xpress Fill machine and it uses PVC tubing as an intake. That tubing does smell really weird at the cut ends, but I was assured by Xpress Fill that no one’s ever complained. So I use the same type of tubing to pump through.
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I don’t like plastic. I do like glass.
There’s a world famous dive bar near the Sweetwater Distillery in Petaluma called the Buckhorn. This has been the site of many rallies of the students of the ADI distilling classes. It has a well deserved reputation as a place of merriment and laughter.
The Buckhorn is old enough to have both an on-sale and off-sale license, but hardly anyone buys off-sale there…so the bottles just sit forever. Many of those bottles are PET or PETE – no difference. Now, you remember the stories about the biker chick who could suck-start a Harley – some of the older bottles look like she took a hard toke on them. They’re collapsed. Why does this happen? The story I’ve heard is that water molecules, being somewhat smaller than ethanol molecules, can actually escape through the plastic bottle…and this increases the ethanol concentration in the bottle – the proof increases. That does not sound like such a bad thing, but you have to ask yourself what else is happening in the bottle. What kind of exchange is taking place between the traces of petrochemicals in the polyethylene matrix and the stuff you’re going to drink. Do you want to drink those petrochemicals, even if they’re in trace amounts?
I’ll be attending an eight-bells celebration today for a friend who was a victim of breast cancer. One has to ask how and why the incidence of this cancer is higher in Marin County than in other parts of the country. Is it because the people there are more affluent and prefer bottled water? Water bottled in PET, that is. What happens to trace amounts of chemicals that our bodies can’t metabolize or discard? They get deposited into fatty tissues. (No comments about my brain, please!)
I think glass is safer, and it’s what I choose to purchase.
That said, I do understand that some producers need to offer a “value priced” product, and arguments can be made that lower weight products take less energy to transport, and not all consumers are health or quality conscious. But I also know that one never has to apologize for quality.
Good luck,
Will
Will,
You’ve sold me. As for the Biker Chick. I’ve never heard the story, but my immagination is running wild!
Dick G
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Will. I love that bar!
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I recommend food grade stainless steel pipe. It is more expensive, but PVC will dissolve and poison your spirit. It would be a shame to ruin all of your hard work trying to save a few bucks.
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CPVC would be the better choice, if you’re going cheap. CPVC has “good” compatibility with ethanol, and PVC is only rated as “fair” and not recommended.
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Just wanted to clarify, better choice isn’t necessarily best choice. I suspect you would still get some leachates with CPVC, but less than PVC.
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Thanks to the excellent advice here, and overcoming my previous ignorance, I’ve switched to PP fittings. Stainless is a future dream. btw, jmesales.com has good prices on PP fittings for anyone who needs them.
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