Plastic and Alcohol

[Easydrinker]

In the interest of the board and keeping it friendly.I am starting a new thread.
Plastics and ethanol,we don't have to do it,but for me the big question is,why not?
I don't live in a cave.
I have spent much time using various search terms in google and other search engines,and the usual result is the posting of a young person who heard it from the bloke next door,or posted it on Yahoo answers.
My usual "nose",a friend with a good palate, and a chemical engineer,once employed by Diageo,simply replies that that was not part of his remit.
I will post a few links at the end of this ramble,found after a long time in the etherwhatsit trying to find a difinitive answer,the best found to date,but none are totally convincing.
It does seem that PVC is not the way to go,and indeed it may be seriously gone sometime soon.The only plastic that may leach plastifiers,as it is the only one to have them added.
HDPE I had high hopes for,but from my understanding PET has slapped it on the face.

Please,if you can input some credible information to this topic,comeback,for the good of the community,and if you have credentials,I promise we will love you to bits;well I will,blokey huggy thing,don't expect me to go all the way.
I don't feel that this should simply be side-stepped in a modern world.
Lovely as glassware is.
Robert.
http://www.texloc.com/cl_chemical_resistance_chart.html
http://www.tedpella.com/company_html/pl ... erties.htm
http://www.habitat21.co.uk/plastics-3.html
http://www.lati.com/en/technical_data/c ... ce_01.html

Naughty me forgot to say that I use HDPE jugs when diluting from 62% ish to 40%ish.

[YHB]

About 30 years ago I worked in the Middle East, and drank the local White Lightning or “SID”. With the knowledge I now have now I know this to be 95% Neutral. Joe the local supplier had a few party tricks using SID.

One of Joe’s tricks involved a couple of jars of SID.an orange and a soft ball, I don’t know what type of ball, my memory says it was a squash ball but I could be wrong. Joe would take two jars of SID suspend an orange above the liquid level in one and the ball in the other put the lids on them and left them for a while.

The orange gradually shriveled up and looked decidedly grotty, but when you took the lid off the jar the smell was delicious and the SID was used as the base of an orange liqueur. So something had transferred from the orange into the SID.

When Joe took the ball out of the other jar he held it in his hands and crumbled it.

At the time it was only a party trick and a crumbling ball, now I think about it I realize something had come out of the ball;

What? – I do not know, maybe the plasticizers that I keep quoting.
Where did it end up? – I do not know but I can guess.

We do not use squash balls in our activities but I am like most people and tend generalize, when I say plasticizers I do not know what a plasticizer is but I think of stuff that came out of Joe’s Squash ball.

I am guilty of not knowing the answers.

I am also guilty of not knowing the questions.

Yes - there are many charts available on chemical resistance, all different. I looked at them a while ago looking for the same answers that you are currently seeking and came up with no answers.

Your thread is Plastics and Alcohol but in the text you quote Plastics and Ethanol we are not dealing with one substance, we are dealing with a combination of many, what are they? I do not know? Do you? If you don’t know how can you use the charts?

Many of the items on the charts are just a name, no indication of strength or temperature of the elements that are being considered. Put a tea bag in cold water and nothing much will happen boiling water is a different matter altogether. I am sure that the temperature of the compounds we are dealing with will have an effect on the results you are looking for. The vapors of the liquids also need to be taken into account.

I have friends but unlike you I do not give them something to taste to see if they can identify anything that will give them cancer in a few years, before you give them a taste do you tell them what plasticizers taste like? They could well be tasteless.

If you want to use HDPE jugs then so be it that is your choice, why you want to I will never understand when for a couple of pounds you could by Glass or Stainless ones, or pick them up for even less at the local charity shop.

You ask for credible information by people with credentials, of course I have no credentials and none of this is credible but it is safe. To try and say that plastics are safe is not credible and a dangerous thing to say on a forum such as this.

HD may go over the top with the rules we live by, but they are safe. As soon as you start saying some plastics are safe you have to be specific with which type of plastic, how to identify the type of plastic, for what type /strength / temperature of compounds they are safe to use them on, for short or long term contact.

I am starting to develop a stock of spirits which will probably last longer than me. I do not want my grandkids to say something like. “My granddad died of cancer but he left me all this whiskey !!!” I will not leave any time bombs or smoking guns however small the risk. Think about it.

You say that this information is for the good of the community, I do not agree. For the good of the community - the safest methods and materials should be promoted which in my humble opinion do not include plastic.

Here's another couple of links I would throw into the Pot;

http://www.wilko.com/oven-to-tableware/ ... =measuring jug&VBMST=measuring jug&VBMTC=28a25a5360b3896373a6115864511ac0

http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/images/produc ... 937_S4.JPG

[Easydrinker]

Thanks for your input Brian.
I would guess that Joe's ball was PVC and indeed lost it's plasticisers.
As I said,it seems only PVC contains them,but even here the story is not simple;it is possible,at great expense, to use plasticisers extracted from vegetables.
By the time I have taken the middle cut from my product,I know that I am dealing with Ethanol.
And it is how plastics may react with that,that is my interest.

Many spirits are now sold in PET bottles and therefore many people will be starting to think little of spirit and "plastic" contact.

There are people out there using plastics with their distilling,instead of hitting them with a big NO stick,I would prefer to help them find a safe plastic,if one exists.
The information must be available somewhere?
Simply reading this thread may give information to someone.
I believe this is a topic to discuss,not shoo away.
But that is my opinion.
Robert.

[YHB]

Robert,

Joe's ball was definitely of the rubber? variety.

There are just to many variable to come up with a one line answer.

You quote PET bottles. Look up PET and you will get one answer, but Google "PET bottle coatings" and you will get an infinite variety of coatings - So it is not PET you should be checking on the chemical resistance chart but also the coating, if any, that is on the inside of the bottle. How do you know what it is? A bottle may be produced by a manufacturer for one particular product and the corresponding coating for that product used, it does not mean that the particular coating it is compatible with all products. Who knows? Maybe the coating itself is soluble in high strength methanol.

So saying PET bottles are used to store spirits is not strictly true and telling people that it is OK to use PET bottles may be pointing them in the wrong direction. If you are using second hand PET bottles how do you know if they are coated and with what?

Please take my opinions for what they are opinions, opinions based on many hours of research and reading which I gave up when I realised that there were too many variables for my pigeon sized brain to cope with. Once again I am not a Naysayer I just don't know.

On another note

Last week I acquired four bottles that used to contain a 25 year old Whiskey, they are magnificent. They are heavier than my lead crystal decanters and fit wonderfully in my hand and are a joy to hold. I filled them up with my favourite spirit and was proud to gift two of them to a good friend. If I live to be a hundred I will never be able to say that about a plastic bottle.

[Easydrinker]

Brian,I agree,product in glass looks better,and feels right,and I only store,age and serve in glass.
I am not actively promoting the use of any plastic,simply questioning if there is a safe one out there.
My use of HDPE jugs worries me less than using the Essencia filter,where product resides for several hours,and you then leave some in,until the next use,to prevent it drying out.
TBH,it would have been easier to walk away and say "just use glass(or SS)",but I am a bit of a Terrier.
Respecting your opinions,and not wishing to get into an argument,but discussion is healthy,even if we don't agree.

For those not yet bored,I offer the following;
Most PET products have no surface coating.
Surface coatings are used for oxygen sensitive product bottles,such as beer,as PET can allow oxygen to permeate in,and CO2 out.
External barriers can be applied,but I have only found evidence of two internal ones so far,one is a superfine layer of silicone oxide,basically glass;The other a layer of amorphous carbon.
I would have no issue with either of those,or un-coated PET.
New technology,seemingly aimed at the beer market(for longer shelf life) is seeing multi layer bottles,with oxygen absorbing material sandwiched between layers of PET.It would seem that if you scratched the inner PET layer,contact between the bottle contents and the barrier layer is possible.
Finding information on such contact is proving difficult,even though the products used for the barrier seem benign.
Robert.

[John51]

Brian, do you keep alcohol in the lead crystal decanters?

I know lead was in common usage years ago, whisky stills with lead solder etc. but afaik, lead is one of those cumulative poisons that the body never gets rid of.

Maybe the bad rep of Absinthe was from the use of of lead crystal glasses? As it was a leisurely drink enjoyed by the well to do, high abv alcohol would be in the glass for some time while the ice drips in. Far more contact time than enjoying a wee dram in a lead crystal glass.

wrt plastic, the American site has a member that is a chemist involved in the booze industry. He can't give a lot of details due to non disclosure agreements but he is very anti plastic and if anyone should know, it's him.

What we don't have is any means of comparison. Is diy product that goes through a filter made of abs worse for our health than a commercial product made as cheaply as possible?

[YHB]

John,

Thanks for the heads up.

In all honesty I do not know if they are lead crystal or not, I inherited them from my father, and they only come out on high days and holidays filled up with port or wine for the occasion and returned to the cupboard shortly after.

I never gave the name lead crystal a thought :- but now you mention it ??

Something else to avoid.

[Easydrinker]

Holy sugar lumps!
I'm gobb-smacked by John51's post,-I had never made the connnection either.
I went off on a fast internet search,and found bad news,for someone owning an awful lot of Lead crystal glasses,thank goodness my decanters went long ago.
I'll post a couple of links,the one from the Sheffield Assay Office may be more credible than the one from a popular auction site,which seems to be a selective cut and paste from the Wikipedia one.

Personally,I suspect for me it may be too late;I grew up holding lead air-gun pellets in my lips,and closing split lead BB weights to fishing line with my teeth.
This may soon turn me into even more of a jibbering idiot than some here already consider me to be!
Drink safely.
Robert.
http://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrBTvzY ... YJZLFqcGI-

http://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0LEV2v8 ... e.SbKEnb8-

[fuf]

[quote="Easydrinker"]

Personally,I suspect for me it may be too late;I grew up holding lead air-gun pellets in my lips,and closing split lead BB weights to fishing line with my teeth.
This may soon turn me into even more of a jibbering idiot than some here already consider me to be!
Drink safely.
Robert.

Blimey Robert, I did likewise with the air gun pellets and the lead BB weights.
Welcome to the jabbering idiot club.

[Nudger Prohibition]

Hi gents new to the forum and no expert but in general HDPE, PET and PTFE all contain various chemicals that give them their plastic properties, plasticisers are effectively a substance that allows long chain molecules to form so shapes may be moulded into trays cups bottles etc. they aid the formability durability and life of plastics.

In general plastic product that is designed for food has to be of a "food grade" in europe and the USA, this means PET and even HDPE can be very safe even with alcohol, in fact in many countries duty free is held in plastic. There is however one word of warning, plastics used to contain a palsticising product called phthalates (pronounced falates)which has in the last few years been removed from food grade and childrens toys (I used to work in the toy industry so we had to test for it) it can be a pretty nasty piece of work and leaches into the mouth from contact with saliva (which is generally much more corrosive than alcohols, and is linked to cancers and other nasties.

In summary modern plastic especially PET should be fine to use, older than 3 years forget it, as for lead crystal thats another story...........

[Phantom]

Alcohol is a known solvent. Equally, many plastics are not as solid as you think. Many, HDPE included are air permeable, not to the extent of lesser materials, but none the less........

Glass is inert and non-permeable, more easily cleaned, etc.

Most plastics have had the harmful plasticisers removed. Which still doesn't guarantee safety. I've moved high strength NGS in chemistry/food IBC's (intermediate bulk containers) a number of times, but it's always bottled into glass, to maximise safe shelf life.

Some places will allow distilled products in plastic at the point of sale, but that's invariably when security or likely short time in the container is.considered desirable/likely.

To my knowledge, the only one to be avoided like the plague, is polycarbonate. That is fine for just water as the release of any BisPhenol A, used in manufacturing is negligible. Any material containing a solvent like alcohol should be avoided.

Industry is a tight fisted mofo, and does it's utmost to keep hold of the profits, whether from current or future sales, it's not in their interest to use uncertain materials, so following "tradition" isn't such a bad idea, even if you have access to seemingly idea plastics.

HDPE and PET is fine for fermentation level concentration of alcohol, I'm less sure that I'd use it for any length of time at drinking strength.

As for the lead analogy. Pure metal lead, gives up the hazard much, much, more readily than lead crystal.

Generally speaking, lead crystal is high end and while there would always be a potential, the lead is retained by the glass matrix. It doesn't come out/off like with solder, or even post combustion from when it was used in petrol as an "anti-knock" lubricant.

The amounts ingested from lead crystal are on par with environmental exposure. Plus the liquid isn't usually in it long enough to be an issue.

Lead has some commonality with asbestos. Both are natural substances, and should only be used where appropriate (the same applies to any toxic heavy metals).

The authorities try to limit exposure to hazardous stuff, wrapping us in cotton wool. It's just that it's my view that proportionality and perspective are the best approach........

Plactics are fine for low strength and short term. Anything else I'm happier with glass.........