12/01/2025
COPPER vs. STAINLESS?
While stainless is cheaper, easier to clean, and does not develop oxidation. Thats pretty much where its benefits stop. It cannot do what copper does to clean and purify a spirit.
🥃 Why Distillers Use Copper
From the mountains to the modern craft shop, copper has always been the distiller’s metal of choice — and there’s a real reason behind it.
🔥 1. Copper cleans the v***r
As your mash v***r rises, it carries sulfur compounds that smell like rotten eggs, cabbage, or burnt matches. When that v***r touches hot copper, something special happens:
-The sulfur sticks to the copper and turns into a solid.
-This forms a dark layer called copper sulfide, and it stays on the metal, not in your liquor.
-That means every pass through the copper v***r path removes more harshness and makes your spirit cleaner and smoother.
🧪 2. Copper neutralizes sulfur oxides
Sulfur dioxide and other stinky gases react with copper to form harmless compounds like copper sulfate and copper oxide.
Stainless steel can’t do this chemistry — only copper can.
👃 3. Better aroma. Better flavor. Better spirit.
When sulfur gets stripped out early in the run, your spirit finishes with:
-Brighter fruit notes
-Cleaner grain character
-A softer, smoother mouthfeel
-No rotten-egg funk in the jar
This is why old-timers could taste the difference, even without knowing the chemistry.
🔩 4. So why use stainless at all?
Stainless is:
Cheaper
Tougher
Easier to clean
Great for boilers, fermenters, and big commercial tanks
But stainless does not remove sulfur.
That’s why even stainless stills include copper mesh, copper plates, or a copper helmet — to get that same clean v***r.
🏔️ Bottom line (Appalachian truth):
Copper makes better liquor. It cleans your v***r, pulls out the sulfur, and leaves you with a smoother, sweeter, mountain-quality spirit.
That’s why distillers from the old Appalachian backwoods to today’s top craft operations all keep copper in the v***r path.