So I am building a mini tun for my brewery. Got everything I needed today when it bit me about the silicone. Probably should have bought aquarium silicone at the pet store but I bought clear 100% silicone made by GE. Nothing on the packaging says its food safe, I am wondering if this will be bad.
I wouldn’t use it. I’ve used aquarium silicone for years for minor leaks or sealing. If it isn’t food safe, its probably a bad idea. That and it could create some off flavors. Even aquarium silicone seems to need a good wash/sanitize to remove any odors.
If you are using a cooler, I wonder if the tun itself is food grade or meant to be utilized in the manner you intend? Probably not.
I’ll go out on a limb and say go ahead and use the GE product.
Euge brings up a good point about the tun material. In my case, I found a cooler that was BPA free and was as close to food grade as possible. Check the data sheets for the silicone you chose. Some are construction only and are not even under water rated.
Meant to be utilized that way? Probably not. Safe to use? 99.99% OK.
I have yet to see a cooler that isn’t BPA free. Have you seen one that used BPA? AFAIK, coolers are made of HDPE, which is food safe.
What are you using it for? If you are making a mash tun out of a cooler, it really shouldn’t be necessary.
Edit: Regarding cooler materials, the interior liners of Igloo brand hard-sided coolers are made out of FDA-grade polypropylene.
I wrote this and used the silicone right after
You know, I can’t find coolers that don’t brag that they are BPA free now. When I bought my tun, only Rubbermaid listed it on their website.
I have the first style Coleman Extreme as a beverage cooler and could never find out what it was made from. I had read the first style had BPA, but couldn’t get any real proof either way. I’m glad the companies are being transparent now.
If I lived somewhere that 75% of everything didn’t have to be shipped then I probably wouldn’t have used silicone. I was building a 3 gallon mini tun. Already had the cooler that I got for free so why not.
Could be that they were just touting it becasue it was trendy, kinda like how you might see chicken labelled as “gluten free”.
HA! Excellent point! Hadn’t thought of it like that.