Today, yes. Prior to the 80’s they were copper.
I use a copper pickup tube in my BK but the mead, every once in a blue moon, needs a little help so I have an old penny for that. Cheers!!!
They changed pennies to 97.5% zinc in 1982.
Copper on the cold side is said to accelerate beer staling. Listen to the Brew Strong on metals.
I’m not worried about stLing. This beer will be gone in under 3 weeks.
I’m more worried about immediate off flavors. I took a beer off flavor class with Ted Hausotter where he stuck a length of copper pipe in a bottle for a minute or so, and the beer was noticeably and nastily metallic. That’s a much longer time and probably higher surface area than you are using, but it’s something to be aware of.
Acetaldehyde boils at about 68 F. Best thing you can do is warm it up into the 70s for a few days and see if that helps.
I would think any copper would be helpful. If this is a chemical reaction, the effect should be close to instantaneous.
Yes, but the cutoff date was 1982. You can easily find a penny from 1981 or earlier and then you’re ready to roll.
I have a 1/2 inch copper pickup tube in my BK. I haven’t noticed any sulphur smells… 
I boil my copper immersion chiller for 15 minutes to sanitize it in the hot wort. I’ve never noticed any sulphur flavours in any of my beers to date.
Has anyone done this and still had sulphur flavours?
My immersion cooler is ~ 50 ft of 3/8" copper. I guess that works as well.
Kinda shoots a big hole in the metallic off-flavor theory, ay?
Post fermentation is different from pre fermentation though since the pH is lower and can dissolve more of the copper. You will find many copper clad BKs, I doubt you’ll ever find a copper fermenter.
FWIW the copper trick worked per glass but did not work as well on the entire volume. Also, I may have been picking up a slight metallic off flavor. I’m going to go total reversal and not recommend this as a technique. I have added a little bit of copper back into my BK, however.
Good to know about about the stirring though I’ve never really ever had a sulfur problem. Is it possible that just the stirring drove the sulfur aroma off?
Used to have a 10" piece of copper tube that I would stick in the racking hose to weigh it down. Started to get metallic components to my darker beers. Under Tom’s advice it was removed from the system and haven’t had a metallic flavor since in my beer; though I get it all the time in commercial craft brews.
I tried stirring with a plastic fork as well and had better luck with the copper.
When we brewed my Pro-am beer at New Belgium there was H2S post fermentation (WY3522). They “ran it through the copper” to clean it up. Worked like a champ
I have copper false bottoms in my mash tun with a copper pickup tube. The boil kettle has a 1/2 inch copper pick up tube. The 1/2 inch 50 ft immersion chiller goes in at 15 minutes from the end of boil. Some lager yeast will still kick out sulfur smells. Doing a good diacetyl rest will help scrub that out.
I’m amazed that no one pointed this out, earlier.
I get huge sulfur odor from Wyeast 2124 Behemian lager yeast.
After a diacetyl rest, it’s undetectable.
It’s probably just that heating it up will help the SO2 bubble out of the beer rather than some chemical change, don’t you think?
Hydrogen sulfide is removed from well water by splashing (allowing it to cascade down a stepped platform) or by bubbling air through the water. It comes out of solution fairly easily.
I don’t know, but I’m guessing that bubbling carbon dioxide through the beer would drive off the dissolved hydrogen sulfide.
Bubbling co2 up from the bottom is the most prescribed method - perhaps I didn’t purge long enough but it didn’t work in my case. I’m now thinking the copper trick worked afterall. Sulphur is gone, perhaps it took a few days for the reaction to completely take place, I dunno.
Could be, but I have often read that the increased CO2 production from the warmer fermentation at the end helps scrub the Sulfur compounds out. It works for me.