Blichmann Kettle Has Rust Spots

I have been using a 10 gallon Blichmann Kettle for my homebrewing for about a year now. I know it is 300-series stainless steel, which should not have rust issues, but my kettle has developed small rust spots at the bottom of the kettle.

The attached pictures show the small rust spots. It IS rust; I scratched some off and tasted it. It IS in the structure of the kettle, not just a surface stain from a small steel particle that settled on the bottom. It seems like the kettle is pitting.

A Blichmann representative rquickly esponded to my inquiry. After ruling out one possible cause, they recommended cleaning off the rust, and monitoring the pot to see if it rusts further in the future. They said if it does, that they will take care of it, rest-assured. Thanks, Blichmann!

If you get some Barkeepers friend and mix up a paste, apply and let sit for 5 or 10 minutes and then scrub, light rinse, it'll bring the rust stain out. For tougher spots, let it sit longer before scrubbing and rinsing.

One other note, don't let oxyclean or pbw sit unmixed on the surface, that's how my first spots like this showed up. But they've all come our with BKF and some elbow grease.

Aaron said:

[...]I emailed Bilchmann, but have not heard back from them. I just figured I should at least let this brewing community know of my experience.

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I have two Blichmann kettles I've been using for many years. They're immaculate, inside and out. When I upgrade, they'll be bigger Blichmanns...

Cheers!

Stainless is a bit of a misnomer, certain acids will oxidize it. Barkeeper's Friend is a great and easy fix. Don't leave any cleansers in a kettle too long...

The craftsman that constructed the kettle may have used a consumable that had been contaminated with mild steel. Another possibility is you've contaminated it yourself. Have u used a metal spoon?

..or it may have been fabricated from cheap foreign stainless steel?

anengineer said:

..or it may have been fabricated from cheap foreign stainless steel?

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it looks to contaminanted to me too

aeviaanah said:

The craftsman that constructed the kettle may have used a consumable that had been contaminated with mild steel. Another possibility is you've contaminated it yourself. Have u used a metal spoon?

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I am using a stainless steel spoon. The spoon has no rust.

Curious to know what happened with this. I too bought Blichmann pots (15&20 gallon). I bought it at the beginning of the year (2016) and then built a brewery in the basement. I have used the system 3 times? Maybe 4 in the past year. This weekend I went to brew and I noticed rust spots too. The site I bought the system from assured me he would exchange them. That's a good thing.
How did you resolve the issue and are you now completely satisfied?

anengineer said:

..or it may have been fabricated from cheap foreign stainless steel?

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Do they even make it domestically anymore? I have a lot of "Steel companies" as customers and all they do now days is broker foreign steel it seems... Ive been told its actually comparable quality to anything else.
Ive seen the same rust on a few of my things... I use bar keepers friend and it usually takes care of it.

I thought I read here that only the older generation of blichmann kettles were made in china... Im not a blichmann fanboy by any means but to be fair I dont know of any others that arent made in china or india, spikes kettles included.
Who knows maybe Trump will get his tariffs in place and we will all be complaining instead about paying $300-400 each for a basic kettle in a couple years...(Well besides those that dont mind doing so already for a marked up chinese one thats apparently nothing special in terms of quality.)

I've had some kettles come by my way which also developed some rust stains (Not blichmann). I filled them up with water and added some concentrated lemon-juice which you'd use for your tea. Stains went away and didn't come back when I tested the kettles later.

Make sure you don't use a mash-paddle or whatever of another metal which can scrape the bottom when you use it.