Restoring an abused Aluminum Pot

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daksin

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Hi All-

I just grabbed a nice big aluminum pot (8 gallons, free!) with some fairly serious corrosion on the inside. There's the standard dark passivated layer in the upper portion of the walls, but the bottom is pitted and covered in white alu oxide, which makes me think it used to be a boiling pot but was stored with some water in the bottom. The pot is quite thick so I'm not worried about the pot being weakened, but I'd like to clean it up.

I tried a long soak in double-strength starsan, but that did basically nothing. Any ideas?
 
it's late and i have a full belly, but try boiling a pot of water for a while. somebody correct me if the science is bad, but maybe try oxyclean (or is that a no-no?)
 
You could try something acidic, that should strip some of the oxides. What happens if you toss some vinegar in there?
 
I would scour the hell out of it with an abrasive pad. Or better yet, coarse, medium and fine wet/dry sandpaper in that order w/ dish soap and water. Then once it is shiny and new looking boil some water to restore the oxidized layer. Have no fear, alum. is soft and you can remove outer layers to "rejuvinate" even an old and crappy looking one to look decent again.
 
I would scour the hell out of it with an abrasive pad. Or better yet, coarse, medium and fine wet/dry sandpaper in that order w/ dish soap and water. Then once it is shiny and new looking boil some water to restore the oxidized layer. Have no fear, alum. is soft and you can remove outer layers to "rejuvinate" even an old and crappy looking one to look decent again.

I think that's the next step- obviously the acid did nothing (Starsan).
 
Boil for 30 minutes...with some cream of tarter a couple tablespoons...should clean up well...
 
Use bkf to clean the corrosion off and it will be shiny again. Then boil to repassivate.
 
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