Straight dope on Aluminum cleaning?

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Oscbert

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I have been searching on this site for an answer and have been getting conflicting information on how to clean aluminum.

Here is my situation. I have an old aluminum firkin style keg that I recently received. I would guess around 30 years old.
I want to use it to serve an English Bitter, but want to make sure it is clean before I sanitize it and put my beer in there for any amount of time.

I was thinking Oxyclean, but several people said that Oxiclean eats away at the "protective barrier" and turns it a blackish gray?

What should I do? I could just boil hot water in it and not use chemicals... I need to check out the inside with a flashlight..

Thoughts?
 
Definitely not oxiclean for any length of time. Without thinking once after a brew session I threw everything including my aluminum pot in a bucket of oxiclean and let it sit over night. The next morning there were boils all over the outside of the pot where the aluminum was getting eaten away. Luckily the oxidized aluminum portion of the inside protected it.
 
Yeah I figure I will use Oxiclean with warm to hot water and shake it real hard then rinse it out and boil some clean water in it.
 
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