Is This Oxygen Bottle Bad?

Went to Home Depot to grab an O2 bottle and some other goodies. When I popped the cap on the bottle, I noticed a fair amount of rusting. I'm wondering if I should return it?

Well that's up to you. If you use a small inline Heppa filter it should not be a problem at all. I have always used a filter on my oxygen as this is going right into the beer. I take no chances.

I take also take no chances. . . until it costs me money to be safe. just return it or scrub it off with a wire brush.

and make sure you have had a tetanus shot.

its fine. just a little surface rust. +1 with what WBC said, just add an inline filter if your worried.

If it was something you had sitting around the house then I'd wire brush it...

But you bought it new... that's not OK.

Return it...

curtis97322 said:

If it was something you had sitting around the house then I'd wire brush it...

But you bought it new... that's not OK.

Return it...

Click to expand...

Yeah, I bought it new. I'll just go back when I get a chance and return it.

I got news for you. They will all be a little rusty. It won't be a problem. It's not like the inside of the tank is rusty too.

If that is O2, be sure to use nothing oil based around or in that service. BOOM!

A few quick rubs with a green Scorch-Brite pad fitted into the neck then a quick warm soap and water wash. Warm so you can cloth dry it and the rest evaporates unless you give it a quick air blast from the compressor nozzle.
No worries only simple fresh surface rust, cleaned like I said you'll have no metallic taste. Worry about the big things this is small.
That made me think 25 years ago before I refilled my own 16.4 oz propane bottles for camping, I always pulled the caps and looked inside at the store when they had end of summer sales. I ran across a few that were worse than what you posted. Trust nothing that you buy these days. Check for fit and finish besides flaws even in the brewing equipment business. A high dollar conical can have flaws, leaks, faults or sharp edges that should of been taken care of this is a high production era and money is the name of the game these days. Even your local auto parts stores sell cheap crap like starters that are remans that fail just after the warranty is up.

So then just steel-wool it, give it a quick rinse, and I'm golden? None of those nasty rust particles are going to get in the brew? What's this talk about oil-based and explosions?

I wouldn't even clean it up. It's just a little surface rust. The reason they can't put a light coating of oil on the opening area to stop this from happening is that O2 and combustible contaminants don't mix very well.

I went back to the Depot today to get some other stuff, and decided to take the bottle back to return it. I looked at literally 20 bottles, and most of them were worse. One was marginally better, so I did the exchange.

The way the guy at the store explained it to me, a probe from my regulator actually goes down into the tank or something like that. I thought the area with the rust formed part of a hemispherical expansion chamber, but apparently that section doesn't come into contact with the gas at all. So like a lot of the guys were saying here, I guess it doesn't matter.