Burnt Brewpot?

[RichardMNixon]

So I got an aluminum Brinkmann turkey fryer from home depot, and had read that you should boil water in it for a bit to get the oxide layer on it. I boiled for an hour, and ended up with this:

The fryer got covered with some kind of white ash that wipes off clean. The bottom of the pot has orange marks where it rested on the fryer stand. The inside of the pot looks painted black. It doesn't come off with scrubbing. This isn't what the oxidation is supposed to look like is it? Is it still safe for beer? Does anyone have an idea what happened? Thanks.

 

[RichardMNixon]

Update: searching for "black aluminum brew pot" turned up some other threads suggesting that it was fine and just oxidized, so I brewed with it. The pot is now a lot less black:

Was the black stuff something other than aluminum oxide that came off in my beer? Any metallurgist-types have an idea if it'd be safe to drink?

I was planning to ferment it in a carboy for 2 weeks then bottle, now I'm thinking I might make one bottle early to see if it tastes like metal before I waste my time with 50 bottles.

 

[RichardMNixon]

Bump. Any thoughts on what's in there? Is it safe? Carboy fermented fine, the big bubbly yeast cake left a lot of what looks like dirt on the upper walls of the carboy, but that is normal, right? The room it's in just smells like beer, if there are off-smells they aren't strong at least.

 

[unionrdr]

Bump. Any thoughts on what's in there? Is it safe? Carboy fermented fine, the big bubbly yeast cake left a lot of what looks like dirt on the upper walls of the carboy, but that is normal, right? The room it's in just smells like beer, if there are off-smells they aren't strong at least.

Seems to me to be a thick oxide layer. If you don't see any black flakes & it looks/smells ok,then you're probably fine. But the proof will be when the beer is conditioned & carbed.

 

[edmanster]

should of boiled water to the top for 15-20 min and discarded before brewing.. you now have a malted oxide layer

 

[bleme]

A normal oxide layer looks more like the second pic. The first pic looks more like what OxyClean does to aluminum. Ask me how I know.

Your beer is still fine. In the future, don't use anything harsher than dish soap and a wash cloth. You don't want to scrub off your oxide.

 

[RichardMNixon]

should of boiled water to the top for 15-20 min and discarded before brewing.. you now have a malted oxide layer

I did that once, that's what formed the black layer. Did I need to boil water a second time?

A normal oxide layer looks more like the second pic. The first pic looks more like what OxyClean does to aluminum. Ask me how I know.

Your beer is still fine. In the future, don't use anything harsher than dish soap and a wash cloth. You don't want to scrub off your oxide.

I didn't use any cleaners on it, the black came just from boiling water. I wasn't able to scrub the black off, so the ease with which it came off in the wort made me wonder if the black stuff comes off in acid - does that fit in with the oxyclean-hypothesis?
Glad the beer survived though. Should I give it a harsh scrubbing now and try to oxidize it again or just leave it alone? Is it normal that the oxidation doesn't go all the way up like that?

 

[kh54s10]

I would just wash the pot well with ordinary dish soap. Do not try to remove the oxidation layer. I think that for some reason you got a blacker reaction than usual and it have a definitely strange pattern.

The white on the burner is ash. It is what is left of the cheap paint they put on those. You can just leave it that way or get some Rustoleum High Heat spray paint from your local hardware store or even Walmart.

 

[TopherM]

Yeah, you don't want to scrub it with any sort of gritted material, or you'll just scrub off the oxide layer. Wash it with non-caustic cleanser and a soft scrubber, like a sponge.