Arbor Fab Spider Rusted

[shaky6]

I took my Arbor Fab hop spider out of the cabinet the other day and to my horror, it was covered in rusty powder. I washed it off and it doesn't even look like stainless steel. Arbor Fab told me its fine and I just need to passivate it. I've only used this thing once. I've never had to passivate my chinesium spider from Amazon and I've used it a lot. It still looks newish. What gives?

 

[day_trippr]

Not much of a testimonial for Arbor Fab, eh?
Making the best of it, I'd scrub it with a BKF paste...

Cheers!

 

[IslandLizard]

Making the best of it, I'd scrub it with a BKF paste...

That^ and perhaps soak in a bucket with (used) Starsan for a few weeks. I've gotten stainless parts bright and shiny out of (often unintended) prolonged StarSan soaks.

A 10% Citric acid solution should also help remove rust, especially where you can't scrub with BKF. It will passivate at the same time.

 

[augiedoggy]

I also have both the chinese and arbor versions... no rust on either.. I have 2 arbors the small and large.. that small one did not work well for anything over 1 oz of hops. the larger one seems to work much better as far as hop utilization. some grades of stainless rust.. the stock they use may be 401 its will clean up as Islandlizard mentioned.

 

[shaky6]

I cant believe I have to do all this b.s. to a made in USA "stainless" piece of gear

 

[govner1]

I’ve been using Arbor Fab hop baskets for several years with no issues.
I routinely soak in hot B-Brite after use and scrub the screw portion thoroughly.
Remember that your subjecting the SS to boiling wort for 60-90 minutes with each brew plus any whirlpool time.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

I cant believe I have to do all this b.s. to a made in USA "stainless" piece of gear

Stainless simply infers resistance. It is not rust proof.

 

[day_trippr]

True enough, but not all stainless is equal, either, and some seem to be stainless in name only...

Cheers!

 

[shaky6]

Like I said, I haven't treated it any different than my Amazon Chinesium stainless spider and it looks fine.

 

[505-Brewer]

Ask them fo an exchange. It shouldn’t rust after one use.

 

[shaky6]

I did contact arbor fab. I got basically the same reply as this thread: do this and do that, hey it's normal!

I guess bum junk is the new normal.