Passivating Brew Kettle

[ca_baracus]

Hey everyone,

I just got my brand spanking new 10gal SS Brewtech kettle in the mail yesterday, and while reading the instructions that came with it, there's a section for passivation. I know this topic has been talked about here before, but all of the posts are older. I wanted to hear from people about what they did with their brand new kettles.

Spike says you don't need to. Palmer says to use a cleaner like Bar Keeper's Friend and that passivation will occur on its own after the kettle is washed down to bare metal. Can I just get away with a thorough wash and be ready to roll? Thanks!

 

[brewing_clown]

I think I just washed mine, and filled with water and boiled for 30 minutes. I'm not even sure you have to do the second part. I think you could just get away with a thorough clean and rinse.

 

[oujens]

I soaked it with dawn to get the oils off. I then used BKF on the parts without etchings. Seemed to work well. I did not passivate. There were a couple rust spots after first use that BKF took care of. Spike refers to spot treatment which I think is the same case with SS Brewtech, but I'll be honest I'm not an expert. Just my experience.

 

[enkamania]

I did the wash and boil water method as well

 

[flars]

I soaked it with dawn to get the oils off. I then used BKF on the parts without etchings. Seemed to work well. I did not passivate. There were a couple rust spots after first use that BKF took care of. Spike refers to spot treatment which I think is the same case with SS Brewtech, but I'll be honest I'm not an expert. Just my experience.

Barkeepers Friend is probably the most used compound for passivating stainless steel.

I would give it a good cleaning and rinse before passivating. I would never chance some left over oil in the kettle or valves, if this kettle has a valve installed.

 

[triethylborane]

Clean with simple green, then chemically passivate. I used nitric acid 15M at a concentration of 30% by volume in H20 at 140f for two hours. Discarded exposed gaskets and replaced.

 

[Smellyglove]

I had a stainless ("stainless) kettle and it got spotty after two days in water. I added a good squeeze of lemon concentrate (the ones you find by the tea in the store), and added water and let it sit for one hour and after that the kettle seemed fine.

 

[stonebrewer]

You can, but the barkeeper's friend concept it sound and the stuff is dirt cheap and readily available. I used it quite often as it cleans well and passivates your stainless to boot. Just make sure whatever you do, you clean any new kettle well before brewing. No one wants to drink oil in their beer, or at least I don't!

 

[ba-brewer]

If their kettles are anything like their brew buckets wash it well and do the barkeepers friend as a final cleaning and passivation.

Just got one of their brew buckets and washed it three times with hot TSP, thought I had it clean so I did the bar keeper friend to finish up and it brought up more stuff so I did it again.

 

[Bilsch]

I used nitric acid 15M at a concentration of 30% by volume in H20 at 140f for two hours. Discarded exposed gaskets and replaced.

Now that's using some horsepower to passivate!
Judging by your previous posts, I'm going to guess you know what your doing handling such chemicals. So the other big question I have is about the cost. Do you have a source for inexpensive acid or something? The last time I bought concentrated HNO3, it cost about $18/l in 15l lots. The average boiling kettle is what about 8 gallons in volume? So if one were to do that at your concentration, it would cost about $250 for the acid alone. Not to mention the other big hassle of proper disposal and the cost of that.

Have you looked into using 4% citric acid for passivation? It's so easy, cheap, safe and environmentally friendly, you won't ever go back to messing with nitric.

 

[triethylborane]

Yeah, I have access to technical grade HNO3. Its a great oxidizer. Pacifying grade would have been wiser in retrospect as disposal was a *****.

 

[ca_baracus]

Thanks for everyone's input. It seems like a thorough wash followed up by BKF is the way to go. SS Brewtech says to use it with caution on gallon etchings. Anyone have any issues with that?

 

[augiedoggy]

Thanks for everyone's input. It seems like a thorough wash followed up by BKF is the way to go. SS Brewtech says to use it with caution on gallon etchings. Anyone have any issues with that?

Its a fine abrasive cleaner like comet... the more you rub the more it removes.. and it will scour the etching right off...

 

[Bilsch]

Yeah, I have access to technical grade HNO3. Its a great oxidizer. Pacifying grade would have been wiser in retrospect as disposal was a *****.

I'm getting the feeling you might work for an aerospace propulsion company.

 

[November]

Now that's using some horsepower to passivate!
Judging by your previous posts, I'm going to guess you know what your doing handling such chemicals. So the other big question I have is about the cost. Do you have a source for inexpensive acid or something? The last time I bought concentrated HNO3, it cost about $18/l in 15l lots. The average boiling kettle is what about 8 gallons in volume? So if one were to do that at your concentration, it would cost about $250 for the acid alone. Not to mention the other big hassle of proper disposal and the cost of that.

Have you looked into using 4% citric acid for passivation? It's so easy, cheap, safe and environmentally friendly, you won't ever go back to messing with nitric.

I use citric. Works great.

 

[LarMoeCur]

No need to go buy Nitric or Citric acid. BKF works just fine, it's dirt cheap, found at any grocery store, and the go to cleaning agent for SS.

John Palmer- Metallurgical Engineer
http://howtobrew.com/book/appendices/appendix-b/passivating-stainless-steel

 

[The_Bishop]

That being said: When I built my last kettle, I used TSP then BKF to clean it as I had some silver-soldered fittings I installed and I wanted to insure there were no residuals left behind.

When I was done, it was filled nearly to the brim with a 4% by weight citric acid solution at 180F, and I let it sit until merely warm, 2-3 hours. The water had a distinctly metallic/iron smell to it when the kettle was drained and rinsed. Citric acid also works very well for things you can't get to for scrubbing with BFK, or aren't practical to scrub... Like stainless mesh baskets.

Also, BKF leaves behind a powdery residue that needs to be manually wiped away; it doesn't rinse off.

 

[Bilsch]

Citric acid also works very well for things you can't get to for scrubbing with BFK, or aren't practical to scrub... Like stainless mesh baskets.
.

And fittings, SS tubing, valves, the pores of false bottoms, aeration stones, inside your pump, misc cracks and crevices etc etc.