Please help me clean a brand new home nano brewery.

[Fordiesel69]

We have the electric alpha ruby from rubystreetbrewing. We ruined a very expensive maple ale thru this system as a first batch. It picked up a metallic flavor.

Here is what we did so far:

1. Boiled all silicone hoses and fittings in plain tap water for 30 min to get the rubber smell out. Its still there....
2. We put hot water and strong TSP into all the kettles and took turns wiping them down over and over. Then rinsed.
3. Then sprayed on a mixture of Star San and wiped again and rinsed.
4. Then mixed up PBW and wiped and rinsed again.

Yes valves were flushed and so was the brazed plate HX.

 

[Fordiesel69]

109 views with no replies. We really want to do this right and not follow the bad instructions as it did not work.

I am unsure of how to passivate stainless properly, and how to make sure it did passivate. I am reading online you cannot see it with your eyes.

 

[jrgtr42]

Not really familiar with the system, but I would start with a dry run with plain water, run through the mash and boil cycles, that should be a start. Others can help further.

 

[Silentdrinker]

You'll find info about off flavors, including metallic flavors here: http://howtobrew.com/book/section-4/is-my-beer-ruined/common-off-flavors

 

[SirSpectre]

Use a much higher concentration of starsan to passivate. 1oz per gallon.
Let it run through the system and soak for 30 minutes. Dump it out and let it air dry overnight.

Rinse the next day or before brewing.

 

[Horseflesh]

My stainless vendor said you could passivate with a Barkeeper's Friend scrub. There's some debate about that here, but it can't hurt to try cleaning with it. There may be some manufacturing oil residue left, and you may need to do some scrubbing instead of just flushing.

 

[bossman]

I second using barkeepers friend. Works much much better on stainless than tsp and starsan (looking at you ssbrewtech). The comment about doing a dry run with water after cleaning and rinsing is a good one. Serve a blind sample of the water to someone and see if they taste anything.

 

[Cagedodger]

Third vote for Bar Keepers Friend. Follow the directions and let it get to a paste, then scrub the surface. Rinse, dry, then rinse again.

There's a lot of oil used in manufacturing stainless (mostly as a barrier to rust during the storage/shipping phase) which I would guess is where your metallic taste is coming through. Once you're sure you've got the surfaces clean and passivated, stick to a simple SMASH recipe before getting fancy.