autonomist3k
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- Sep 5, 2013
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Took another look at your pictures. There are what looks like a lot scratches on the kettle bottom. Cleaning SS should only be done with a soft sponge or cloth. Stirring the wort with a wood or plastic spoon.
Those are not hard water spots from air drying. Those are mineral deposits at the nucleation sites where the water vapor bubbles form during boiling. What happens is you have a mix of water and mineral molecules in the water. At a nucleation site enough energy is supplied to the water that it changes form from liquid to gas. Thus the water molecule leaves the mixture, which concentrates the mineral molecules. If that concentration gets high enough they can no longer stay in solution. So some plate out on the pot. Others clump together in a rough crystalline form which is what caused the milkiness.
I think RO water is in your future (a filter will not remove dissolved bicarbonate). That pot tells me you have very high bicarbonate in your water. That will cause problems in getting your PH down for mashing, especially for a lighter beer.
Yes, a mild acid like vinegar or whatever is in barkeepers friend will remove it.
Mineral deposits.
Just leave a little starsan covering the bottom for a week. I do that after every other-ish brew to attack the beer stone it looks brand new afterwards.
Those are not hard water spots from air drying. Those are mineral deposits at the nucleation sites where the water vapor bubbles form during boiling. What happens is you have a mix of water and mineral molecules in the water. At a nucleation site enough energy is supplied to the water that it changes form from liquid to gas. Thus the water molecule leaves the mixture, which concentrates the mineral molecules. If that concentration gets high enough they can no longer stay in solution. So some plate out on the pot. Others clump together in a rough crystalline form which is what caused the milkiness.
I think RO water is in your future (a filter will not remove dissolved bicarbonate). That pot tells me you have very high bicarbonate in your water. That will cause problems in getting your PH down for mashing, especially for a lighter beer.
Yes, a mild acid like vinegar or whatever is in barkeepers friend will remove it.
Yep, those deposits were there before I drained the water out, looks like a RO system is the answer.
Vinegar cleaned it out with a lot of scrubbing.
It's not very shiny anymore though lol.
I just couldn't imagine anything lighter than a green pad taking it off, it was stuck on there pretty good.
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