Barkeepers Friend

[Crowncap_Kidd]

Sorry this will be a long post...

Greetings guys, name is Eric in the Albany, NY area. I've been slowly acquiring equipment and building up an electric brewery for the last couple years... unfortunately I was very non motivated, just acquiring equipment but over the course of the last few months everything has moved into high gear. I am now ready to brew on a well-tuned PID controlled 15 gallon set up which consists of a keggle HLT (copper based HERMS set up), a 15 gallon stock pot for the Mash Tun and a 20 gal stock pot for the Boil Kettle. I've just received a chugger pump and a 12 VDC solar pump to recirculate the HLT water to maintain temp control. Like I said I've got a very well designed electric control box being fed from a 30A 240V GFCI powering two 5500W ULWD elements one in both the HLT and one in the BK.

So, all flanges and fittings on my vessels are welded. Upon receipt of my finished pots last year I cleaned up the weld discoloration, scale, etc. with an abrasive based non-woven (like 3M scotchbrite, Norton Beartex) dremmel accessory bit. The pots sat for virtually a year. Knowing that I would need to re-passivate this stainless, in lieu of a Citric or Nitric Acid treatment, today I gave the HLT (keggle) and MT a thorough Oxalic Acid scrubbing with Barkeepers Friend Cookware Cleanser & Polish (powder in silver can). No problems with the MT but after use my keggle (where it was worked with the dremmel) took on a rusty appearance. I was kind of surprised... I thought he Oxalic acid in the solution would have worked into the SS where the oxide layer had been removed from weld/mechanical abrasion and re-passivate the metal. Possibly I need to treat this area again with a new solution after once again "opening up the pores".

My background is chemistry and mechanical engineering and I work for GE at one of the world’s most renowned R&D Centers so I am sure I can find out what to do next, but... I wanted to hear other brewers experiences with Barkeepers Friend and if they encountered surface rust formation after use and rinse.

Thanks, sorry for the long "first time" post. Hopefully others have had this occur and can point me in the right direction.

I’ve included images of the areas of interest, if you’d like to see other components of the brewery let me know I’d be happy to post pics.

 

[PlexVector]

Sorry this will be a long post...

Greetings guys, name is Eric in the Albany, NY area. I've been slowly acquiring equipment and building up an electric brewery for the last couple years... unfortunately I was very non motivated, just acquiring equipment but over the course of the last few months everything has moved into high gear. I am now ready to brew on a well-tuned PID controlled 15 gallon set up which consists of a keggle HLT (copper based HERMS set up), a 15 gallon stock pot for the Mash Tun and a 20 gal stock pot for the Boil Kettle. I've just received a chugger pump and a 12 VDC solar pump to recirculate the HLT water to maintain temp control. Like I said I've got a very well designed electric control box being fed from a 30A 240V GFCI powering two 5500W ULWD elements one in both the HLT and one in the BK.

So, all flanges and fittings on my vessels are welded. Upon receipt of my finished pots last year I cleaned up the weld discoloration, scale, etc. with an abrasive based non-woven (like 3M scotchbrite, Norton Beartex) dremmel accessory bit. The pots sat for virtually a year. Knowing that I would need to re-passivate this stainless, in lieu of a Citric or Nitric Acid treatment, today I gave the HLT (keggle) and MT a thorough Oxalic Acid scrubbing with Barkeepers Friend Cookware Cleanser & Polish (powder in silver can). No problems with the MT but after use my keggle (where it was worked with the dremmel) took on a rusty appearance. I was kind of surprised... I thought he Oxalic acid in the solution would have worked into the SS where the oxide layer had been removed from weld/mechanical abrasion and re-passivate the metal. Possibly I need to treat this area again with a new solution after once again "opening up the pores".

My background is chemistry and mechanical engineering and I work for GE at one of the world’s most renowned R&D Centers so I am sure I can find out what to do next, but... I wanted to hear other brewers experiences with Barkeepers Friend and if they encountered surface rust formation after use and rinse.

Thanks, sorry for the long "first time" post. Hopefully others have had this occur and can point me in the right direction.

I’ve included images of the areas of interest, if you’d like to see other components of the brewery let me know I’d be happy to post pics.

It may be that you need to do a passivization of the SS304. Google it or further search on HBT, but here is one thread regarding it:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=447936&page=2

 

[passedpawn]

Just re-passivate again with nitric acid / oxalic acid / BKF. Repeat until the problem goes away. It's possible that whatever you did with the dremel really drove a lot of iron into the surface of your kettles. Acids will dissolve the iron on the surface, and the chromium in the SS will quickly form an oxide that will protect it from rusting again. In theory

Good luck!

 

[PlexVector]

@passedpawn: I wouldn't think BKF would cause rust, but an iron based wire brush would.

 

[passedpawn]

@passedpawn: I wouldn't think BKF would cause rust, but an iron based wire brush would.

Right - I think we are agreeing here. BKF is oxalic acid which will dissolve the surface iron (which oxidixes to FeO2 - rust). When the iron is removed, the chromium in the SS will oxidize and form a protective layer that will protect the SS from FeO2.

Galvanized metal does the same thing, but uses zinc instead of chromium.

 

[PlexVector]

Right - I think we are agreeing here. BKF is oxalic acid which will dissolve the surface iron (which oxidixes to FeO2 - rust). When the iron is removed, the chromium in the SS will oxidize and form a protective layer that will protect the SS from FeO2.

Galvanized metal does the same thing, but uses zinc instead of chromium.

Based on the pics, probably could just keep hitting it with BKF with a nonferrous pad until it goes away.

 

[Crowncap_Kidd]

yeah, again, pretty sure I didn't use anything besides SS or Al2O3 (ceramic) based non-woven to work on the pots. My thought is I removed the original oxide layer and it never was properly re-generated.

 

[passedpawn]

yeah, again, pretty sure I didn't use anything besides SS or Al2O3 (ceramic) based non-woven to work on the pots. My thought is I removed the original oxide layer and it never was properly re-generated.

You did remove the oxide layer, but it would reform quickly (just takes air )

I know I keep repeating myself here, sorry for that, but I don't think you removed all the iron. Hit it again with BKF.

 

[Crowncap_Kidd]

You did remove the oxide layer, but it would reform quickly (just takes air )

I know I keep repeating myself here, sorry for that, but I don't think you removed all the iron. Hit it again with BKF.

thanks man, will do

 

[SanduskyRiver]

Any updates to this post? I have a very similar problem and I'd like to see how yours turned out.

 

[Crowncap_Kidd]

Any updates to this post? I have a very similar problem and I'd like to see how yours turned out.

Honestly I haven't worked on the pot in a bit. I did re-hit the entire keggle with another hard scrub of concentrated BKF solution... Stains remain. The only thing I'm thinking (and my memory is coming back on this) is that the guy I had do the welding, I'm pretty sure he told me he tried to clean up his welds prior to handing off the keggle... He probably used a brush that was not stainless or a basic non-woven abrasive pad infusing iron in the SS. My next move is to use SS and non wovens on one fitting, hit w/BKF and check the results. Will update this post... It will happen this weekend.

 

[Crowncap_Kidd]

Any updates to this post? I have a very similar problem and I'd like to see how yours turned out.

Sorry I have no pictures for you but the solution for me was to again hit the entire keggle with a concentrated solution of BKF but this time I used a non-woven abrasive... a regular duty (brown/maroon colored) 3M Scotch Brite pad. The abrasives in the non-woven were enough to "sand" the areas where the keggle previously must have been worked with a ferrous steel brush. The BKF easily aided in the re-passivation and the rust areas are now gone.

So... 3 hits with BKF and the third one using a nonwoven to scour the stainless... this seemed to do the job.