Hi...attached are some images of my Camco 2955 heating element. It's pretty dirty from boiling wort now, and I am curious of the best method for cleaning this bad boy. Currently I am just rinsing in hot water with a soft toothbrush. How clean can/should I get this guy?
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wort residue. Are there household names for sodium percarbonate and metasilicate?
How much citric acid?I've used oxiclean it gets the residue softened well enough but always leaves residue with my hard water. Then I would clean the residue off with citric acid which is around $15 for 5lbs.
Now I just use citric acid and heat it up with enough water to cover the element. My shiny stainless element is still shiny as a result.
That element is really collapsed on itself not allowing good flow which is creating some really hot spots. I'm surprised you don't have some extra caramel or smoke flavor. Of course if you like caramel malts and it hasn't gotten bad enough to taste burnt you may like the result. There should be more gap both top to bottom and side to side. You can see some of the material is charred black.
You should be able to bend it further apart and prevent the charring.
I've used oxiclean it gets the residue softened well enough but always leaves residue with my hard water. Then I would clean the residue off with citric acid which is around $15 for 5lbs.
Now I just use citric acid and heat it up with enough water to cover the element. My shiny stainless element is still shiny as a result.
That element is really collapsed on itself not allowing good flow which is creating some really hot spots. I'm surprised you don't have some extra caramel or smoke flavor. Of course if you like caramel malts and it hasn't gotten bad enough to taste burnt you may like the result. There should be more gap both top to bottom and side to side. You can see some of the material is charred black.
You should be able to bend it further apart and prevent the charring.
Hmmmm... maybe I'll try citric acid - I've got a ton of it from making bath bombs. You've found that a hot soak with only that will remove the filmy residue leftover from a boil?
Burn it with fire. Believe me, get that element cherry red for a few seconds and it'll be clean as a whistle after. I used to scrub to get that nasty plaque off there, what a pain in the back. One day I said f-it, dry-fired my element until it glowed, let it cool and hosed it off. 10 yrs later I'm still using it that element, cleaned it that way many many times. YMMV.
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