Bought a 1/2 bbl during black Friday. Assembled and cleaned with TSP, rinsed, and then passivated. Today, I looked inside the container and found there were rust spots on between the cylinder and conical. I scrubbed with Star San and then rinsed but they appear as if the rust came from deep scratches. Anybody else experience something similar?
Rust spots on SS Brewtech Chronical
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I would contact SS Brewtech (send them some pictures) and ask if that's normal. I would think not. I mean, the "SS" means "stainless steel," right?
Ridenour64
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Stainless = stain less. When I received my spike kettle it had a bit of rust in it. Used a bit of BKF and it came right off and wasn’t a problem ever again. I would be more concerned with the deep scratches depending on how bad the are.
I did consider shooting them an email, but I believe I saw another post a few months ago that experienced the same issue and contacting the company didn't get them very far. Ii've tried finding that thread again, but with no luck.
Why did you scrub with StarSan? Its a sanitizer not a cleaner. Try a powdered cleanser mixed to a paste consistency and scrub.
I was investigating and found a MoreBeer article that used Starsan to removed localized rust spots.
There is a small localized spot or area of rust on my kettle / fermenter that I bought recently. I thought stainless steel can't rust? | MoreBeer
I did passivate, but didn't notice the spots in question until a few days later and actually used a flashlight to further investigate.
Regurgitating information I've read elsewhere on the site, All stainless will rust under certain conditions. In this case it sounds like crevice corrosion, which occurs between two parts where unreacted iron molecules (aka, a non-passivated surface) react with trapped moisture. Scour it away with Bar Keeper's Friend, which will also passivate the surface, dry the parts thoroughly before reassembly and you will likely not have this issue again.
Oxalic acid (BKF) is not preferred for initiating the passivation process. Neither is phosphoric acid (Star San).
Citric acid is your inexpensive friend...
Cheers!
Citric acid is your inexpensive friend...
Cheers!
is it the weld that's rusting? maybe it's not SS?
Bilsch
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I'm guessing you used starsan for that process.
All stainless is capable of rusting. It has a LOT of iron in it and it can be exposed through physical damage or heat (welding). It's possible that the first passivation cycle didn't get all the surface iron out of the weld. Are you sure you were at 4% Citric Acid by weight? How hot?
Same happened to me, they sent me a new one.
Sorry for the delay. I'm not sure about the amount of citric acid I used originally; I didn't measure it out. Just used a gallon of water as hot as I could stand it.
That could be your problem. Passivation requires a certain ratio of acid product to water. With StarSan its one ounce of StarSan to one gallon of water and citric acid is between 5% to 10% ratio of acid to water. Despite what others say I use Bar Keepers Friend and mix it into a paste using a 2:1 mixture... two table spoons of BKF to one Tbs water. It works and it is much less expensive than the others.
Thanks for the feedback!
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