Beerstone is sometimes on my Blichmann conical after fermenting. John Blichmann was at the LHBS for BigBrew. Asked if Star San and a green scrubbie was the way to go, and he said it is not bad. The best they have found at the homebrew level is white vinegar and a green scrubbie, he said it works better.
Will try this next time I use the conical.
I use 5 Star’s Acid #5 and it works good
Bar Keeper’s Friend seems to work pretty well too.
I have that around too, an can try .
Ahh yes, before I had Acid #5 and recirculation I would use BKF and a scrubbie. Works great.
(and Costco sells it by the three pack)
BKF, vinegar and Acid #5 all work well thank to being acidic. BKF is oxalic acid. That’s the part that’s doing the hard work on most water deposits and beerstone.
If I don’t have any #5 on hand, then I’ll take whatever acid I do have and soak the pot in a weak solution of it. And then… then it just wipes off with a sponge. I don’t think I’ve ever had to scrub at beer stone once started soaking it for 15 minutes.
I save my spent Starsan to use for beerstone mitigation.
where do you buy it? can’t find it.
You can order direct from 5 Star, or anyone with an account can order it for you. Like most of their products the minimum is a case of 4 x 1 gal jugs. I’m sure there are some homebrew shops that repackage it in smaller quantities. Google turned this up: http://www.store.homebrew4less.com/Five-Star-Acid-5-Conc-Nitric_Phosphoric-Blend--1-Gallon/productinfo/BC6712-A-1/
Nearly 10 years ago I had a terrible case of beer stone. When I tried making Fat Tire as published in Zymurgy I ended up emailing Dana Johnson (the author from Birko Corp) and his technique was to use an acid product and without rinsing follow it directly with an alkaline cleaner. The swing in pH helps to loosen the beer stone. Dana had me using a mixture of 6% nitric and 26% phosphoric acids and the alkaline cleaner was PBW. It took two applications to thoroughly remove mine.
Damn, I probably have to worry about this with my keg fermenters. I scrub them with a brush well during cleaning and usually run PBW through.
How does beer stone affect the final beer?
Thanks Sean - I just bought some #5.
Will get a cleaning day going in the next few weeks. Figure I will use about 2 gal in a keg and then jump it to a few kegs and replace the acid solution with a PBW solution then rinse.
I would assume this would be okay and that it is not necessary to have the keg full, only make sure everything is getting wet with the solutions?
Great thread Jeff. Thanks - I’ve been quite concerned about this as well.