favorite ways of removing and preventing beer stone?

Systems, Gear, & DIY
1

I’m curious to see what other methods people use to clean off or prevent beer stone in their boil kettles.

I haven’t found a good way of preventing it personally. Would love to though.

I’ve taken a gallon of el cheapo white vinegar and poured it into my 15g stainless keggle, filled it up with water, and let it sit till … whenever I can get back to it. Quite often a whole week. Initially I was trying to use a toilet bowl brush to scrape off the now loosened calcium oxalate but it didn’t work very well, but I found a normal scrubby pad works fairly well. I would also note that you shouldn’t use steel wool on stainless, it scratches it up too bad.

Does anyone use any other chemicals? Has anyone found a good way of preventing beer stone? What do the big boys do? What about those with aluminum kettles?

2

Don’t know that I’ve really ever had a bad case of beer stone, but I always clean my stainless kettle with Bar Keepers Friend.  That always cleans things up like new.

3

I use the Acid 5 Rinse for about 10 minutes of soaking time and beerstone peels right off with no work.

Love it!

4

I think PBW is designed to remove beer stone as well. This is not a given for cleaners which work well on organic matter.

But yes, any acid should be able to take care of beer stone.

Kai

5

Here’s an article by Dana Johnson. He’s a chemist at Birko (a brewery supplier) and a homebrewer.
http://www.birkocorp.com/Brewing/beerstone.html

6

wow, I think I learned a lot about beer stone now.

Thanks
Kai

7

PBW works like magic, no work at all.  Oxyclean (I use Oxyclean Free) has been effective, too, and is cheaper than PBW.  I think PBW does work more effectively, however, and also cleans my kettle valve with less contact time.
Gail

8

yea, i did too. i didn’t know there was going to be a test :slight_smile:

9

add some TSP substitute and it will work as good or better  :wink:

10

Thanks, Blatz!  What ratio seems to work best for you?
Gail

11

I’m a fan of scalding hot water and ?Oxy-clean (RIP Billy  :'()  And a green scrubby. I’ve never really had to “work” with this combo.

12

50:50 ratio is what I use - I learned this from Jim (Geronimo on NB) and IME, it works quicker than PBW for some reason.  Be sure to get the TSP Substitute PF (green box) and not the regular TSP (red box)

I don’t have any links or literature, only hearsay, but purportedly the folks at Five Star admit that chemically the combo above is virtually the same.

13

Here’s the link from Palmer’s book on cleaning agents.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter2-2-1.html

14

Hey Blatz, any reason why the TSP Substitute is the one recommended instead of the reg. TSP?

15

not really sure, but I know the makeup/ingredients of the two is fairly different.  the Regular TSP has phosphates, for instance.

16

…and the green box TSP Substitute PF is phosphate free…I thought that was the only difference between the two?

17

OK, before anyone makes a snide remark here I’ll correct myself…duh…of COURSE a phosphate-free version of TSP is NOT TSP but a completely different set of chemical ingredients.  :-[ 
If I remember correctly, PBW is phosphate-free and an alkali, similar to TSP Substitute PF.  In doing a brief search, it appears the chemical makeup of both products is proprietary but I’m sure someone out there has “inside” info on both.
Gail

18

OK, so TSP substitute does less harm ecologically, that makes sense.