How to Passivate Homebrew Equipment to Prevent Erosion & Rust 

That's great to hear! For learn to home-brew day I'm doing some super beginner stuff next week :)

@@FloraBrewing great can't wait...

Clean yourself + the beer at the same time ;)

Awesome! 2nd hand equipment is my favorite thing in the world! It's wild how many people brewed in a past life and have equipment hidden in garages.

Flora Brewing hadn’t factored how heavy it would be. My fermentation fridge is a good 20 metres from where I brew. 🥴

I’m going to try to add to every video. Everyone should know that mistakes happen!

I had that moment last week, I cleaned 3 kegs that were just sitting around all at once

I’ll have to look into that!

@@FloraBrewing I have been researching passivation since I am a geek and my father was a metallurgical engineer and I am quite surprised at what I learned. Take a look at: modernbrewhouse.com/wiki/Passivation Turns out hot citric acid is the only reasonable solution for the home brewer since nitric is not safe to work with in a home brewing environment. Even brewing equipment manufacturers are making incorrect suggestions that phosphoric acid in Star San is effective in passivating stainless steel. Turns out you only want to remove the iron from the surface and not strip the chomimum as well.

interesting! Everything in my bathroom is coated with crappy epoxy stuff because it's a cheap apartment but for my future homes I will keep this in mind.

Good to know

You make do with what you have.

All my ear is cleaned in the shower as well. Works well. :-)

*gear

I like using a spray bottle for it instead of soaking things to make it last longer too.

Smart idea!

I love using conicals and haven't noticed any downsides. I do 5 gallon batches normally and it seems to work well.

Thank you!

Trying to show people who don’t have the fancy fermenters and pump equipment how to do it.

Interesting!

Never had a problem with bare hands when Sodium Percarbonate is diluted (1 teaspoon per litre). It's when it's neat that gloves are essential.

I don't see why not. I should have probably done that instead to save some $$

I was wondering the same thing but no answer and should we keep it in the whole night or can we rinse after we oxiclean the inside good.

Sorry, I missed the part where you explained mixing a stronger ratio.

:) yeah if it was that high of a ratio normally it’d be pretty expensive to sanitize!

For general use it's 1 oz to 5 gallons... but for passivating it's 1oz to 1 gal.

@@MerseyHill Just about to comment.

Yup just for passivation it's 1:1 gotta get it super acid-ey

not super worried about it since it doesn't really touch anything except when things go wrong

I only do it when I get used equipment I’ve read every couple years and you’re fine

Thank you, I've just purchased a brew kettle so I'm new to brewing with stainless steel. When cleaning after brew day, would chemicals used for cleaning such as pbw/bar keepers friend promote rust and need to be passivated again with star San? Or would simply rinsing off these chemicals after cleaning be enough. I'm probably over thinking it but I've just spent a lot of money on brew gear lately and I need it to last ahaha

Probably not but people do acid peels at the spa right?

@@FloraBrewing hahaha do they???

It might seem fine at first but it will mess your skin up pretty quickly. I always use gloves now for Oxi.

Interesting! Wonder if it’s one of those homebrew myth things that needs to get debunked

@@FloraBrewing Curiosity got the best of me, as usual... Since the dangers of hexavalent chromium are regularly made clear to anyone who welds stainless steel, I thought I'd see how what I've learned about passivation relates to the less savory elements in stainless. Depending on the acid used in passivating, hexavalent chromium MAY be produced. There is an inexpensive and simple test for chromium VI... In the presence of an acidic hydrogen peroxide solution, hexavalent chromium will turn into the unstable chromium peroxide, which is dark blue, before oxidizing to trivalent chromium, which is green. That is to say, to test your particular passivating acid, scoop some of the solution used to passivate into a cup & add some hydrogen peroxide. If it turns blue then green, that's bad & you should use a different acid. Citric acid is the recommended food safe acid for passivating in the literature. Due to variations in the manufacturing process of stainless steel, it's always worth testing your brewing vessel of choice with any acid used in passivation.

It's easy enough, why not! :)

I usually just use a hefty scoop and call it a day. I usually wash from outside the tub but for the camera angle it wouldn't work so I took one for the team