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White Powder Inside Blichmann Conical

RJS

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Anyone ever experienced a white powder coating on a blichmann conical? When dried in storage powder gets worse. Its thick too, scrubs off somewhat when scraped. Possible metal reaction to star san or something? wierd. None of my other tanks do this, although they are all italian made.
 
From the description, it sounds like either beer stone or a silicate deposit.

Do you use PBW? Using too much over time will build up a layer of silicate that sticks to the walls and won't dissolve in acid.

Beer Stone is a natural deposit from minerals in your water. It is also a slow build up, but it will dissolve in various acids. This deposit is largely coming from beer itself, but can also be a reaction between alkaline cleaners, hard water minerals (calcium and magnesium) and protein.

Try wiping the deposit with a little undiluted star san. The phosphoric acid will dissolve light amounts of beer stone but it won't do much to silicate. If it is silicate (still powdery when it dries), you're just going to have to scrub it away and it can be tough stuff to remove.

In the long run, nitric acid is better at removing beer stone that phosphoric. It also can passivate the steel when used properly. For homebrewers, the easiest, safest source is beer line acid cleaner which can be purchased from Northern Brewer or Micromatic.

 
wow. Thank You

I use starsan for sanitizing, PBW for deep cleaning. The buildup actually started before i got into PBW, but im finding i dont really need PBW since i have extreme disfunctional cleaning habits and never leave a tank dirty.

Our water has a ton of minerals in it (Kauai, HI), but our beer is diluted with RO water.

I will follow your instructions for cleaning and post results.

Honestly ive never gotten such a direct answer to this question anywhere, wow
 
If it is hard as a rock it's beer stone. I used to get it at my old house. I guess the water was harder or something. I had to stay on top of it. In fact I used CLR to clean it one time cause it got so bad. Since I moved 12 years ago I have not had a single problem. You gotta scrub like hell to get stone off. It is bad stuff.
 
I don't have a Blichmann but my conical gets beerstone.  I clean it w/pool acid when it gets bad.
 
brewark said:
I clean it w/pool acid when it gets bad.

If by pool acid you mean Muriatic (hydrochloric) acid, that's not a great idea. HCL strips oxide off the surface of the steel, leaving it vulnerable to pitting and rust. Hopefully you're diluting the HCL and thoroughly rinsing afterwards.

Some nitric or citric acid will restore the oxide layer to the tank. Just mix into 50C water for pH 3, recirculate or leave in contact for 30 minutes.

Beer Line acid cleaners contain nitric and phosphoric acids, which will dissolve beer stone and won't harm stainless steel.
 
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