For those of you who have aluminum kettles, what do you use to clean them? Also, how necessary is it to create a patina before use? Thanks in advance!
I keep it simple: dish-washing detergent and a scrubbie. You don't want to use PBW, as this will pit the aluminum. As to creating a patina, I don't know how necessary it was, but I took my one opportunity in life to passivate a kettle and followed the instructions in How to Brew and stuck it in the oven awhile. It took about the time it takes to drink a beer, so there's that.
Can't speak to the patina, as mine was already done when I got it gifted to me, but I use water and paper towels immediately after brewing to clean. Rarely do I need to use anything more abrasive, but the couple times I did I used a green scrubby lightly and carefully.
Hot water and a dish cloth immediately after brewing. No soap. Edit: on your other question, there's debate concerning whether or not you should season the kettle (by boiling a small amount of water (lid on) for a few minutes) before your first batch. My take is that it costs very little to do this, so why not?
Dish soap and wash rag, but I do have to use the softer blue plastic scrub pad (their is one safe for aluminum/stainless) for the bottom to get the more hard-to-remove deposits.
I've kind of taken to a new routine with mine. Seemed like I was being too gentle and getting a lot of brown buildup on the kettle bottom batch over batch. Also noticed the first bit of water out of the strike had a bit of a tint to it, meaning the ball valve wasn't getting clean enough. - Scrub well with green scrubber & a little oxyclean - Rinse well - Put about an inch of water in the bottom and turn my pickup tube above the water line - Throw back on the burner full blast with the lid on until it boils (doesn't take long with an sp10) and let it boil for about a minute or two with the ball valve open - steam will shoot out the ball valve and clean it. This will also re-oxidize any exposed aluminum. - Turn burner off. Done.
Yep, just clean with elbow grease. Boiling some water with the lid on is all the conditioning it needs (if even that). I scrub with a washcloth; a white scrubby would also be good. Green is a little on the hard side but the scars should heal themselves.
Hot water from the chiller running after I've got my 5 gal baby in the fridge. I use a dish towel and no soap.
Another question, slightly off topic. I have aluminum camlock fittings on my pump tubing, kettle, and MLT. I am assuming from this thread that I should stop cleaning my MLT with Oxyclean and sending it through the tubing, and cleaning the keggle with Oxyclean as well?
From: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/oxyclean-aluminum-kettle-58045/ Aluminum reacts readily with oxygen to form a thin layer of alumina (Al2O3), which is hard and sticks tenaciously to the surface of the metal. This process is called passivation. Once a passivated layer is formed, it doesn't get any thicker because it protects the base unoxidized metal from reacting further...although you *can* make a tremendous fire out of powdered aluminum. They use such material along with iron oxide to make thermite, which burns hot enough to generate molten iron...it is used to weld train rails together. Certain materials will react with the alumina and aluminum, namely strong alkalis. As someone who once heard of a dude whose cousin's friend made drano bombs as a teenager, I can attest to the fact that sodium hydroxide (lye) will rapidly dissolve alumina and aluminum (generating heat and hydrogen gas on the way). One-step or Oxyclean are made primarily of sodium peroxycarbonate. When it decomposes, it releases oxygen just like hydrogen peroxide does...this is what gives you the sanitizing activity. After the peroxide is gone, you are left with sodium carbonate, which is also known as washing soda. It is a moderately strong base...stronger than sodium bicarbonate, but much weaker than sodium hydroxide. If you notice your hands feel a little slippery after washing up with One-step/oxyclean, it's because the sodium carbonate reacts with the oils (which are weak acids) on your skin and turns them to soap. This is a classic test for whether you just got lye on yourself...if your skin is slippery, keep rinsing until it's gone or you will be treated to a chemical burn. I have not done any tests, but the percarbonate sanitizers will probably not wreck your aluminum equipment if you take it easy. Don't let the oxyclean sit in your keggle for hours, don't boil it, and rinse it off when you're done. Searching the tubes for peroxycarbonate and aluminum brings up a variety of information that does not condemn using them together, but does give some warnings.
