Cleaning and passivation

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Ali

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Afternoon all!
Two questions;

1) My grainfather has become rather stained. I have seen that people are using sodium percarbonate to clean their stainless equipment as I do. How long can I safely leave it in for, as the stains seem fairly 'ingrained'?

2) What is the best way to passivate stainless steel. I have a load of citric acid coming, is it OK to use this, and how do I use it? Never bothered passivating before, but again I have seen several recommendations about doing it periodically. What are peoples thoughts regarding passivation? Do you think it is neccessary or desirable?

Thanks in advance!
 
I had the same problem with the Grainfather, despite using their own branded cleaner (the bright yellow stuff) that came with it. I still got a build of beer stone on the sides and hop filter in particular.

I've just switched to PBW. A soak at 50Ëšc, recirculating through the CF chiller for about 30 min and it's like new.

I was hesitant to buy PBW due to the price and had tried other cheaper alternatives like Oxy-clean etc. but I'm glad I made the switch. It doesn't help with repassivation, but I believe a strong mix of Star-San could be used achieve this (however I don't bother, I just ensure everything is thoroughly dry before storage)
 
Had similar problems and advised to use rough rinse, caustic initial clean, rinse, then some BS remover (nitric acid), rinse then paracetic acid. It seems to be the best brewery system. Unless anyone knows better?
Ooops, Time to re-sample my brews,,:lol:
 

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