Just arrived! Too much excitement!
Hmm.....keen to commission the new pots I've been looking at some suggestions for first use cleaning and passivation. ...
Seems there's a few options...trisodium phosphate keeps popping up for the initial cleaning then there's various passivation options including soaking in a high concentrate of star san,using citric acid or oxalic acid (bar keepers friend).
Confused now! I got pure oxi,star san and vwp.
Passivation is the process where the base metal corrosion resistance is enhanced before service by treating the surface by cleaning to remove manufacturing residues and then chemical treating. The passivation layer on the metal surface is usually only microns thick.
That said why do you need to passivate this stainless steel brewing kit? Although there are many types of SS it's usually sold fit for purpose in terms of corrosion resistance, and may only need a good clean. Simply using it in service will provide any 'passivation' layer.
The only proviso on that is if the SS is not of good quality and has been contaminated with carbon steel inclusions which may corrode under some conditions. If you have cheap cutlery look for tiny holes to see what this means.
Or am I missing something?
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