soaking copper

[Cazamodo]

Trying to clean up my hop filter, which was a manifold but has sat outside for. Ages. Managed to scrub the outside up ok, but can't get inside it. What's best to soak it in? Or to re-circulate through the whole system to clean the lot.

[seymour]

Once with a similar issue, I bought a bottle of pure lemon juice from the grocery store, poured it into my mash tun and added enough hot water to cover the copper manifold. After several hours, the acid appeared to have dissolved all the tarnish and etched it back to shiny. After a good rinse, I did my normal sanitation procedure and it's been fine since.

[gregorach]

Yeah, citric acid does a pretty good job on copper.

[Dave S]

Yeah, citric acid does a pretty good job on copper.

Not to mention S-S. I soaked the element plate of my Buffalo boiler for 30 mins in lemon juice and previously stubborn burnt-on wort came off easily.

[subfaction]

I soaked the element plate of my Buffalo boiler for 30 mins in lemon juice and previously stubborn burnt-on wort came off easily.

I've used malt vinegar before to do this, works well if you don't have anything better to use.
I always rinse really well and boil a few litres of water after rinsing to ensure it's all gone afterwards.

[FUBAR]

Yep a good soak in citric acid followed by a soak in bicarbonate of soda to neutralize the acid then a good rinse,works a treat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... q-ju18_5u4

[DrewBrews]

+1 for Citric acid.

I've used it to clean boiler elements for a while.

You can buy a big bag of it for not very much (ebay).
It's food safe.
It's not a strong enough acid to eat your elements.
It's not vinegar (always slightly worried about getting vinegar to close to a brew although most types are probably sterilised and if not the boil will sort out any Acetic acid bacteria, I still don't use it)

[barry44]

Seymour directed me to this thread form my post where i am looking for something to clean my copper chiller for the first time.

Apparently citric acid is hard to buy over the counter due to the tendency to cut drugs with it!!

Would PBW or oxiclean be a good substitute?

[chris2012]

Look on ebay, theres plenty there for instance http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Citric-Acid-F ... 19dc20d4c9

[seymour]

I was literally talking about lemon juice. Don't you have that in supermarkets, in the drinks aisle along with tomato juice, cocktail mixers, etc? If not, buy a bag of lemons and juice 'em.

[Befuddler]

I was literally talking about lemon juice. Don't you have that in supermarkets, in the drinks aisle along with tomato juice, cocktail mixers, etc? If not, buy a bag of lemons and juice 'em.

That would cost a bloody fortune over here! Pure citric is much cheaper, and easy to get on ebay.

Nobody cuts drugs with citric, I think you'd tend to notice that when you stuck it up your hooter! I think it might be used in a reaction process for refining crack or something, but you'll be fine buying one bag.

[chris2012]

Befuddler, they use it for sterilising needles apparently, which is why they apparently don't sell it some places now.

[Matt12398]

Coca-Cola

[barry44]

cheers lads, just went to boots and the only citric acid they had came in small sachets with the free needles!!

was hoping to make and use the chiller this weekend thus was looking for an over the counter solution rather than ebay etc.

[Befuddler]

Befuddler, they use it for sterilising needles apparently, which is why they apparently don't sell it some places now.

Good call. Make sure they have to use dirty needles. Who comes up with this shit?