barkeepers friend and ajax

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butisitart

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had a bad burn of mash malt on the bottom of my boiler and in the end, the only thing that was going to get it off was barkeepers friend. soft cloth, and worked a treat.
active ingredient is Sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate, same as ajax, although ajax also lists sodium carbonate. jif has the ajax list plus more, but it leaves a thick coating of something on steel and is perfumed to buggery.
couple of questions for the chemistry department,
any problems with using barkeepers friend or ajax to clean 'burnt to the crisp' on the boiler floor?? i thoroughly rinsed / cleaned after, so no getting into copper pipes or anywhere else.
as a powder, is it likely to scratch the ss surface?
it certainly did the job.
 
Bar Keepers Friend will do a good job of cleaning. However I would recommend a proper brewery cleaner like PBW or the like. You can leave it to soak for a few hours and it should do a good job of removing burnt on crispy bits.

Not sure if the Ajax has any compounds which would aid in cutting (are abrasive) however unless you intend to ferment in your mash / boil kettle I would not care about micro scratches. Anything that might 'harbour' in there will no survive a boil. It's only fermenters you want to avoid scratching the inside of.
 
BKF is ideal for burnt stuff, but it can get a bit exy. I use the powdered BKF when I really need to and use PBW as my general cleaner. We have a BKF Spray + Foam for cleaning the ss cooktop, bloody fantastic stuff!
 
BKF is ideal for burnt stuff, but it can get a bit exy. I use the powdered BKF when I really need to and use PBW as my general cleaner. We have a BKF Spray + Foam for cleaning the ss cooktop, bloody fantastic stuff!
thanks all for that, was a bit concerned about damage to the ss. mind you, ajax is the same base ingredient at under 1/2 the price of BKF, although i'm not sure what some of the other stuff in it does. and woolies coles doesn't do a homebrand cleaner.
 
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